Here in Seoul and neighboring cities, cherry blossoms paint our landscape with their delicate presence, emerging only after enduring a long, cold winter. So, as we eagerly prepare for a delightful picnic under the blossoming trees, we've decided to embrace the occasion by applying custom cherry blossom tattoos. We firmly believe that these tattoos will add an extra touch of beauty and charm to our gathering, and make our photos extra special.

In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through our step-by-step process for applying printable tattoos. You'll find essential tips on printing your tattoo, how DPI and Transparency settings can influence your results, and expert advice on achieving the best results, as well as how to ensure it lasts as long as possible. Be sure to read through to the very end, and with little effort, you'll possess the skills of an expert.

Tattoo Paper

First and foremost, let's explore the two types of Tattoo Paper available: Inkjet and Laser. While each has its own merits, we highly recommend using Laser tattoo paper for its superior thinner finish. However, it's important to note that Inkjet tattoo paper offers some advantages in terms of color vibrancy if you're willing to put up with the slight thicker film. You may be limited to whatever printer you have, but we want to be transparent and make it clear that they do have slight differences due to ink's liquid nature.

Laser Tattoo Paper:

• 0.1mm thickness, least noticeable film.
• Is far more water resistant but is also prone to cracking.
• Inkjet may produce nicer color images.

Inkjet Tattoo Paper:

• 0.4mm thickness, slightly more noticeable.
• Doesn't crack but we advise to not cut into the printed design as it may weaken the tattoo.
• Produces nicer color images.

The difference in thickness is because Inkjet Tattoo Paper is designed to enclose ink which would be otherwise water soluble and dissolve in water. As for the shininess, there are measures you can take to reduce the artificial appearance, we will go over them and ensure you're left with a super realistic, movie set grade tattoo, if that's what you're after.

For this guide we'll be going with the clear option as it's easy to cut out and the edges aren't noticeable, whereas white tattoo paper will definitely benefit from a machine cutter or laser cutter. White Tattoo Paper was one of the first tattoo paper options and is still used today for dark surfaces because printers simply don't print light colors. As you know, printers are designed to print onto already white surfaces (paper). In the event that you want to print a design that uses white colors onto a clear decal paper, we recommend using a white toner laser printer. However, generally speaking, you really don't need to print white for realistic looking tattoos as real tattoos rarely use white ink. In the event that you really do need white ink, you can always expect your nearby printing company to always have this kind of printer available for you.

Now that we have chosen our Tattoo Paper, we next need to choose our designs, and we want to make sure our printer isn't set up to print as high quality as possible, and not text documents.

Your Tattoo Paper will come with instructions in English on how to best print and apply your Tattoos, but in this article I'll include some extra tricks to help you get the most out of your Tattoo Paper.

Choosing your Designs

Here are some things to bare in mind when choosing your Tattoo Paper designs.

The placement of your tattoo plays a significant role in its longevity. To ensure a lasting tattoo, it's advisable to apply it to areas away from joints and preferably on flat regions of your skin. However, if you must apply the tattoo to joint areas, it's important to stretch your skin before application. This step is crucial, especially for places like fingers, wrists, and ankles.

It's essential to remember that Tattoo Paper is a cosmetic product. Applying it onto knees or elbows can result in the tattoo falling off due to the higher elasticity of the skin in those areas. Additionally, it's best to avoid applying tattoos directly over joints, as the appearance can significantly change when the joint is bent, even with real tattoos.

Lastly, it's recommended to keep the tattoo away from regions prone to excessive sweating. While the tattoo can withstand exposure to water during showers, prolonged sweat buildup under the tattoo over time may cause it to fall off.

Printers don't print White Ink
Since printers are designed to print onto paper, most of them don't print white ink. This shouldn't be a major deal breaker, as people rarely get tattoos in white ink as they fade too quickly. Just bare in mind that white parts of your image will be clear when printed.

If it's really important to you, (lets be honest, they do look cool) then you will require a White Toner Laser Printer or use our White Tattoo Paper.

