The size and colour of your tattoos makes all the difference when considering the time it takes to remove a tattoo completely.
To get your expectations in check, expect it to take about a year to fully remove a tattoo, taking multiple sessions, perhaps one or two months apart, depending on your body’s response to the laser treatments.
How laser tattoo removal works and why it takes so long
The laser beam breaks up the tattoo pigment into tiny pieces that are then reabsorbed by your body over time – you can’t speed up your body’s scavenging process, so this is the part that takes time. You can’t do the same area multiple times in quick succession because the skin becomes irritated by the laser and needs to heal. Only then can you repeat the process until all the pigment has been broken up and reabsorbed into your body and disposed of.
This means the time your tattoo removal takes is going to vary, and you need a personalised consultation to have your tattoo(s) examined and a realistic quote of time and cost can be made up.
At ENRICH, we use the picosecond laser available for tattoo removal. The time it takes for tattoo removal depends entirely on the size and colours of your tattoo(s). You will need to wait several weeks, up to eight, between sessions so that your skin can heal. A session takes up to an hour, but this can be negotiated with your tattoo removalist, depending on what needs to be done. If you have more than one colour, these can be done on alternate sessions, meaning the full tattoo can be removed faster than if the tattoo is just one colour.
The most important factor in tattoo removal is how well your skin can eliminate the broken-up pieces of pigment. The rate at which this occurs will be different for everyone, but there are several factors that come into play, including your skin type, pigment layering (cover-up tattoos), where the tattoo is on your body, the vividness of the ink, and any scarring present.
If you have darker skin, the tattoo removal process could take a bit longer, and time between sessions may be longer. Best results may require months between sessions, but discuss this with your practitioner at your consultation. Most of you will need between five and eight sessions total, but this varies – some of you may only need three or four, while others may need more than 10.
The Kirby-Desai scale is a tool we can use to determine how many treatments you will need for your tattoo removal. The scale uses the aforementioned factors to help give you an accurate estimate. The state of your immune system matters, since it is your immune system doing the work of scavenging the shattered pigment. To increase the performance of your body in removing the pigment, you can massage the area, stay well, and drink plenty of water.
Arguably, the most important factor in tattoo removal is the laser being used – our picosecond laser is one of the best lasers for tattoo removal as it breaks the pigment up into smaller pieces at twice the speed of other lasers, making it perfect for the tattoo removal job.
We can remove your tattoos in Melbourne with our piqo laser!
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