By Most of tattoo artists tend not to like using tattoo numbing cream or sprays during the sessions. They have their reasons but most of them add up to the following two:
- They consider the tattoo pain to be part of the rite and tradition of passage
- They utilized the numbing cream some time back and it didn’t work for them
There is a large part of the community for tattooing which tend to consider the pain during the process as part and parcel of the tattooing and getting the ink. Those in this group tend to look for any pain or irritation that they feel as part of the tattoo that makes it more meaningful.
If you happen to be in this particular category, it might be worth understanding that you will get a client who tends to be ultra-low when it comes to tolerance of the pain. It is going to happen. For such clients, the pain tends not to be tolerable, but that does not make their process of tattooing any less important to them.
If you happen to be in the second category, it is quite possible that the numbing cream you utilized was not a high quality one but that does not mean that all the numbing sprays and creams are inefficient.
How the numbing cream work
The way the numbing cream works will all depend on the active ingredients that is in the mix. Majority of the ingredients in the tattoo numbing cream into three groups:
The nerve deadeners
They are chemicals such as lidocaine which deaden temporarily the nerves which are in the skin to prevent them from having to register any pain. The nerve deadeners are quite great but they rarely sink below the skin surface, which denotes that they are not going to be effective 100% for the tattoos. The mixture of the nerve deadening includes the Zone 1 cream that has 5% lidocaine. For you to be able to get the most out of that, you will have to combine it with vasoconstrictor or nerve blocker.
Nerve blockers
They include the tetracaine which refers to a chemical that will make your nerve to still register some pain but you will not fill serious pain signals to the brain. The tetracaine and the other nerve blockers such as the benzocaine have a neutral pH just like any other nerve blockers.
Because they are not known to prevent the nerves from having to register pain independently, the nerve blockers normally combine with the nerve deadeners in preventing involuntary flinching, the pro plus cream is known to be an example of a tetracaine/lidocaine nerve blockers/nerve deadener mix. With such creams, these are known to be common utilized for the numbing while applying permanent eyeliner.
Vasoconstrictors
The vasoconstrictors are the numbing agents which are more powerful numbing agents to be utilized. They include epinephrine, and they are known to work by having to cause the blood vessels to constrict which then reduces the bleeding.
