Bringing Life to Old Tattoos: How to Add to Your Current Ink

Getting a tattoo is not as taboo as it used to be. This is especially true among younger generations, seeing as how about 47% of millennials and 36% of Gen Xers had at least one tattoo in 2015. But existing tattoos sometimes need a little help looking their best — whether it’s due to fading or it was just a bad tattoo, people may want to add on to their tattoos to make them better. So to make your tattoo be the best it can be, here are a few tips for adding on to current ink.

Add more details: An easy way to make an old tattoo look better is to add more details. If your tattoo art is faded or wasn’t done well the first time around, you can always go back in to add more details — maybe an animal needs more shading in its fur or a portrait could use more fine lines in their hair. Working with some great tattoo artists, you’ll be able to figure out what kind of details can be added on to spruce up your existing tattoo.

Add new elements: If you have a tattoo that you love already, then you may not want to change anything about it. But you can add new elements around it to make it bigger and more exciting. Maybe you have a quote you want to add below a current tattoo or you want to add some flowers to your animal portrait. Getting creative and adding elements that compliment your current tattoo ink can make your single tattoo into a whole piece that you’ll love.

Add color: Tattoo designs fade over time and they can look pretty dull after a few years. So if you have a tattoo that needs some sprucing up, why not just freshen up the color? You can stick with the original colors or you can incorporate new ones and change the style of the tattoo. You can also add color for a background that will make your tattoo complete and really pop on your skin. And if you have a black and white tattoo, adding a few splashes of color can make it even bolder. If you’re looking for a simple way to add to an existing tattoo, adding fresh color is the way to go.

You don’t have to go through the laser tattoo process or get a cover up to change an existing tattoo. With some fresh color and some new elements or details, your old, dull tattoo art can come back to life.