A new procedure however may make tattoo removal a lot faster, less painful, and much more affordable for those who have tattoo regret in the future. The company is called Quanta, and their laser tattoo removal machine removes the tattoo and covers the scar tissue at the same time, thereby cutting the number of treatments necessary for an average size tattoo by almost one-third of the time compared to the old way.
An article discussing the old way of doing things follows below. Watch for the new Quanta laser tattoo removal system soon.
Many tattoo regrets, but not much money
ONE-QUARTER OF PEOPLE WITH TATTOOS REGRET HAVING THE ART BUT MANY CAN’T AFFORD THE COST OF REMOVAL
By Cornelius FrolikDecember 9, 2010
The permanent tattoo on David Hudson’s ring finger only provided him with temporary pleasure.
Last fall, about four or five years after he paid a Dayton tattoo artist $80 dollars to etch the name of his bride-to-be into the area above his knuckle, Hudson began to view the tattoo more as an unsightly ink stain than an expression of his love. His feelings about the tattoo changed after he and his wife divorced.
“I got it as kind of an engagement ring, but things didn’t work out,” said the 48-year-old Kettering resident. “But I got it for the right reasons.”
Except in rare cases, tattoos are supposed to be permanent.
Part of their appeal is their perceived irreversibility, said Dr. Gary Palmer, a dermatologist in Centerville who performs tattoo-removal surgery.
But feelings about body art often change over time. The designs and words that originally mean so much to people when they get the tattoos later on become unwanted reminders of a former partner, time in their life or state of mind they would like to forget, Palmer said.
“A lot of times, people want them off because they’ve changed,” Palmer said.
About 36 percent of Americans between ages 18 to 25, and 40 percent of people 26 to 40, have tattoos, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
It is estimated that about 45 million to 50 million people in the United States have tattoos.
Of those people, about a quarter have regrets about their tattoos, according to a 2006 Northwestern University survey published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Despite those regrets, only a small portion of people — about 6 percent — seek treatment to remove their body art.
Part of the problem is that the ink is much harder to get rid of than put on.
Hudson is paying a local dermatologist $100 per treatment to use a special laser to erase his ex-wife’s name on his finger.
Hudson has already received half a dozen treatments since January, but he will likely need another two or more.
In the end, Hudson will have spent almost eight or nine times as much removing the tattoo as it cost him to get it etched on.
The time commitment is also lopsided: It took 15 minutes to get the tat, but it is taking the better part of a year to get rid of it.
Six to eight treatments are often required to remove tattoos that contain black ink. Tattoos with multiple colors can take 10 to 15 treatments.
More than a dozen people contacted for this article said they wanted to have a tattoo removed, but they could not afford the procedure.
The majority of respondents said their unwanted tattoos are names of ex-partners or are located in visible places that embarrassed them when out in public or in the work force.
Some companies refuse to hire people with visible tattoos, and human resources consultants warn against displaying them on job interviews and in the workplace.
A Dayton man said he was worried the three tattoos on his forearms would hurt his chances of getting into a police academy. A local college instructor said the tattoos he got in the military are not “so cool” in the academic setting.
When young people grow up, they often grow out of their former enjoyments.
Dawn Verburg said the tattoos she got when she was a teenager — a butterfly beneath the belly button and sun and moon on her lower back — are sources of embarrassment, now that she is a 33-year-old mother of two young children.
“They were what was pretty to me at the time — I went through a catalog and picked them out,” Verburg said.
For a while, Verburg said the butterfly was cute and fun to display. But she was less pleased with the sun and moon design, because it was larger than she expected and painful to get.
Real regret, however, dawned soon after she became pregnant at 23.
The ink embarrassed her when visiting the doctor’s office for tests, and thinking as a mother, she did not want to set a poor example for her kids.
“I do not want my kids growing up thinking that since I have them, it’s OK they have them too,” Verburg said.
Verburg plans on having them removed, but she said it would have been far easier if she never got them to begin with. She said if she acted less impulsively, she would have no butterfly, planet or star to worry about her children or others seeing.
Palmer said only a tiny fraction of his dermatologist practice is devoted to tattoo removal. He only treats a few patients each day.
He said tattoo removal procedures would be more popular if the cost was not prohibitive.
“I think a lot of people would have it off if it was inexpensive,” Palmer said. “We charge $75 an inch, so a small tattoo may cost $75 per treatment, but a large tattoo could cost $500 per treatment.”
There are inks that are easier to remove with lasers, but they cost more to get. Most people do not want to spend more on their tattoos and assume they will love their body art forever.
In his job, Palmer encounters tons of people whose love of their tattoos have faded, like many of the tattoos themselves.
He urges people to really do some soul searching before getting a tattoo.
“You get a tattoo because you are trying to tell (others) something — you get a tattoo on your arm because you were in the service, or you get a tattoo in honor of somebody or you did it on a fluke,” Palmer said. “It ends up causing you to talk about it. ... Some people do not want to talk about it anymore. They just want it gone.”
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Inflicting Ink is a Rhode Island Tattoo Studio that embodies quality, consistency and pride, and offers a sterile, safe, comfortable, artistic environment to its customers. Nominated multiple times for the Best Tattoo Parlor in Rhode Island and Best Tattoo Artist in RI.
You may contact them for an appointment for a tattoo at (401) 683-5680 and of course walk-ins are always welcome.
For more information, please visit our home page at www.inflictinginktattoo.com.
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