Editor’s Note: I am not a medical professional. As with everything, discuss all procedures with your doctor.
I knew years before I actually started laser tattoo removal, that I did not want mine anymore. It took me a lot of research and a pandemic to put the wheels in motion. Upon my family’s arrival stateside, I paid a visit to Removery for a consult on my laser tattoo removal.
I know what you are thinking, “A tattoo? That is so not on-brand for you, Lucinda,”
and you would be correct. But year 2003 was cruel to all of us, no?
I also ultimately paid a flat fee of about nine hundred dollars which encompasses as many sessions as I need to fade my tattoo into complete and utter oblivion.
I was able to get one session in prior to finding out about my most current pregnancy and thereby putting a pause on the laser sessions for nine months. Since then I have had several more sessions. They are spaced around eight weeks apart.
does it hurt?
Laser tattoo removal is no trip to the spa, that is for damn sure, despite my efforts to mentally rebrand it into a medspa-like experience. Luckily the tattoo laser activity takes less than a minute, as opposed to my hair removal laser activity which is near two hours. Knowing that the pain is temporary, makes it more…palatable? Manageable. Additionally, the more the tattoo fades, the more the intensity of the laser must increase in order to see progress.
In addition to a stress ball, I also keep a countdown timer so I don’t need to ask the technician, “How much longer.”
Whereas the pain of a laser hair removal is on par with a rubber band snap, the pain of a laser tattoo removal is on par with being in the line of a more intense grease splatter.
So, yeah, it hurts.
Duh.
does it work?
I lost track of how many sessions I have completed. More than five but less than ten maybe? Definitely less than fifteen. My tattoo has faded considerably since then; the treatments are effective. I have utmost confidence that it will eventually disappear.
