Tattoos (and Tattoo Removal)

One  of  the leading online news-magazines (www.msnbc.com, to be exact), had a story  yesterday  about Hollywood celebrities who have tattoos.  What’s  especially  interesting though, is that that story got more hits than  any other story on  the homepage—generating more visitors than  stories about Iran nuclear weapons,  Haitian refuges, and  gubernatorial primaries.  I guess we all need a  break from  reality now and then.

So why do people like Penelope Cruz (she has the number 883 tattooed on her leg), Angelina Jolie (she had her Billy Bob tattoo lasered off, and later replaced with a map  of the birthplaces  of her adopted children) and Pink (too many  tattoos to enumerate!) get  tattoos?

I live and work in Beverly Hills, but I have no  idea.

Some people have tattoos for cosmetic  reasons (aka  permanent cosmetics), for eyebrows, eyeliner, lips, lipliners.    Also, some women have tattoos as part of post-surgical breast reconstruction.

Then again, there are Elvis tattoos, dragons, butterflies, leopards and lizards.   For all of those crazy varmints and witchcraft tattoos,  50% of the people who  get them later regret it.   Luckily, there are several ways of  removing them, and which technique a  dermatologist uses will depend  on the size, position and age of the  tattoo.

In my practice I  use a QS laser, which breaks up the pigmentation.  The body’s  scavenger cells  then remove the pigmentation, over a period of about  30 days. The lasers cause bleeding, oozing and then crusting, so healing  takes about 7 days.  Generally, multiple treatments  are required—but there’s no way of telling in advance.

After  treatments are completed, there will be no residual pigmentation, but a  flesh-toned outline of the tattoo will remain.     Just a little tint—like in ZO Skin Health’s  Oclipse sunscreen—will help even the tone and conceal the outline.

Whereas tattoo parlors are sometimes suspect and of  questionable quality, it’s important to work with skilled and trained medical specialists for tattoo removal.  Before you get a tattoo,  just think about Halle Berry.  She had the name of her first husband,  David Justice, tattooed on her derriere.  After she divorced, she had  his name lasered off, and a sunflower tattooed in its place.  As she  said, “I wish I never had the tattoo in the first place.  Clean,  clear skin is always better.”

Good point,  Halle.