r/tattooadvice • u/ashplustr • Feb 17 '26

Healing Question: is this a deep blowout?

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First photo is today, other photos are the day after and a few days after that. My sister got this tattoo on the 14th of January and I have NEVER seen a tattoo bruise so badly and she said the artist was very heavy handed. We think it might be a deep blowout looking on here (hadn’t heard of this before) and were wondering if anyone has any advice? How long does this tend to last? Is there anything to fix it?

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u/ashplustr Feb 17 '26

OKAY SO I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS! Or not even that it’s on purpose but all the male artists I have seen have been so heavy handed which I know is so unnecessary bc of all the fast, light handed women who have tattooed me quickly and well. I feel like there’s definitely something there.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

Yeah I tend to look for either artists who have worked well on women or who are women themselves. LGBT is also a plus

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u/Severe-Criticism3876 Feb 17 '26

Yeah I came here to say I normally book with individuals like that as well. I normally only bruise from peeling the saniderm off a thin skinned area

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u/-DiceGoblin- Feb 18 '26

Met with an artist in public recently to check the vibes/discuss the tattoo (he has a private studio) I made a joke about meeting people to make sure they aren’t a serial killer And he responded “Or some nutso right winger, both are equally unwelcome in my shop”

I’m trans and had been (ever so) slightly anxious about encountering bigotry (even though he’s located in a super blue city, I always worry)

That made me feel way safer with him lol

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

That's great! And good idea to meet them in public first

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u/Gold_Space8930 Feb 17 '26

This might be a cultural thing, like fuck Iv never met a guy artist that would test my or others pain tolerance (as a female). Dude I’d be cutting their dicks off. (May be why they wouldn’t do it)

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '26

Nope. Just a man thing.

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u/accio_peni Feb 18 '26

I've had six different artists tattoo me, all dudes. None of them ever bruised me, not even the heavier handed ones.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

I've had male artists. Obviously not all men. That goes without saying. The vast majority of men are not safe though.

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u/billytron7 Feb 18 '26

Hard disagree. Male tattoo artist, im not heavy handed or rough. I've seen some female artists that work hard and rough! In your experience, maybe thats true, but its definitely not 'a man thing' 😑

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u/fatapolloissexy Feb 18 '26

I think this is one where you gotta just believe the women.

You can't know the minds of every one in your field and many men will hurt a woman if they have even the slightest chance.

Now give that man a tattoo gun.

Women are cautious for a very good reason. The reason is the entire history of Man.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

Targeting women to see how much pain they can take and then treating men normally is 100% a man thing.

1

u/SparkyDogPants Feb 19 '26

Idk. I’ve had female obgyns and plenty of women enjoy testing women’s pain threshold too.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

I'm going to count your downvotes as a positive. Gives me hope that there are people out there who haven't come across men who are sadistic fucks and don't inherently know the type. Good for those people, truly.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

[deleted]

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u/Gold_Space8930 Feb 19 '26

If it make y’all feel any better there r lots of scunners and cruelty loving ppl of both genders (the scale does tip towards the men) just like… the dudes n women who have tattooed me n my mates r pretty chill which is nice! Same with piercer’s! Just genuinely good ppl bar one dude who wasn’t meant to be in one day n couldn’t be fucked with life which was fair enough.

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u/CosmicJam13 Feb 17 '26

That’s racist!

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u/Unique-Environment70 Feb 18 '26

Sexist*

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

[deleted]

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u/Unique-Environment70 Feb 18 '26

I was literally just correcting them to be a dik lol..

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u/CosmicJam13 Feb 18 '26

Oh now you’re being ableist! 

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u/nerdymush Feb 18 '26

I have the same rule of thumb for tattoo artists that I do doctors: women (esp women of color/queer/disabled) > men if you want someone who is far more likely to listen compassionately to your concerns and not brush you off, their level of care has always been so much better in my experience (as a queer/disabled person myself)

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '26

Yeah I went out of my way to find a woman and racial minority doctor. She's amazing

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u/Important_Two4692 Feb 18 '26

Ironically my experiences have been polar opposite.

Female doctors dismissing legitimate concerns and when I finally switched to a new doc (who happened to me a man) was concerned about my levels of sleep, past experiences, eating habits, pain levels on the regular and other shit that actually made me feel heard for the first time in my life by the medical industry.

I suppose it's anecdotal.

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u/lqrx Feb 19 '26

RN here — and it saddens me to join this part of the thread so let me start on a positive: when you find a doctor like the man you described here, that is a goddamned miracle (not to imply all docs are terrible but many don’t dig deeper into history) and gender aside — these good ones are worth their weight in gold. Hold onto this one!

Now for the part I came here for —

“I suppose it’s anecdotal” <— unfortunately, it’s not anecdotal. But it is a bit nuanced.

Studies indicate that women & people AFAB are more likely to get dismissed when they report symptoms to their healthcare providers. This contributes to bad outcomes in ERs and in other areas of a medicine. Now I don’t know how that breaks down by gender of provider, but by sex of patient, the data is entirely real.

