Camila Cabello Didn’t Properly Take Care of Her Tattoo

Here's how to take care of your ink and manage your expectations

About a month ago Camila Cabello, the Grammy Award-winning singer, took the plunge and got her very first tattoo alongside her boyfriend Shawn Mendes. Now, after only a month, she shared in a Q&A that the bulk of the ink has fallen out.

“OK guys, my tattoo’s screwed,” Cabello revealed during the interview. “Because I didn’t put moisturizer on it. Who here has tattoos? First rule, you gotta moisturize it when you get it…it’s faded!”

Cabello is half right, you do have to keep your fresh tattoo nice and moist. More importantly, you need to keep it clean. Remember, a tattoo is pretty much nothing more than an open wound in the shape of a pretty picture. So when your artist tells you that you need to take care of your new tattoo, they aren’t just trying to make sure your art will look good in the future but also making sure that you don’t get an infection.

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“The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.” “So what do we do?” “Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.” “How?” “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” From one of my favorite movies of all time, Shakespeare in love Never thought I’d get a tattoo before but I asked my mom to write to me a promise she’d want me to make to her that she thought i would need for the rest of my life, long story short, it’s a pinky swear to her to remember, no matter what happens, everything is gonna turn out well. There’s no telling how, but it always does ❤️

A post shared by camila (@camila_cabello) on Nov 15, 2019 at 5:15am PST

Not taking care of the tattoo is part of the reason that Cabello’s work is falling out, but it’s not the only reason. The tattoo is on the inside of her pinky finger, a notoriously difficult spot to tattoo. Take a second and look at your very own pinky finger. The skin isn’t very thick there, now is it? This means that the ink isn’t going to be very deep into the skin. Also, you use your hands constantly. They’re always moving and rubbing against stuff, which means that you’re going to end up shedding skin much more often on your fingers than you do pretty much anywhere else on your body. This means that your tattoo, even under the best circumstances, is going to fade pretty quickly.

The internet is filled with pictures of very pretty finger tattoos. But it’s a bit of a ruse—most of those photos are taken immediately after the tattoo was finished. You need to manage your expectations when you have a tattoo in such a high traffic part of the body. It’s going to fade and parts of it are going to fall out.

Cabello likely sped up the process by not following her artist’s advice after getting tattooed, but honestly, a little fall out was inevitable. A little touch-up, and better care this time, will help the piece look good as new. Luckily, Cabello seems up for it. “I gotta go through this pain again,” she laughed. “That’s OK — I love the pain!”