You, or your client, may want to remove a cosmetic tattoo (PMU). This could be a pair of brows, or lips, eyeliner, scalp micropigmentation or possibly a paramedical treatment. There are many reasons why:
- Unhappy with the treatment results; shape, colour, style, or a combination.
- Pigment has migrated over time, particularly with microblading. With brows this typically produces a blurred blue-grey tattoo extending beyond the treatment area.
- Colour has changed due to colour ingredients fading at different rates, or reactions with medications.
- With ageing, face shapes change, and cosmetic tattoo shapes need to be redesigned and redone.
- Particularly with paramedical treatments such as scar camouflage, the skin tone has changed, but the tattoo colour has not, and it becomes prominent.
What options are promoted for cosmetic tattoo removal? There are many. Some work. Some don’t work at all. Some work but cause skin trauma or other adverse effects.
Typically, a cosmetic tattoo is on the face, so you want to be very sure that remove technique and technician you choose is a good one. Would you go to a general medical practitioner for facial surgery? No, you’d go to a plastic surgeon. For cosmetic tattoo removal, you want to go to a well trained and knowledgeable removal specialist who uses the right product and technique.
Any removal technique typically takes more than one session. Some may never actually remove much pigment.
Laser removal is heavily promoted for removal. A laser is a strong beam of light (on a single wavelength) that targets a particular colour. It super-heats the pigment particles and makes them explode, heating up the surround skin at the same time. Lasers are also used for hair removal, so you might not want that on your brows. There is no doubt that lasers can remove pigments. Are they appropriate for most cosmetic tattoos? We think not and unpack that in more detail in another article.
We also discuss other removal techniques in some of our other articles. If you are short on time, what does work is THink Pigment Remover, used by a THink-trained technician, each time, every time. It doesn’t remove hair. It doesn’t damage the skin or produce scar tissue. It does remove pigment.
