Unsatisfied with the pain and expense of laser tattoo removal, many people seek out alternatives. Can home remedies, do-it-yourself techniques or even professional topical creams really work?
Tattoos are normally permanent because the ink is trapped in the dermis, the middle layer of skin. If any harsh chemical, such as bleach or lemon juice or saline solution, is strong enough to burn through the epidermis to reach the layer where the tattoo is, then that solution will also cause serious burns and scarring.
A skin-burning chemical removal like this would be extremely painful, and wouldn’t even be possible with normal kitchen products like lemon juice or typical-strength household cleaning products. It almost shouldn’t have to be said, but attempting to burn your tattoos out of your skin with powerful acid is not a good idea. DIY tattoo removal methods are not recommended.
Lemon juice will not fade a tattoo
Some of these home remedy products may seem like they’re working because they cause skin irritation, or may be affecting the opacity of your epidermis. But none of them are going to be strong enough to affect the deeper layer where the tattoo actually is. No ink is being removed, and any change in your skin coloration will be temporary — if you’re lucky.
Another removal method that does technically work is salabrasion, or removing a tattoo by rubbing it with salt. This method works by rubbing your skin raw with salt until it abrades your epidermis away entirely and the dermis below starts bleeding.
Abrasion with coarse salt can remove a tattoo, but the end result is not clear skin
Instead, you end up with a tattoo-shaped scar. Salabrasion is also extremely painful in addition to being a serious scarring risk. At the end, your tattoo may be faded or even removed, but few people are happy with the pain and scarring you get in its place.
This is how you remove a permanent tattoo without laser
Tatt2Away solves this problem by carefully abrading the epidermis using a vibrating needle cartridge set to a precise depth. Now that the dermis is exposed, it is treated with a proprietary solution that liberates old pigment from the scar tissue and encourages growth of new, ink-free skin.
The proprietary solution, called Teprsol, is an organically-derived natural lactic compound. Its production meets vegan standards, and the concentration is such that if you spilled it on your skin, it wouldn’t burn you. After allowing it to activate your body’s natural healing process to expel the old pigment, the treatment technician washes the Teprsol away with distilled water.
This process may sound a bit scary and clinical, and we don’t recommend anyone try to reproduce it at home without training. Tatt2Away technicians are extensively trained and held to rigorous certification standards to be allowed to perform treatments, because it has to be done correctly to work and not cause unwanted side effects.
It’s not considered a medical procedure, because it only acts on the surface level of the skin. Tatt2Away does not drive needles into the dermis or subcutaneous tissue layers. This is why it’s able to be offered in-house at participating tattoo studio locations.
Tatt2Away is disrupting the tattoo removal industry because it’s the first system that can be put directly in the hands of tattoo studios. It’s the first working tattoo removal process that is not a medical procedure and can be performed outside of a doctor’s office.
Why do Tatt2Away treatments look so distinctive?
No other treatment out there looks like a Tatt2Away session. The pattern of evenly spaced circles is created by using a patented template to mark the areas to remove in each session. The circles and the spacing are both deliberate choices that maximize the surface area of the tattoo that can be removed in each session, while leaving untreated skin between each circle to accelerate the recovery process. Correct use of the template allows for a typical, average-sized tattoo to be removed in 3 sessions.
The skin in these circles only needs to be treated once to remove the old ink. In this way, up to 35% of ink can be removed in just one session.
Many people use Tatt2Away to make their tattoos easier for an artist to cover with a new design. In these cases, one or two sessions is often enough to allow for coverup art that wouldn’t be possible with only traditional methods.
Why choose Tatt2Away instead of laser or home remedies?
Compared to laser, Tatt2Away is less painful, less expensive, and delivers immediate results. And there is no home remedy or DIY tattoo removal product on the market that is both effective and safe to use. Anything strong enough to reach your tattoo would burn the rest of your skin off with it.
Tatt2Away Changing the Laser Tattoo Removal Industry Forever was originally published in Tatt2Away on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