There is also the option to draw on white ink right after printing the image, using a non-toxic white marker. It's crucial to ensure that the marker you choose is explicitly labeled as non-toxic to avoid any potential skin reactions or adverse effects. 

Get your skin ready

In all seriousness, we wouldn't include this step if it wasn't necessary. Hair, dust, grease, oil, all reduce how effectively the tattoo adheres to your skin. You should definitely shave any thick hairs. If you want longer than 3-5 days longevity, then you may want to shave the "baby hairs" too, to avoid any tiny amounts of moisture travelling under the tattoo and weakening the adhesive. Ensure you've shaved and cleaned the areas you're applying to. This is one of the secrets behind getting 2 weeks out of these tattoos.

Printer Settings

Printer's default settings are to print text documents, quickly, on copy paper. If you want good quality images, aswell as avoiding jamming and smearing, this step is vital. 

With printers being designed to print faster and faster, I'm sure you understand that you may need to change the printer settings to "Max Resolution". It'll print slower, but nicer. We also recommend to use printers that have a dpi of at least 600 dpi so that the printing pattern is least noticeable. DPI (short for Dots-Per-Inch) refer to how many dots your printer prints per inch.

We'll soon include a link to a guide for making the most out of higher DPI printers, but in the meantime 600 DPI is definitely plenty for tattoos.

Manual Tray / Multi-Purpose Tray

As you may have noticed in the instructions, we recommend the manual tray for printing because it's designed for miscellaneous paper like Tattoo Papers and Decal Papers. Simply put, paper has a different texture and thickness. The usual paper tray is designed to grab ordinary paper really quickly, whereas the manual tray was made for purposes like this, including printing on card. You just gently push it in and the printer will collect it from you.

Transparency

By changing the opacity of your image, you'll also be changing how transparent your final tattoo will be. We recommend an opacity of 80% for a realistic tattoo. This trick is very useful in making your tattoo look older, like as if it's faded over time. This is especially important for those using temporary tattoos on models or actors. Typically, the ratio opacity is as follows, but please bare in mind this can vary depending how opaque your existing image is:

• 100%: Cosmetic. Looks like ink on your skin.
• 80%: Tattoo within the 1st month.
• 60%: Tattoo after 1 year.
• 40%: Tattoo after 3 years.
• 20%: Tattoo after 5 years.

Mirror Your Image

Don't forget this step before printing, unless you intend for your tattoo to only be readable from your bathroom mirror. Here are the shortcuts:

Print

Our Tattoo package is a 5 pack; so 5 sheets of printing paper and 5 sheets of adhesive sheets.

To tell the two apart, the printing paper you need to feed into your printer is white. As for the glossy adhesive sheet, we'll go over how to apply that next. If you have followed the instructions until now, then your images will have printed with great quality. 

If you had any text, it should have printed backwards. If it hasn't then you haven't mirrored the image.

Our Cherry Blossom tattoos printed in a nice resolution. We stuck with 100% opacity as we want it to look more cosmetic considering the colors are gentle. If these were tattoos with black ink, we would have lowered the opacity to 80% or less. 

Drawing onto Tattoo Paper

I'm including this as a step incase you want to add any final touches to your printed tattoo. Using waterproof markers you can add little handwritten messages. You may also add white ink to your printed tattoo if you have the appropriate marker - this is a great trick for if you don't have a White Toner Laser Printer and don't want the strong white appearance of White Tattoo Paper. Make sure to apply white ink gently over the design, as to not damage the design.

The marker is unlikely to come in contact with the skin because it'll be enclosed between two layers, and most markers are completely harmless, but we still recommend you check in the event your marker causes a skin reaction.

Pen and Pencil are too sharp / pointy and damage the tattoo paper, so we don't recommend them, but you may try to use these if you feel experimental.

Try to not apply any paints or too much marker, as it may weaken the tattoo.

Applying the adhesive

The next step looks tricky but that's why I'm here to show you the trick. Peel back a corner of the adhesive, and fold it like in the image.

