手彫り
Healing tebori versus machine work
Hand-poked skin heals a little differently. What to expect from each, and why the first week can look worse than it is.
4 min read
The first three days
Machine work tends to be redder and more swollen on day one because the needles hit the skin thousands of times a minute. Tebori is slower and the punctures are individual, so the area usually looks calmer at first but weeps a little longer, especially where colour was packed.
Either way: wash twice a day, thin ointment, nothing tight over the area. If you were wrapped in second-skin film, leave it for the time your artist told you and take it off in the shower.
Peeling
Both methods peel between day four and day ten. Tebori shading peels in finer flakes; machine colour can come off in larger sheets that look alarming and take pigment with them. Neither is a problem. Do not pick, do not scrub, do not soak.
Colour settling
Tebori colour looks dull for three to four weeks and then clears as the top layer of skin renews. Machine colour looks brighter sooner. By six weeks they are the same, and the difference you will see for the rest of your life is in the softness of the gradients, not the brightness.