It’s estimated that about 50% of people who get tattoos will later on regret them. That’s pretty significant, right? Yikes. See our article on “7 Steps to Your Dream Tattoo” if you don’t want to be a part of this number.
If you are already part of the 50%, don’t worry. In most cases you can get your tattoo taken off. Is it going to hurt? Yes. Will it be expensive? Yes. Hey, don’t kill the messenger. We just tell it the way it is. You should feel lucky you have the option of getting it off in the first place. If you were tattooed 50 years ago your options would be a lot more gruesome. Basically, doctors had to cut off your tattoo with a scalpel and then stitch on a skin graft to cover it up. This was called the Excision method. Talk about painful.
Or, if that didn’t seem appealing to you, it could be sanded off using a process called Dermabrasion. And if that one wasn’t quite fun enough, you could opt for Cryosurgery, where your tattoo was frozen and then taken off. Yeah. Fun.
These methods often left horrific scars and were extremely painful. So consider yourself lucky to be living in the wonderful 21st Century.
Most tattoos are removed these days using lasers. Will your skin be baby soft perfect when you’re done? Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Tattoos are meant to be permanent, and taking them off is no easy thing. Your skin will probably always show some kind of sign that it was tampered with. But at least it won’t involve rotating pieces of grafts around your body, or sanding it off. Whew. Anything seems better than that, right?
So, here’s the nitty gritty. Lasers work using pulsating points of very intense light. This light passes harmlessly through the top layers of skin and works to break up the pigment in the tattoo. The pigment starts to break up into tiny pieces and then get absorbed by the body. Pretty simple.
Wondering if your skin will get bleached out in the process? Don’t worry. Researches have figured out which wavelengths will target the tattoo pigment without damaging the skin. Aren’t they nice?
Now for the not so nice part. Getting a tattoo taken off by a laser has been described as getting splashed with extremely hot bacon grease. So, yeah, it’s going to hurt.
You’re probably wondering how long you’ll have to sit enduring this slow form of torture, right? Well, you’ll be happy to know that sessions usually only run a few minutes at a time, and at least 3 weeks have to pass in between each one. How many times you’ll have to come back largely depends on your tattoo. If it’s small and all black well, you’re in luck. Those are the easiest ones to take off. Some colors, such as green, absorb the light more than the other colors and are really hard to get taken off. Trying to get that gigantic green iguana taken off your leg will teach you new meanings to the word “endurance”.
Also, this is a slow process. It might take a year for your tattoo to fade. The body has to absorb all that ink, remember? So if you’re getting married next week and want to get that dragon off your shoulder in time for the big day well, you’re outta luck.
Now, the cost of getting this done is going to be steep. You’ll be in hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on your tattoo. And don’t think for even a second that your insurance will cover it. It’s considered cosmetic, so they won’t touch it with a ten-foot pole.
As far as side effects are concerned, there are few to worry about. There’s only a 5% chance of scarring, and chances are a bit higher for your skin to have hyperpigmentation, which is an overabundance of color in your skin, or hypopigmentation, meaning it will lack skin color. But again, odds are in your favor to having a successful removal.
Remember, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Focus on getting a great tattoo now
so you won’t have to get it taken off later. It’s the best way to avoid the pain and costliness of tattoo removal in the first place.