There's a trick to this, but fundamentally, what we're doing is carefully aligning the exposed corner and sticking it down on to the printed side of your Tattoo Paper.

It's easy to misalign if rushed, so here's the trick. after exposing the corner, align the other corners with the page you're applying to. This will help you align that exposed corner correctly.

Once the corner is stuck, the rest of the adhesive is applied by slowly removing the protective film and pressing down the adhesive slowly. We recommend a ruler to avoid air bubbles.

Don't worry if it's not perfect and you have excess adhesive hanging off, as you'll be cutting out the tattoos from this anyway.

Cutting Out your Tattoos

I've included some tips here to help you get the most out of your Tattoo Paper, regarding storing your spare tattoos, and cutting them out.

Cut close to your designs for best results. This way it will look more desirable and we've actually found many cases where the tattoo lasts longer if you cut around the edges. I think this is because the ink thickens the edge of the tattoo, making it more durable and resistant to peeling. However try your best to not cut directly through the design as it'll be exposing the ink.

Put away any tattoos you haven't used in a tight sealed bag. This is just a friendly remind. Tattoo Paper degrades over time from exposure to air. Typically, unused Inkjet Decal Paper has a shelf life of 1 year, unused Laser Decal Paper has a shelf life of 5 years but this is only accelerated if you leave these exposed to moisture and humidity. We keep our tattoos in a resealable bag out of good habit to keep them fresh.

I present to you, our chic cherry blossom hand tattoo! Temporary hand tattoos are a great way to add a little character to an outfit. I heard handshakes leave a big impression, and we use our hands for virtually everything, so why not show your creative side?

We will now be applying the tattoo.

Removing the Protective Film

You may notice on the face of you tattoo is a clear film, someone in our reviews said that they find this really challening to peel, so I'm sharing a clever trick.

Fold the very edge of your tattoo backwards (towards the white backing), this will separate the two layers so that you can remove the rest of the protective film. We recommend folding the very edge of a sharp corner, make sure to check if the exposed image is sticky first, then you can peel the rest of the film off. 

This should help you easily peel this back to expose the sticky adhesive. The hard protective backing is there to protect your loose tattoos and to make the adhesive easier to apply.

Apply the tattoo

As previously mentioned, for best results make sure the area is clean, hairless, and ideally not on an area where the skin frequently stretches.

Stretch your skin and apply the tattoo (image against the skin). We especially recommend stretching your skin for areas like wrists, fingers, and ankles so that the tattoo can freely bend with your skin. This will also make it far more comfortable to wear.

Press down the tattoo to improve how much surface area has stuck your skin. You may even gently rub the tattoo in, just don't be too rough incase you accidentally pull it off. 

Wet the backing

Now that the tattoo is nicely stuck down, using a cotton pad or tissue, apply lukewarm water to the white backing until it gently slides off, and voila!

Let the tattoo dry naturally and it will become more durable.

Looking after your tattoo

Too much water can disintegrate the tattoo. Our staff can confidently say that they are able to take hot showers with the tattoo, but this drastically reduces the longevity at varying degrees, from 2 weeks to 3-4 days. Therefore, although it is completely waterproof, be aware that the tattoo is weaker when wet and we recommend you try to keep it dry.

Can I use lotion? You may apply lotion, and most creams on top of it without any problems. Most makeup removers should also be fine, but do bare in mind that rubbing the tattoo when wet can damage it.

It's not invincible. Our Tattoo Paper is really durable and very popular during the summer, but like any other cosmetic, and your skin for that matter, these tattoos can be damaged if trapped under tight clothes. To best avoid any incidents that could damage your tattoo, we recommend wearing tight fitting clothes around the tattoo and being careful when pulling up sleeves. Backpack straps can damage your tattoo, likewise shoes can also rub and damage the tattoos on your ankles. As long as you're mindful of this, you shouldn't have a problem.

You're now an expert!

You can now make extraorindary temporary tattoos for anyone. Switch it up and have a new design each week, or go ahead and prank someone.

Let us know how it goes below. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us, we're always happy to help.