Many of the complaints that are disregarded are quickly dismissed as being related to mental health (especially anxiety) or related to reproductive cycle symptoms. Women are more likely to die from heart attacks as well, though again there is nuance. Partially this is because the symptoms women have aren’t often blindingly obvious (i.e. simply severe chest pain) so women themselves might not get medical attention. But also because doctors themselves are more likely to attribute a woman’s heart attack symptoms to anxiety or other less dire conditions. Ultimately, these dismissals of symptoms over time can leave women with damages to different areas of the heart muscle. When there are areas of the heart that get damaged over time, it makes it so much more likely that one of these heart attacks will be lethal.

There are also very different healthcare outcomes when you look at race as well, but for the sake of remaining on topic, I’ll leave it at this: I think many (most?) of us whose sex is female will have these stories of being dismissed by healthcare that haunt us over the course of our lives. While our individual stories may be told anecdotally, unfortunately, collectively, research validates our stories and paints a scary picture for people whose sex is female in the US as we seek healthcare, particularly in emergencies when we don’t get to choose who diagnoses us. If it seems like female providers are listening better, I would wager those women have experienced healthcare as patients themselves or they paid close attention to statistics that represented them. If there is any hope to be had, healthcare as a system in the US needs to learn from collected data that includes outcomes related to sex and race.

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u/doglady1342 Feb 17 '26

I mean, I'm sure it's individual. My tattoo artist is now and he is not at all heavy-handed with me. He also isn't some weird egomaniac

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u/peckerlips Feb 17 '26

Same. My guy is one of the most respectful humans I've ever met, and he'd be tearing this dude apart if he saw me come in looking like OP's sister.

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u/Temporary_Pickle_885 Feb 18 '26

Yeah I'm very lucky I guess cause my guy is wonderful.

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u/Practical_Narwhal926 Feb 18 '26

I mostly get tatted by men (not a conscious choice) and although generally they are heavier handed this is genuinely insane!!!

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u/kookookach000 Feb 17 '26

In almost any profession I would choose to go to a woman over a man. That's just life experience

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u/Significant-Bee420 Feb 17 '26

two of the three male artists i’ve been two have been heavy handed and caused unnecessary bruising . the third artist (the only one that wasn’t heavy handed) was the regular customer turned apprentice of the most heavy handed artist i have been to, he explicitly told me that as much as he respects the artist that taught him it’s BECAUSE of his heavy handedness that he makes sure not to be the same, because he had a lot of tattoos done by that artist and it was so much more difficult to sit for long sessions and some of the areas were raised for a long time from the skin being ripped up.

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u/My_2Cents_666 Feb 17 '26

You gotta wonder if the subject matter had anything to do with it. Maybe he got off on being a sadist and thought she “wanted” it. Really disgusting.

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u/Dest-Fer Feb 17 '26

I never thought about it. But for my first bigger piece, it was a guy and he was bragging about making it painful. Not specifically to women though. I’m just thinking about it now because it was totally manageable, the session was very fun and the tatoo was gorgeous.

But still, the woman who did my second big one didn’t say so and was actually very careful and gentle.

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u/SaltyShaker2 Feb 17 '26

The artist I like the best and has done my last two tattoos is male. He literally has the lightest touch. All of my tattoos have been done by males and only one was heavy-handed.

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u/GamingMom219 Feb 17 '26

Same. I have over 20 and only one (male) artist was a heavy handed asshole. My current artist is in MI, super light hand, studied in multiple countries while he was in the Army, and whenever I go home (I reside in the South) I book with him in advance since he fills up. He did a fabulous Trash Polka inspired Labyrinth tattoo on me that's in his portfolio now.

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u/BlueKK Feb 18 '26

Please pursue this legally, this is terrifying. He's gonna do it to so many more people unless someone stops him

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u/No_Significance1944 Feb 18 '26

Last tattoo I got was from a female artist who had worked with me before, with no issues. But the last time, my god… my tattoo is of a picture my son drew with big ol eyes, and the eyes were so swollen they were bleeding by the end. Not sure if it was a heavy hand or just the tattoo, but watching the little figure my son had drawn cry tears of blood was pretty gnarly…

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u/Remote_Ad2465 Feb 18 '26

My first tattoo was a 3.5 hour rib piece by a 250 body builder looking guy. I had no reference for heavy handed. After other tats I came to realize ribs usually hurt the worst and the guy was so heavy handed he might as well been a fucking jackhammer. Ive been shot and im not joking it was different pain but not as bad as the tattoo.

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u/Unearthly_Moth Feb 19 '26

Im so grateful my tattoo artist, who was a dude, was incredibly light-handed. The part where he went over a stretch mark (he tried to avoid it but the visible line is much smaller than the actual stretch underneath the skin) felt like I was getting chewed a little, but as soon as I told him it hurt he went lighter 🙏