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
How Many Managers Does it Take to Run a Float Center? – DSP 200
Not every float center owner wants to be tethered to working their shop for the rest of their lives. In fact, even some that enjoy that work immensely can be doing their business a disservice by focusing on day-to-day operations as opposed to dedicating their time to marketing or expansion.
So how do float center owners get out of the shop? How many managers (Or Taco Supremes as they’re called at Float On) does it take to effectively replace the shop owner at a business. Ashkahn and Graham have successfully implemented a system at Float On that allows them to be much more hands off on the business than when they first opened and they share how got to that point and how their business structure has evolved.
Float Centers in Hip Neighborhoods – DSP 199
Do float centers in the hip part of town do better than ones on the outskirts? Graham and Ashkahn are well versed on this in that Float On is in a fairly hip part of Portland.
The guys break down some of the benefits of being one of the “cool” businesses in town as well as some of the serious drawbacks. Naturally, things like foot traffic aren’t as important. Almost no one walks into a float center and hops in a tank off the street. So there are fringe benefits to it, like awareness, but if you decide on going to a different part of town, then you’re not automatically doing a disservice to your brand.
Can You Clean a Float Tank with Vinegar? – DSP 198
You have to change out your float tank water eventually. Is it a good idea to give your float tank a vinegar cleanse when you do? is that effective? Is it too much work for the results? Are there better solutions to keep your tank clean and fresh?
Graham and Ashkahn discuss while providing assurances like “either you’re not crazy or we’re all crazy”, so that’s nice.
Have you Experienced Challenging Floats? – DSP 197
Graham and Ashkahn share stories about their most challenging floats. Everything from extreme physical discomfort to literally staying in too long.
They also share stories of floats from friends and customers that they’ve accumulated over the years and discuss the value of experiencing these difficult moments in the tank and how you might approach them when one occurs at your center.
What’s the Best Representation of Float Tanks in TV or Movies? – DSP 196
It happens every once in a while, a tv show or a movie will feature a float tank and the entire industry gets a jolt as if to say “we made it to the big time!”
But not all float tank cameos are created equal, so which one does it the best? What is the best representation of floating in media? Graham and Ashkahn go through the list of everything from Altered States to Stranger Things to find out what it is.
Latest Blog Posts
Lessons for Float Centers from a Mainstream Marketing Conference
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend Copyblogger’s Authority Rainmaker Conference in Denver, Colorado. As a self proclaimed marketing nerd, this was an opportunity to mingle with my people. I believe no matter how much experience you have in...
A Quick Note on Insulation…
Insulating the roof/joists of your float center... Basically, what you're trying to do here to create an envelope around your space. You're trying to create a barrier between a conditioned environment (your float room) and an unconditioned environment (open air). This...
Encouraging Creativity After Floating
Most float tanks centers have customers. So as to have a place to put these customers where they will be able to sit, or stand, as they please and not be in the way, most float tank centers also have lobbies. So as to have something - some surface upon which these...
Float Center Education Through Internships
Why Have an Intern Program? I (Marshall) started my career in floating as an intern, coming in to the shop each Monday to learn about floating, sanitation, and better understand the intricacies of construction projects. For every four hours I worked, I was expected to...
