Walk into any pharmacy and read the back of the most-recommended tattoo aftercare brands. You’ll see the same three ingredients on almost every label. We left all of them out on purpose.
Petroleum (a.k.a. petrolatum, mineral oil)
It seals the skin completely. That sounds good — it’s not. Fresh ink needs to breathe to heal. A petroleum seal traps heat, plasma, and bacteria right against the tattoo. It also doesn’t absorb. You’re effectively saran-wrapping your tattoo every time you apply.
Lanolin
Sourced from sheep’s wool. It’s a thick, occlusive grease — same problem as petroleum, plus it’s one of the more common contact-allergy triggers in skincare. About 1 in 10 people react to it. We’d rather not roll those dice on a fresh tattoo.
Fragrance / parfum
Fragrance is one ingredient on a label, but “fragrance” legally means “some blend of up to 3,000 chemicals we don’t have to disclose.” Some of those chemicals are sensitizers. None of them help your tattoo heal.
What’s in InkLube instead
Plant butters and oils that absorb fully, breathe with the skin, and leave nothing on top. The full ingredient list lives on the label and on every product page — nothing hidden behind “proprietary blend.”