No easy fix for post-tattoo angst
Getting a design on son’s skin took less than 20 minutes, but regret set in within hours
My husband and I warned our son not to get a tattoo, but who listens to his parents mere months after turning 21?
We’re not talking about Ben Affleck’s giant phoenix, but a 1-by-2-inch, all-black doodle of a tiny heart between two hands — akin to the Irish claddagh — tucked away on the back of his left shoulder.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” my honest offspring responded.
It had taken less than 20 minutes and cost my son nothing: a Trojan Horse gift from a friend who happened to be a tattoo artist.
Regret had set in within hours: the kind of burning remorse that, depending on which survey you read, affects between 23 and 78 per cent of people who let other people draw “permanent” designs on their skin.
“I genuinely feel like I’ve ruined my life forever now”, reads a typical comment on a recent Reddit forum.
There’s no quick or easy fix for tattoo angst. My son faces at least several sessions of laser treatment, at a cost of more than $1,000, none of which his parents intend to pay.
Tattoo regret feeds a booming industry that earlier this year was on track to reach $4.8 billion by 2023.
People regret their tattoos for many reasons. Once you’ve decided that gang emblem or butterfly no longer fits your lifestyle, you have a lot of choices, from inexpensive DIY creams, which doctors warn can irritate the skin, to high-tech and high-cost outpatient laser treatments.
My son knew he wanted to see a professional, but as I helped with his research, we faced baffling questions.
Assuming he chose a laser treatment, how to choose between conflicting reviews of the PicoWay or PicoSure, which operate on picoseconds (trillionths of a second) or the older, nanosecond varieties with names like Ruby, Alexandrite and Nd: YAG?
Or what about trying dermabrasion, with a small skin-grinding tool, or excision with a scalpel, under a local, regional, or general anesthesia?
We ended up gathering referrals to dermatologists specializing in tattoo removal with lasers. The receptionist for one highly touted physician told me she charged US$375 just for a consultation. I found a San Francisco doctor who charged $195 for the consultation but, unlike the first, applied it to the treatments, each of which would cost $300 and of course wouldn’t be covered by insurance. He told my son to expect to come in at least three more times for treatments with his PicoWay laser.
Doctors figure out how many treatments you might need by consulting the Kirby-Desai scale, on which the number grows to the degree you have darker skin, a more colourful tattoo, or a tattoo in an area of poorer circulation, such as hands or feet.
Internet sites such as WebMD suggest a dermatologist is safer than a dedicated tattoo-removal shop operator.
Yet I wondered if there might not be exceptions after talking to Chris Slavin, owner of Zapatat in Arlington, Va.
“I’m not a dermatologist, I’m a geek,” said Slavin, who argued that Zapatat has performed far more treatments than most dermatologists and that experience makes a big difference.
Tattoos are made of thousands of particles of ink embedded just below the skin. The ink sticks around because those particles are too big to be flushed away by the immune system, as would occur with other foreign bodies. But lasers can heat and shatter the particles into smaller, more digestible bits.
Immediately afterward the tattoo seemed unchanged.
Weeks later, the change was minimal.
Slavin argued that he could have saved my son money and time with an accelerated technique, using an older Nd: YAG laser, which can provide four treatments (at $99 each), in one session without damaging the skin.
Scientific research has yet to clarify which kind of laser is best. A study last year in the journal Photochemistry and Photobiology said there was an urgent need for more clinical trials of the picosecond lasers to compare their safety and effectiveness with more time-tested equipment.
Despite the fact the industry keeps evolving, my advice about tattoos remains unchanged.
Think twice before getting one — or at least make sure it’s something you can live with for a long, long time.