When you say towel I’m hoping you aren’t referring to a fibrous towel you’d dry your body off with after a regular shower. For after care washing I always suggest doing a hot rinse followed by small light touch circles and a mild antibacterial scent-free dye-free soap then doing a cold shock rinse to ensure you’ve removed all soap. You want to pat try with a clean disposable never before used paper towel or allow to air dry. If you’re doing all these things then that was the only concern I had. 🙂 Your flakes will come off with time and one day you’ll notice you just have a shiny tattoo looking back at you rather than these patches of faded dead skin just begging you to pull them off – resist all urges.

I find because I’m so fair skinned my redness sometimes persists through the peeling stage of healing but the very bright inflamed red takes well between one to two weeks for me. I’ve got a grey wash portrait style on my right calf and it had that Sierra look about the same time.

Hello Kitty, if you are having difficulties stretching it helps providing a photograph or much more written details about your problems. As someone above me has asked is it ripped, bruised, swollen, juicing? I’m a certified body piercer in California and one primary thing I tell people is stretching should not hurt and if i hurts it is because you literally tearing your skin apart to shove something into it.

Take stretching slow.
Do you use tapers? And if you use tapers, how are you using them?

I think it’s great you’ve decided to decorate your temple.
I’ve been blessed enough to already meet a client who also kept away from tattoos for a long amount of time and after learning I had undergone an apprenticeship he grew to respect the way I conduct myself and the passion I have for my art work so he hired me to do an original concept for his whole back.

From this experience I think I learned a few things as a new tattoo artist that may be helpful for you (I hope).

If you really want a tattoo you will get it done but even as determined as my rather tough friend is the pain is a very different type and the first time might make you feel unprepared.
Because of the symbols you’re wanting to get and where I think you’ll do just fine.
With symbols like this I always suggest a double verification with a site other than Wikipedia for meanings.

Good luck and I hope your new tattoo heals well, do plenty of research and be picky about your tattoo artist.