Stretching – Fine line Tattoos

I wanted to do a little demo on how I stretch because it’s such an important part of the technique when we want nice, soft, clean and crisp lines. The important aspect of this technique is to bring awareness to what exactly we are stretching for, tension! It looks like we are pushing down onto the skin and pushing the skin apart, to create a sturdy surface under our hand to work on, but doing just this would fatigue us quickly, it’s not necessary for fine line tattooing to push down as well as out, the aim is rather to pull apart the skin, thus creating tension in the skin.

So what we are doing is we’re stretching the skin itself, not the subcutaneous tissue and not the muscles. We just need to pull the skin apart, not push down. One thing that I like to do that can help me, is I put the back of my finger on the skin and then twist it over and away, and then pull away (down) with my thumb. This helps create friction, helping to glue your finger to the skin, then I’m just pulling the skin apart, I’m not putting pressure down onto my client. This is a really, really important thing, guys, if you want to have nice, clean, crisp lines. And if you do apply them with the fine line techniques, they should heal consistent, smooth and quickly. Sometimes we do need to give this some welly, but still we are stretching the skin taut so that our needle can easily find the dermis.

Think pull apart, not push down

I really wish I had learnt this sooner, hope it helps you guys!

See I’ve demo on @ephemeralstudio13 instagram.
Libby x