• Question: when a tattoo gets lasered to try and get it off, does it ever realy go? and what was the biggest tattoo you have every removed?:)

    Asked by ilovenerdss to Mike, Tim, Tom on 5 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Tom Lister

      Tom Lister answered on 5 Jul 2012:


      Hello, thanks for the chat earlier. I should be clear that all of the treatments we do here are done wither by a consultant plastic surgeon or by a nurse, tattoos are invariably done by the nurses.

      Some tattoos can completely go without anything noticeable left, but most will have a little bit of pigment in them and will have a little bit of paling where the laser has damaged the pigment producing cells in the skin. From a distance you wouldn’t know there was ever a tattoo there, because we usually have all sorts of blemishes on our skin (especially as we get older!).

      Some tattoos don’t fade this well, and we have even sent some people to have skin coloured tattoos done over the top of their tattoo to cover them up!

      The biggest I have seem removed completely was probably about 25 cm long and 10 cm wide on somebody’s back. We do see ‘sleeves’ and other big tattoos, but these people often want the odd bit removed, rather than the whole thing…

    • Photo: Tim Stephens

      Tim Stephens answered on 5 Jul 2012:


      Thanks Tom.
      I don’t know anything about tattoo removal as such, but I do know that dark colours absorb visible light better than lighter colours. This means that dark pigments will absorb more laser energy and be destroyed better than light colours.

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