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Whether you use a Jewelers loupe or a pair of wearable loupes, knowing what to look for when inspecting your needles is the most important step. Here are three things to look for that will help you when inspecting your needles.
Bends in the needle tip can be unseeable to the naked eye, which is why we use loupes to inspect our needles.
It’s important to eye loupe each and every needle prior to using it to make sure it’s in pristine condition. If we were to tattoo with a bent and damaged needle, it can rip and tear the skin, causing more unnecessary trauma to the skin.
2. Look for foreign objects or fuzz stuck on and inside the tips.
Make sure there are no foreign objects on or inside your needle tips. We don’t ever want to be tattooing a client with something foreign on the tip; if we do, we’re at risk of implanting the foreign object and causing an infection or complication during healing.
Needles with visible fuzz, small bits of debris or any foreign objects should immediately be disposed of.
3. Look to see if the needles are textured or unpolished.
Make sure your needles are smooth and highly polished. A smooth and highly polished needle configuration will have less friction than a textured needle. Less friction means less means less trauma means better results!
We should never use tips with a textured, blunt taper, as this will leave a big hole in the skin: that’s a lot of excess and unnecessary trauma. Rather, when working on faces use a smooth, highly polished long taper if possible. This will give you the best healed results!
While it can be few and far between, imperfect and damaged needles can occur with any manufacturer and any lot of needles, so it’s important to always inspect every needle we intend to use on our clients. Our clients depend on us, so use these three tips.
If you still need help with understanding why you should eye-loupe or what to look for, consider taking my Needle and the Prick® Course!
Happy tattooing, everybody!
