It goes without saying (but we’ll say it anyway) that a tattoo is a big commitment. Once you’re inked, you’re inked for life. Laser removal is an option if you’re willing to deal with the pain factor, the costs, and the fact that your ink might not be removed completely. Cover-ups are another idea, but you’re pretty limited: Your new art has to be bigger and darker than the piece you’re covering up.
There’s a new option on the scene: Tatt2Away’s non-laser tattoo removal. It’s less painful, cheaper than laser removal, and doesn’t leave any ink behind.
How does Tatt2Away remove tattoos without lasers?
Tatt2Away’s patent-pending equipment uses a needle bundle and TEPRSOL® technology to un-tattoo inked skin. The needle bundle, attached to a TEPRSOL® pump, traces over a pattern of part of your tattoo, removing superficial sublayers of skin surrounding tattoo ink. This causes dry scabs called Eschars to form. As your skin heals, it pushes the Eschars up and out of the skin until they eventually fall off – about two to three weeks later. After about 12 weeks, the skin is healed and ready for another treatment.
The number of treatments necessary for total removal varies depending on the size and placement of your artwork. Most tattoos can be removed in three to five treatments.
Is Tatt2Away painful?
The Tatt2Away method hurts about as much as getting tattooed does or event less since a small amount of anesthetic. In contrast, having a tattoo removed by a laser can feel like “having hot bacon grease dripped on your arm, or having a rubber band snapped repeatedly on your skin – from the moon. Because of this, combined with the cost and the number of treatments for results, many people never finish their laser treatment plan”, Tatt2Away notes on their site. This is important to consider when thinking about cost over time.
Cost, colors and tattoo cover-ups
At $100 to $250 a session, Tatt2Away sounds expensive compared to laser tattoo removal prices, which can cost less per session. However, laser usually requires more sessions, especially if you’re removing more than just black ink.
Tatt2Away works the same way regardless of ink color – it’s “colorblind” – which means that a multicolored tattoo is removed in the same number of sessions as a black one.
Why does laser tattoo removal require more treatments? Because different colors of tattoo ink respond to different laser wavelengths. When you consider that each unique color needs multiple sessions to be removed, it’s easy to see how removing tattoos with multiple colors can easily require tons of sessions – and there’s still no guarantee that colors like purple or green will ever disappear completely.
Non-laser removal makes cover-ups easier, too. Traditional methods restrict the artist – and the client – to the “bigger and darker” cover-up method we discussed before. Laser-free removal means that the old tattoo can be strategically removed and lightened so as to incorporate seamlessly into a new design, even a smaller or lighter one.
Where does the tattoo ink go? Comparing laser and non-laser tattoo removal styles
After a round of Tatt2Away treatments, tattoo ink is pushed up and out of the skin. After a round of laser treatments, it’s the opposite: Ink is broken into tiny particles and sent off into the body, to eventually be processed by the lymph nodes and liver.
Tatt2Away shares the possible health effects of this in a chilling excerpt from Bernadine Healy’s U.S. News article, “The Dangerous Art of the Tattoo”:
“Chemists from several laboratories, including the government’s National Center for Toxicological Research, have identified low levels of carcinogens in tattoo ink. But the laser removal process, which demolishes the pigment by scorching it with heat, triggers chemical reactions that generate carcinogenic and mutation-inducing breakdown products, which are then absorbed by the body. Recently, German scientists reported that concentrations of toxic molecules from red and yellow pigments increased up to 70-fold after laser irradiation. And the bigger the tattoo, the greater the toxic release.”
– Bernadine Healy, M.D. – The Dangerous Art of the Tattoo
“Carcinogenic” and “mutation-inducing” mean that laser removal has the potential to increase the risk of developing cancer. Scary? Yes.
Tatt2Away is more effective at removing tattoos than even the newest lasers. Less painful and often less expensive than traditional laser sessions, it delivers consistent results over fewer sessions than laser – and provides more options to those seeking cover-up pieces.
Tattoos are still permanent, sure – but today, you have a way to remove them that’s guaranteed to remove the ink completely.
We are stoked to partner with Tatt2Away as our premier tattoo removal service for Funhouse Tattoo, Funhouse Tattoo: International Guesthouse, and our newest shop Embellish PB in San Diego. If you have a tattoo you just can’t handle anymore but don’t want to submit your body and wallet to the painful and expensive laser tattoo removal treatment, let us know on our contact page and we can give you a free consultation on how it can work on your unwanted ink.
Sources:
Bernadine Healy, “The Dangerous Art of the Tattoo”: https://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/articles/2008/07/25/the-dangerous-art-of-the-tattoo. US News
Sarah Klein, “How to safely get a tattoo removed”: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/06/11/remove.tattoo.health/index.html. CNN Health
Tatt2Away: https://tatt2away.com/
