All Tattoos Fade

  

     All tattoos will change and fade over time, especially if you get these tattoos at a young age and have them for a large portion of your life. There are numerous reasons a tattoo may fade or become misshapen over the course of a lifetime.  Location of the tattoo, the color and the type of pigment, changes in weight, aging and sun exposure play a big role in the fading of a tattoo. 

      The sun is one of the main reasons tattoos fade over time. When you first get a tattoo, you should avoid being in the sun until it fully heals. Once the tattoo heals applying sunscreen will greatly decrease your chances of ink fading. Use a high SPF (that blocks UVA Rays) or a tattoo-specific sunscreen to protect your skin. UV rays from tanning beds are also harmful to tattoos and can cause damage to the skin. Tanning beds are more harmful than the sun because the UV is more intense and closer to your skin, causing more damage quickly. 

     The skin constantly changes due to all kinds of factors. One of the reasons tattoos fade is due to the changing of the skin. Your skin grows and changes to accommodate your body throughout life. If your body grows, due to gaining weight of some sort, your skin will change to accommodate that. If you have a tattoo on this area that changed, the tattoo will stretch with the skin. Weight gain due to unhealthy eating isn’t the only way a tattoo can be damaged by skin stretching. The stretching of skin can also occur if you have a significant increase in muscle mass in a particular area. For example, if you have a tattoo on your thigh and you start doing squats to grow your quads, the tattoo will stretch with the skin as your muscle grows. Although growth would have to be quite drastic to negatively affect a tattoo it can still happen.

      There are certain parts of the body that tend to fade quicker than others. Some body parts are more susceptible to fading, so are the tattoos on these body parts. Shoulders and ankles have tight skin, and the skin doesn't sag and become as loose over time, unlike the upper arm or abdomen. Tattoos on the palms and soles of the foot don't tend to last as long because the skin is thicker compared to other part of the body, and the tattoos tend not to go as deep.