Can you drink alcohol after a tattoo?
Leave it for at least 24 hours. Alcohol thins the blood, and a tattoo that has just been finished is still weeping plasma into the surface. Drinking that evening makes it weep more, which means more scabbing and a longer heal.
The first day
The session is over but the wound is not closed. Thinner blood means more fluid coming to the surface, heavier scabbing as it dries, and a heal that takes longer than it needed to.
It also dehydrates you, and skin that is short of water heals slower. You have just sat through several hours for this piece; a night off is a small price.
Why we are stricter about the day before
We will not tattoo somebody who has been drinking, and that is not the same conversation as this one. Beforehand, thinned blood pushes ink back out as it goes in, so the tattoo you get is not the one that was drawn. Afterwards the ink is already in and you are only affecting the heal.
After the first day
Normal, within reason. What matters more for the next fortnight is keeping the tattoo clean, keeping it out of the sun and not letting it dry out.
If you are on any medication, follow what you were told about it rather than this page.
Still want to ask somebody? That is what the first conversation is for.
Start a conversationWritten and checked by THRONE, a tattoo studio in Northampton.
Last checked 28 August 2026.
