Inner lip tattoo

On Thursday, I got a tattoo on my lower inner lip. I had wanted to get this tattoo for quite some time, so after pay day had come round, I had no excuse.
I lay down on the chair-bed-a-ma-bob not knowing what to expect, which was the most nerve-wrecking part. Every time I have had a piercing I've been completely terrified, but for the first time ever, I was excited about the pain. It sounds weird and completely ridiculous, but I've built up some kind of pain threshold when it comes to piercings, a pain threshold that becomes non-existent when I fall over or walk into a door.

The tattooist clamped both sides of my lower lip, resting the bottom of the clamps on my chest so that my lower lip remained inside out. The tattoo itself took hardly any time at all, and to my surprise, didn't hurt one bit. If anything, the clamp was the most painful part.

Having an inner lip tattoo feels like the part of a lip piercing before it begins to hurt, except constantly, until the design is complete. My lip swelled up for about an hour and a half, causing talking a little more difficult. Two hours later and my lip was back to normal size!

As happy as I was with the incredibly quick healing time, I was very disappointed with how much my tattoo has faded in this short space of time. It is now Saturday, two days after having the tattoo, and my heart outline has gone from this:


to this:

There must be a way of preventing the ink from fading so quickly, because having to go back to the tattooist regularly will be far too expensive to maintain! If anybody has any tips on the matter, please email me on kiki88_76@hotmail.com
Thank you!