A tattoo is an expression of yourself. It represents who you are, your thoughts, and your feelings. When getting a tattoo, you never want to hide but rather show it to the world. Well, life happens, and you might need to conceal your precious tattoos at some point.
The biggest reason that may push you to conceal your tattoo is work. While most companies have embraced tattoos in the workplace, others still have policies against visible tattoos. They will not prevent you from getting one, but you will be required to conceal your ink while at work.
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Covering Tattoos For Work
Here are a few easy ways you can use to conceal tattoos;
1. Covering Tattoos Using Clothing
Most tattoos in the body are easily concealable with clothing. If you have a tattoo on your back or your ribcage area, you can easily hide them with your clothing. If the tattoo is on your sleeve, then you will need to wear long sleeved shirts or a blazer at work.
You can conceal a tattoo on your thigh or leg by wearing pants. If you are a lady and want to wear your dress or skirt, you might want to consider wearing tights underneath, especially when wearing knee length skirts and dresses. For neck tattoos, you can use a scarf to cover it up.
2. Wearing Tattoos In Easily Concealable Places
If you are working in an institution that doesn’t embrace tattoos but still feel the need to get a tattoo, you might need to draw one in an easily concealable place. Instead of going through the hustle of concealing with clothing or makeup, you can draw your tattoo in a discreet location on your body, like behind the ears, top of your foot, on the inside of your finger, or your inner ankle. These places are hidden nicely by your body, and you don’t need extra clothing.
3. Applying Makeup
Not all tats can be hidden by clothing. Tats on your fingers, hands, and face may need makeup to hide them. Covering tats using makeup is a tedious and time-consuming process. It also requires you to have makeup skills or even hire a makeup artist.
Covering up tattoos with makeup has its limitations. You cannot cover fresh tats using makeup. New tattoos need time to heal and breathe. The skin pores need time to heal and the ink to dry. If you don’t give your skin time to heal before applying makeup, it can lead to infections and ruin the tats ink. On average, you should give your tattoo 45 days to completely heal.
4. Using Hair To Cover Tattoos
If your company policies allow you to grow long hair, then you can do that to cover tattoos on the back of your head. Long hair easily conceals the tattoos on the back of your head.
If you are working in an institution not strict on beards, you can grow long facial hair to cover tattoos on your neck. It might make you look less presentable. If you are working in corporate, and grooming yourself is necessary to land new clients and business, this might not be viable.
5. Using Cover-Up Sleeves
You might not be the overdressing type and don’t like long sleeves or jackets, yet you still need to hide tattoos at work. Cover-up sleeves are the thing for you. Made from nylon, they are designed to be comfortable and hold on to the skin even when moving around. You need to work and not worry about your cover-up sleeve sliding and exposing your tat, which might put you in trouble with your employers. Cover-up sleeves are an investment but necessary for the comfort and peace you experience when wearing one.
The quality depends on the amount you are willing to spend. They also come in different colors, sizes, and styles as people have different tastes and preferences.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you have to cover up tattoos at work?
Covering up tattoos is dependent on your workplace policies. No company can prohibit you from drawing tattoos, but they can prevent you from showing them at your workplace. The place you work, your employers, and the people you work around will determine if you will have to cover up your tattoos.
Let’s say you work in a school around children, then tattoos with explicit content or just tattoo, in general, will be prohibited. While if you are working alone, let’s say as a cleaner, then having a tattoo will not be a big deal.
Are tattoo sleeves unprofessional?
Being a professional is not dictated by what you have drawn on your arm or what you are wearing, but rather on how well you do your job. However, people will view you as either professional or unprofessional, depending on how you present yourself, including your tats. This might lead to you getting that job, landing that client, or missing out on an opportunity.
To be safe, when meeting older clients who might not appreciate tattoos sleeves or going to a job interview, you should cover your tats. People may form a negative opinion on how well you can do your work based on the tattoo.
What does a tattoo sleeve say about you?
People with tattoos want to express their feelings and show the world who they are. Sleeve tattoos are a bold statement. People with ink on their sleeves don’t seem worried or bothered by the opinions of others. They reveal a confident, don’t care attitude by the one wearing it.
Conclusion
You should not be embarrassed for drawing a tat. Tats are part of who we are, but then not everybody embraces this, and you will need to cover it up to keep your job or even get one.
Whatever the case, the above tips should help you temporarily cover the tat, work, and still be able to enjoy looking at it at the end of a tiresome day. These tips will only help you if you don’t want to remove the ink permanently. You can also talk to your company’s HR to know what their policies on visible tattoos say.
Also read: How to Tell Your Parents You Have a Tattoo
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