How Tattoo Removal Works
TLDR:Laser tattoo removal uses photoacoustic energy to shatter pigment into tiny particles that your body flushes through its renal system.
This partnership of technology and your body’s natural processes requires adequate spacing between sessions for best results.
Your tattoo was made to last. We’re here to change that.
Laser tattoo removal is a partnership between technology breaking up the ink in your skin, and your body’s natural process of flushing out waste.
Tattoos aren’t made to disappear. Tattoo artists have refined the art of depositing ink into the skin, and really packing it in there so it will stand the test of time.
Sun exposure can affect them, fuzzying up the details or fading the vividness over the years. But you’d still have ink beneath your skin even if you scampered about in the sunshine naked for years.
Will the laser fade your tattoo after one session? Highly unlikely. As we said, tattoos are made to stay – but we do speed up the process.
So how does laser tattoo removal work? With a partnership between science, patience, expertise, and … a bit of magic.
How Does Laser Tattoo Removal Work?
Photoacoustic Precision
In the early days of laser we used nanosecond technology – each snap of the laser lasting one billionth of a second. The thermal effect could certainly break apart tattoos, but also could result in blistering or scarring. Nanosecond lasers, like the Quanta system, are still quite useful for tattoo removal today – especially for late stage removal.
While that may sound fast, our modern PicoWay laser uses picosecond pulses, or one trillionth of a second. This photoacoustic effect means there is less heat hitting your skin and surrounding areas, which means less damage to the surrounding tissue and is generally safer for all skin types – especially in the hands of a good laser technician. This doesn’t make it impossible, but it certainly presents more challenges and risks to mitigate.
The photoacoustic energy shatters the ink pigment into smaller pieces, signaling your body’s natural processes to pass it out as waste over the following weeks and months.
Pigment Targeting
Lasers aren’t specifically tattoo removal machines, but target pigment that your body then removes. That’s why we emphasize protecting the treatment area from the sun to keep the area at its fairest, minimizing the risk of hyperpigmentation or hypopigmentation – or darkening or lightening of the skin.
We used different wavelengths to target different colours:
- 1064 for black and brown
- 730 for blue, green, purple, and brown
- 532 for red, orange, yellow, purple, and brown
What does laser tattoo removal look like?
Let’s walk through the process of a treatment.
After you’ve had your free consult and you come to your first treatment (often immediately after your consult), you enter our laser room.
We may clean the treatment area, or dry shave the area before we begin.
We precool the area with a combination of ice packs and our Zimmer Cryo 6 cooling hose – like a reverse vacuum cleaner that sends brisk, cool air through a hose onto the treatment area. This has the dual purpose of reducing the sensation, as well as mitigating the heat we are about to put in the skin.
Once we are ready to roll, the laser turns on. Between the PicoWay laser and the Zimmer, the hum of machinery fills the room, and we raise our voices to hear each other – the laser tech ensuring everyone in the room is wearing their protective goggles.
As our laser tech sets the appropriate settings and steps on the foot pedal that controls when the laser runs, you feel on your skin and sharp sensation, what feels like a hot elastic band snapping on the skin – accompanied by an audible snap.
It’s not as bad as you expected – though some body parts or larger pieces certainly feel it more.
For the first 1-3 treatments, you’ll experience a strong visual feedback with each snap of the laser: a distinct lightening of the tattoo, anywhere from white to golden in colour. What you see is not your tattoo immediately disappearing, unfortunately, rather an immediate thermal reaction in your skin known as frosting. This temporary reaction lasts around 10 minutes, and is basically steam releasing beneath the skin.
We take breaks to reapply the ice packs, get visual feedback on how the tattoo reacts, and perhaps change laser settings or hand pieces.
With smaller tattoos, a business card size or less, you’ll be under the laser for less than 30 seconds. Our largest tier size is about the size of a standard sheet of paper, and you’d be under the laser 30-40 minutes.
The appointment ends with additional cooling to take as much heat out as possible. We’ll go over aftercare again, and give you an ice packs to take with you.
We highly recommend taking it easy after your appointment: elevate the treatment area, and ice on and off for at least an hour.
The more you ice, the more heat you’ll draw out, and the better the healing process will be.
Over the next few days, you’ll note redness in the treatment area.
Ready to begin?
We’ll walk you through every step of the way and answer any questions you have.