Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Should you allow people with fresh tattoos to float? How fresh is “fresh”, anyway? Graham and Ashkahn share their experiences.
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: And welcome. Our question for today is “if someone comes in with a relatively fresh tattoo, what do you do?”
Ashkahn: What do you do about the tattoo, huh?
Graham: What to do about the tattoo?
Ashkahn: Well, I mean, this one seems pretty straightforward. Well, relatively fresh, I’m assuming, is within a few weeks of them getting it?
Graham: Right. Yeah, yeah.
Ashkahn: What you do is don’t let them float.
Graham: All right. We’ll see you next week for …
Ashkahn: That’s pretty much it.
Graham: So, it gets confusing, though, when it does get up to that three, four, five weeks point.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: It can depend not only on the size of tattoo, but even how deep it went and how much concrete line work you had versus shading, stuff like that. So, once again, telling them to consult the expert in their field, which in this case is the tattoo artist who gave them the tattoo, is totally what you should do. They shouldn’t be floating until their tattoo artist says that it’s all right to.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Our general, like anything less than about six weeks is where I would still have some amount of concern. Around that four to six week mark is where things seem kind of to be on the safer side, but then the problem’s not for you. Nothing’s gonna happen to your float tank if someone gets in there with a tattoo that’s not properly healed.
Graham: Yeah. You’re not worried about the ink getting into the tank or some bloodborne bacteria getting in-
Ashkahn: The tattoo rubbing off.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: Now there’s a tattoo on the bottom of the tank, just stuck there.
Graham: So, yeah, you are very much just worried about the person’s experience and their tattoo, and not causing any damage to it. It can happen. I’ve definitely heard at least one really terrible horror story of someone who had a relatively new center, and they left one of their staff in charge of it, and the staff didn’t know to turn the person away who had come in with the tattoo, and it was several weeks old, and they were like, “Oh, it’ll probably be fine.”
So, the floater went in and comes out really soon, after 10 or 15 minutes or something, and it was way too painful to actually stay in the tank. But the worst of that is was that even that small amount of time in the float tank, the saltwater had already kind of irreparably damaged the tattoo, to the point where the center owner had to pay to have an actual coverup expert, tattoo expert, come in and fix the tattoo. So, even more expensive than the initial regular tattoo work.
I’m sure it also sucked for the person with the tattoo, because now they’ve had to get it twice, and it didn’t end up exactly how they wanted it in the first place, so just a terrible, terrible situation all around. So, it’s one of those things where you just don’t want to take chances on it.
Ashkahn: Yeah. Yeah, that sounds, that does not sound like a great situation.
Graham: No. It was an unfortunate call to get one day, yeah.
So, just say no.
Ashkahn: To tattoos. Yeah.
Graham: Just say no to the tattoo. All right. Short episode for today, but no worries, because we’ll be back tomorrow. And if you have any questions in the meantime that you want answered, just go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast and we will answer them.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Being the First Float Center – DSP 320
What’s it like to be the first float center to open in an area? How do you handle it?
Graham and Ashkahn explain what it was like opening Float On, being one of the first dedicated float centers in the United States. The exciting thing is that creating awareness is really fun, but it can be a little stressful since your float center will represent floating as a practice for people.
Many of the tips here are the same for anyone opening a center: focus on awareness, be prepared to educate, and make sure your floats are the best they can be.
Are Light or Dark Colored Float Rooms better? – DSP 319
Is it better to have a light colored room that hides salt, or a dark colored room that easily shows it?
Graham and Ashkahn dish out some strong opinions on this idea, especially the idea that dark colored rooms and tanks are good for maintaining employee accountability.
What you Need to Know About Algorithms – DSP 318
Ashkahn and Derek talk about algorithms, those pesky bits of code that push your posts up or down on social media and search engines and leave you scrambling for ways to get likes and clicks, constantly mixing it up to just be seen.
The duo discusses how algorithms affect everyday posts for small businesses and how to keep up on information about the constantly changing nature of these systems. The main takeaway is, if your content is fresh, non-repetitive and you aren’t trying to game the system, you likely have nothing to worry about.
Commissions for Memberships? – DSP 317
Any sales related business knows that commissions are the gold-standard incentive program for drumming up business, but how does it work in a float center for memberships?
Derek and Ashkahn talk about the mixed success they’ve experienced at Float On each time it’s been tried.
Getting Members to Float More Often – DSP 316
Single float memberships have become increasingly more common in the float industry, typically with the option to purchase additional floats for the month at a discount. But how do you properly incentivize those members to float more than a single time per month?
Ashkahn and Derek talk marketing tips to keeping your float center top of mind and making sure your members are active regularly.
Latest Blog Posts
How Many Float Tanks Should I Have?
Intro If you’ve crossed over into the sacred realm of “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna open up a float center,” an obvious question arises — “How many tanks should I have?” Now, if you’re like me, you’re creating a 90 tank float community where everyone who buys in...
The Construction Secret to Soundproofing: Storage Between Float Rooms
If you’ve ever taken a look at our construction materials or gotten advice on soundproofing, you’ve probably heard of the importance of including “air gaps” when building out your center. What that means and why it helps can be a bit of a technical question, and the practical implementation can seem daunting and unreasonable.
Float Conference 2017 Recap
Now that the salt has settled, I’m sharing some thoughts from “The Great Gathering of People Who Really Love Being Alone Sometimes in a Dark, Briny Room,” also known as The Float Conference.
The conference has always been an amazing opportunity to connect with the pulse of the broader float industry and, if this year’s gathering showed us anything, it’s that our collective heartbeat is as strong as ever.
2017 Float Conference Program Introduction
Every year, I have the great pleasure of writing the introduction for the Float Conference program, and every year we share it on our blog so that members of the industry who weren’t able to make the journey out to Portland are able to check it out. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
From all of us at Float Tank Solutions, where our time is measured as the space between two conferences, thank you again for a wonderful year!
– Graham Talley
