Tattoo Care & Piercing Care - ProTat Soothing Aftercare Cream

Protat Soothing Aftercare Cream, formulated specifically to ensure a pleasurable tattoo experience.

Most Professional Tattoo Artists will agree that the primary concern for aftercare is:

1. Minimising the opportunity for infection to occur
2. Ensuring the area is moist to minimise the incident of scab formation.

Healing should ideally begin in about 3 days. Poor tattoo technique causing excessive damage, incorrect aftercare or reduced skin health can greatly extend the period.

What Protat's marketing and Technical Team identified was a retail absence of a product designed to care for the unique wound created as the primary stage of micro-pigmentation. Ideally, an after-care product should protect the wound tissue from infection without allowing it to become dehydrated or form scabs.

The moist wound environment is the optimised situation to promote rapid healing. This is achieved two fold: firstly by providing additional moisture to the compromised tissue, and secondly by locking in the moisture with emollients.

The Protat technicians worked tirelessly researching the best possible emollient to achieve a barrier that would not be too occlusive, but retain an efficacious quantity of moisture. It is for this purpose that lanolin comprises the majority of the functional component of Protat Soothing After-care Cream. Lanolin is a naturally occurring, environmentally friendly, renewable and sustainable resource. Extensively documented and trialled as being the most like human sebum. It is unsurpassed in its ability to lubricate the skin.

The lanolin used in the Protat range is of BP/USP standard. This means that it is lanolin certified to be of a pre-determined quality and meets the defined parameters outlined in the current British Pharmacopeia or United States Pharmacopeia. The Pharmacopeia and National Formulary are recognised as official compendia and are a basis for determining strength, quality, purity, packaging and labelling of drugs. In a more simple view, products of BP/USP standard are a defined quality and suitable for incorporation into pharmaceutical products.

Lanolin is ideal for use on sensitive skin, as published recently by Dr Albert Klingman. Who after working extensively with high-grade lanolin concluded, "Lanolin must be classified among the most marginal sensitisers in all of clinical medicine".

The most notable property of lanolin is its ability to create a spontaneous emulsion with water droplets from the skin. A semi-permeable membrane is formed which both retains moisture and regulates moisture loss, eliminating any concerns of occlusion traditionally associated with emulsions containing high levels of emollients.

The emulsifying characteristics of lanolin also help to dissolve sebum plugs formed in the later stages of healing. The sebum plugs created by the pigment particles obstructing the pore, which in turn reduces the flow of sebum and forms a blockage or plug. By massaging a small amount of Protat Soothing Aftercare Cream over the affected area, throughout the final stage of healing/remodelling, the incident of pore blockages is minimised.

Three stages of healing occur under the moisture barrier: inflammation, proliferation and remodelling. The Aloe Vera (Aloe barbadensis) and Centipeda cunninghamii work synergistically to assist the healing function. Aloe contains important ingredients imperative for wound healing, such as Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), amino acids, Vitamin E & zinc. Ascorbic acid enhances the synthesis of collagen, a vital component of cell renewal. Vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin with proven anti-oxidant activity that helps to prevent free radical damage at the wound site.

Aloe penetrates, cleanses & dilates capillaries at the wound site to improve healing. The naturally aqueous characteristic of Aloe helps to reduce dehydration at the wound site and may minimise the incident of necrosis. i

Some of the properties of Aloe noted in journals include:
• Anesthetise tissue
• Allay bacterial, fungal & viral growth
• Act as an anti-inflammatory
• Dilate capillaries & enhance blood flow ii

Complementary to Aloe Vera is the centipeda cunninghamii, a soothing natural extract that comes from a low aromatic perennial daisy native to Australia. Aboriginals have used Centipeda for centuries as a traditional skin treatment for burns, wounds, and skin diseases.

Its constituents include chrysanthenyl acetate, triterpenoid saponins, polyacetylenes, sesquiterpene lactone, myriogenin, coumarin, flavonoid and lignan. Centipeda is a saturated cocktail of naturally occurring healing and anti-inflammatory agents that assist the regeneration of cells. Centipeda also has antibacterial properties that inhibit microbial contamination.

From crops commercially farmed in Victoria, Centipeda cunninghamii is processed under Strict supervision and approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). This ensures an extract of guaranteed quality, with efficacious levels of active components.

The structural components of the soothing cream include Isopropyl myristate, Polysorbate 20 and cetyl dimethicone copolyol. All of which are ingredients registered as excipients on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, and have satisfied the protocols for incorporation into Pharmaceutical products. These excipients are vital to emulsion stability, which ensures that the product delivers on to the skin as a multi-phased and multifunctional film.

The Protat Team trialled numerous combinations of excipient bases until they found the unique blend that effectively/easily spread across the sensitive and damaged area with a pre-determined final product film thickness.

Protat's in-depth understanding and commitment to all aspects of Tattoo Healing and Aftercare guarantee that this product is by far the most superior available to date. It is indeed a unique formulation for the highly specialised art of Micro-pigmentation.

Why Protat uses Lanolin as an emollient.
The scientific facts about Lanolin.

Lanolin is a totally natural emollient which has a lipid (oil) profile very similar to sebum (skin oil) (1) lanolin works in three ways to create a healthy enviroment to promote healing.

1. Because lanolin is similar to and soluble in sebum it contributes moisture to the stratum cornuem (outer layer of the skin).
2. Lanolin adds to the natural protective mantell of the skin to prevent moisture loss.
3. Lanolin acts as a humactant absorbing moisture from the enviroment to keep the skin moist.

The above functions are critical in the prevention of dry & dead tissue forming on the skinstratum corneim (outer layer of the epidermis) which will negitively impact on the tatoo.

Lanolin has an extremely low rate of allergy or sensitivity. Since the recognition that trace amounts of oil soluble pesticides and herbicides were responsible for some negative reactions to lanolin manufacturers now produce lanolin that is effictively free from such allergins. In fact studies confirm that "lanolin must be classified among the most marginal sensitisers in all of clinical medicine" (Klingman 1982).

Lanolin is also helpful in softening the "plugs" of sebaceous material responsible for blocking pores which causes infection and pimples.

Hygienic Seal
As part of Protat's ongoing emphasis on clinical standards, we are gradually introducing hygienic safety seals on all of our tattoo cream tubes.

To unseal, simply unscrew the lid and peel the seal off before using.

Tattoo Coverage
If you are unsure about how much Protat needs to be applied to a healing tattoo, the best way to describe the amount to your clients is by drawing their attention to the dot on the front of the packaging, e.g. or . This amount is ideal to cover an area of skin as displayed below-

They will then need to re-apply as needed to keep the skin hydrated (usually 3 to 4 times per day).

i Davis RH; Kabbani JM; Maro NP: Wound Healing & Anti-inflammatory activity of Aloe Vera. Pa Acad. Sci. 60:79, 1986
ii Davis RH; Kabbani JM; Maro NP: Aloe Vera & Wound Healing JAPMA77:165:1987

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