Before you consider the hand to get a tattoo, take a moment to think about how much you wash, use, and move your hands. This part of the body is high-motion area, suffers excessive wear, tear, and exfoliation, and that's why tattoos here are notorious for fading fast, sometimes even before they're completely healed.

As a result, most shops and artists have specific caveats for hand tattoos, like paid touch-ups (these are usually free for a certain period of time in other parts of the body) or refusing to do them as your first ink. And yes, you will certainly need a touch up or two. Some tattooers will turn you away completely, and others will warn you that they can’t guarantee that the ink is going to hold as well as somewhere else on the body.

So if you insist on getting your hands tattooed, be prepared for the designs to fade, bleed, or blur over time.

If you end up getting one, remember that hand tattoos are challenging and require upkeep in most cases. Requests for these tattoos used to be mostly for traditional American style of tattooing, but thanks to innovations in technology, new tools, inks, and a variety of styles, people nowadays are able to consider more options they may not have before.

Hand tattoos are bumpier to complete than other areas, so expect some additional time for you and your artist to figure out the specific placement with a ruler and stencil pen. The skin isn’t flat on a hand; there are curves, veins, small muscles, bones, so the artist isn't drawing a straight line, but the illusion of a straight line.