antibacterial soap allergy
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Sunday July 27th, 2008 @ 1:34 AM
Filed under: Tattoos
Lately when using antibacterial soap containing triclosan during my tattoo healing process I have a very bad reactions including redness, swelling, and some great discomfort. My question is have you heard of this happening to anyone? At first I thought it was infection but I washed my hands with the soap rinsed them and touched my tattoo and I had a reaction. I than washed it with a mild baby soap and instantly all the symptoms dissappeared. I have been reduced to using huggies baby soap to cleanse my tattoos and was wondering if you could recommend a better soap not containing triclosan. Any knowledge or advice would be greatly appreciated
Triclosan will actually work against the healing of your tattoo.
You don’t need to wash a tattoo with antibacterial soap. It’s a tattoo - not an infection!
A mild, unscented soap to gently wash the area once or twice a day is usually suffice to keep a tattoo clean. Any strong, sporty, frilly, or antibacterial soap being used on a wound like a tattoo will cause bad reactions like redness, swelling and some great discomfort! 
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One Response to “antibacterial soap allergy”
I have many tattoos but just experienced my first bad reaction, and I’m pretty sure it was to triclosan. All my previous tattoos were done with Speed Stick deodorant for the stencil, diluted green soap sprayed for cleaning during the tattooing, and washing afterward with very gentle soap.
With this tattoo, I not only washed the fresh tattoo with antibacterial soap containing triclosan, but found out later that both the deodorant used for the stencil and the cleansing spray contained triclosan.
I developed a red, extremely itchy rash. I’ve since had a cortisone injection and have been on antihistamine for 2 weeks. The tattoo itself has healed perfectly but although the redness isn’t as bad, it’s still itchy, even with antihistamine on board. I’ve been using mild, fragrance free moisturizers on it.
Anybody ever have a reaction that lasted this long? I’m afraid that having the triclosan driven into my skin via the stencil transfer may have made this reaction especially severe and long lasting.
My doctor agrees that it seems like the soap is the culprit but also advised that when the skin has healed enough to go back and do the color, that we try a small area first, because I could be having an ink reaction due to this tattoo being a cover-up of older work. That hasn’t happened to me before, but you never know when an allergy might develop. Any advice? This itching is driving me insane!
Firefly on October 13th, 2008 at 10:37 pmLeave a Comment