How To Remove Permanent Ink

Tattoos can be a painful reminder of a past you’d rather forget. Fortunately, the process to remove them doesn’t have to be as painful. With laser tattoo removal, you’ll feel less pain than you felt getting the tattoo, and you can also gain peace of mind knowing your skin no longer bears a visible reminder of mistakes you’ve made.

How Well Does it Work?

Tattoos are placed underneath the surface layers of skin, which is how they remain with you for so long. Laser removal works well, but it has its limitations. The type of ink your tattoo artist used can be unique; many professionals blend their own inks, particularly to achieve certain color variations. Because of the potential variety of substances used, tattoo removal is a challenging process. Black inks seem to be the easiest color to remove or significantly fade. If the tattoo was applied by a professional, chances are there is an even distribution of ink in the same level of skin. Professionally inked tattoos are also easier to target, as are older tattoos. Fortunately, most tattoos can be significantly faded, so much that you can ink another design on top or leave the skin bare.

About the Process

Laser tattoo removal is an easy way to target ink under your skin. Your doctor or specialist will calibrate the laser to seek out pigment of a certain color, such as red or blue. The laser’s beam then harmlessly passes through skin’s surface layer and heads right towards the pigment it wants. Once it hits the color, the heat it brings breaks up the color into tiny fragments that your body can then naturally remove from your body.

Will It Hurt?                     

There is some discomfort involved with removing a tattoo. Relatively speaking, however, the actual tattoo inking process is typically more painful, particularly over certain areas of the body. During laser tattoo removal, you will likely feel sensations akin to being snapped with a thin rubber band. Different types of inks require different laser calibrations, so depending on your tattoo color you might feel more or less pain. Fortunately, numbing creams can be applied to the skin before the process, and the lasers are equipped with cooling systems that keep your skin from getting too hot during the procedure.

How Long Does it Take?

Lasers remove your tattoo over a number of sessions. The session amounts can vary with the size of the tattoo, the body area and the color array. Your doctor will recommend a visit every eight to 12 weeks, and it may take a few visits before you start to see visible reduction in color. Most tattoos require between five and 15 visits to fade to your satisfaction.