had it done twice...both times waited 4 days..actually, swimming helps to keep your skin moist so it doesnt dry up and forms scabs where you got inked

With all due respect, this is in my opinion bad advice. When it comes to tattoos, there can be a vast amount of opinion. I was told around 1 month. It depends on what you will be swimming in. No matter what you swim in whether it be pool or lake or ocean, within the first week you do not want to swim because it is essentially an open wound and you do not want to get bacteria into it and cause a bad infection. If you swim in a pool, you would want to wait a month because the chlorine can effect the coloring of the tattoo as well as dry your skin out, not moisturize it.

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"Tri Harder"
Beach 2 Battleship 2010 - 12:37:00
IM Florida 2012 - 11:29:50

i was told 10 days +/-.. depends on how fast you heal...

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The person that did mine said a week. I waited 3 days but wrapped it really well (on my right lower leg) to keep the water out.

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John Mickle
ECI Endurance

 
With all due respect, this is in my opinion bad advice. When it comes to tattoos, there can be a vast amount of opinion. I was told around 1 month. It depends on what you will be swimming in. No matter what you swim in whether it be pool or lake or ocean, within the first week you do not want to swim because it is essentially an open wound and you do not want to get bacteria into it and cause a bad infection. If you swim in a pool, you would want to wait a month because the chlorine can effect the coloring of the tattoo as well as dry your skin out, not moisturize it

there is so many "do this don't do this" when it comes to ink. use common sense and you should be ok. your tattoo artist should be able to answer all your questions and if he/she is not find a new one

Yep I agree, way too many contradictions from one tattoo artist to another. I like the idea of asking the artist that does your tattoo. Typically they will "warrant" their work. If he tells you that swimming 1 week out is okay and then it fades due to chlorine or something, he should go back over it for you for no charge. If he does not agree to that, than I would find a new artist. My artist was great with doing things like that. I got one last year at this time and he did 3 different touch ups on it several months later just to make it look exactly right without charging me extra.

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"Tri Harder"
Beach 2 Battleship 2010 - 12:37:00
IM Florida 2012 - 11:29:50

Rather than give you a fixed period of time, just wait until the initial layer peels off. After that you should be good to go. For me, personally, that's about 5-6 days.

2-3 weeks. Once all the scabbing is off, itching has stopped, you can tell that tattoo is healed and you see the new skin—then you are fine to go swimming. Realistically speaking it takes about 3 months for a tattoo to fully heal but I haven't had any problems as long as I waited at least two weeks. With my last tattoo, it took longer to heal and it was about a month before I could go swimming. For this reason I usually only get tattoos in the off-season. It seems like overkill, but your going to have that sucker there for a long long time, it doesn't seem quite as paranoid.

0 days.

I just used some aquaphor on it. That's about it. Best bet is to listen to whatever your artist tells you - they know their work best.

Ben Greenfield

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Ben Greenfield

Nutrition & Human Performance Advice
http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com

I normally get mine done in between reps. They have to be during my 400's & 800's, because I only get about 10 seconds recovery during my 100 reps.

10 days +/-. Outlines heals faster, shades and coloring slower.

I would wait at least a week. I had one on my back that I tried to swim immediately afterward. I used Tatuderm (which is awesome for road rash by the way), and I think despite the tatuderm, I lost some of the color.

I agree with asking the person working on you. I had some work done last night and asked your questions. The response I got was that if I applied Vitamin E Skin Oil 45000 IU before swimming I could pretty much swim any time (it apparently acts as some form of protective barrier). I'm still going to wait 10 days or so before getting in the pool again but that's mainly because I will be traveling and won't have access.