Through the years, as medical technology improves, new products have become available that are better than what was once considered the best method of aftercare. Petroleum jelly was once one of the most largely used products - it was highly available, inexpensive, and seemed to do the job fairly well. What has been found since then though, is that petroleum based products tend to drain the color from a tattoo and also have no healing agents.
Then, along came the over-the-counter triple anti-biotic ointment, Neosporin. It had a healing agent that was good at fighting infection, and it didn pull the color out of tattoos like petroleum jelly. After a few years of Neosporin being the 1 product recommended for tattoo aftercare, it soon became apparent that it was falling short of its expectations. Several people were coming up with allergic reactions to the ointment, and were getting tiny red bumps on their tattoos. After these red bumps disappeared, they took the ink along with them and the customer was left with a “spotted” tattoo…(read more here)