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What Is a Tattoo? A tattoo is a permanent mark or design made on the body when pigment is inserted into the dermal layer of the skin through ruptures in the skin's top layer.
Modern-day tattoos are applied by using an electric tattoo machine with needles that rapidly puncture the skin with an up and down motion not unlike that of a sewing machine. Can All Tattoos Be Removed? A highly trained individual known as a Certified Laser Specialist (C.L.S.) can perform laser tattoo removal. Many removal specialists caution that complete tattoo removal is not possible. Tattoos are meant to be permanent, so removing them is difficult. Few specialists guarantee complete removal. Having said that, there are several methods of tattoo removal which have proven effective. The degree of remaining color variations or blemishes depends upon several factors, including size, location, the individual's ability to heal, how the tattoo was applied and how long it has been in place. For example, a tattoo applied by a more experienced artist may be easier to remove since the pigment was evenly injected in the same level of the skin. New tattoos may also be more difficult to remove than old ones.Technicians say they can't predict the exact degree of removal because they generally don't know which of the 100 tattoo inks available today were used. (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration currently lists tattoo pigments as "color additives," which are intended only for application to the top layer of the skin.) Before lasers became popular for tattoo removal starting in the late 1980s, removal involved the use of one or more of these often-painful, often scar-inducing surgeries. Lasers (Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation) have become the standard treatment for tattoo removal because they offer a bloodless, low risk, effective alternative with minimal side effects. As early as the 1960s, lasers had been developed for industrial uses. When researchers developed lasers that emitted wavelengths of light in short flashes called pulses, medical use became viable. These lasers can effectively remove tattoos with a low risk of scarring, according to the American Academy of Dermatology . The type of laser used to remove a tattoo depends on the tattoo's pigment colors. (Yellow and green are the hardest colors to remove; blue and black are the easiest.) The three lasers developed specifically for use in tattoo removal use a technique known as Q-switching, which refers to the laser's short, high-energy pulses:
How Lasers Remove Tattoos. Lasers work by producing short pulses of intense light that pass harmlessly through the top layers of the skin to be selectively absorbed by the tattoo pigment. This laser energy causes the tattoo pigment to fragment into smaller particles that are then removed by the body's immune system. Researchers have determined which wavelengths of light to use and how to deliver the laser's output to best remove tattoo ink. (If you're wondering if the laser might also remove normal skin pigment, don't worry. The laser selectively targets the pigment of the tattoo without damaging the surrounding skin).
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