bad healin

I recently got tattoed a week ago. Within a 3 day period, it started healing rough as hell and looked like shit! Mind you, this artist has covered 80% of my body and is a good friend and does good work. He is a little heavy handed at times but I rarely have problems healing good.Anyway, the tat was healing but was pussing and I could not put any thing on it or it would puss(was fine dry). So he told me years ago that this same thing happened to him and hi doctor told him to soak his arm in a 5 gallon bucket of warm water and one cup of regular powder tide with no bleach 3 times a day for 2- 3 days and it would heal very quickly, somethung in the detergent is supposed to suck out all the bad stuff and help. It seems to have worked but it is a little red and raw, and it sucks! To understand how bad it was before, every scab that came off was leaving small holes and bleeding, now they are closed up and everything is o.k. except for the redness and being a little tender. Can anyone give me an answer?

sounds infected, i had a tattoo done a week ago, it swoll up and became sore , but was only ouzing if i put cream on it, by a few days later the top layr had gone to jelly and i had yuk running down my leg. the doctor gave me antibiotics for it , said it was a skin infectiona nd would take a week or so to clear