Tattoo removal treatments fit along a bell curve – most patients will need between fine and eight treatments, some will see complete removal in three or four, and others may need 10 or more treatments if there is significant scarring or layered tattoos.
Larger tattoos may require between eight and 10 removal sessions. Smaller tattoos may require between five and seven removal sessions. However, some tattoos can take as few as two treatments or as many as a dozen sessions.
Most tattoos will require between five and ten sessions. Bigger tattoos will take up to the ten sessions, while the smaller ones may be closer to five sessions. It is safe to assume your tattoo will need somewhere in there too. This is a broad answer because laser removal of tattoos will depend on many factors.
Can tattoos be removed in one session? It's very rare that a tattoo can be removed in just one treatment. The only cases where we've seen that happen were very light tattoos, applied in an amateur manner on fair skin.
For a small tattoo, which is about 5 square centimeters, the removal will probably take about five minutes. For a medium tattoo of 10 square centimeters, expect the session to last 10 to 15 minutes. Larger tattoos can take anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour or slightly longer.
The time it takes to remove your fresh tattoo will depend on the size, colour of the ink as well as your skin type. Black ink tattoos are the easiest to remove, whilst older technologies have found coloured tattoos tend to be more difficult.
A 1-inch by 1-inch tattoo can be treated in less than 5 seconds! a 2-inch by 2-inch tattoo can be treated in less than 20 seconds. So, can your large tattoo that took several hours to receive be removed in less than 5 minutes? Yes! Often, our clients are surprised with how quickly they were able to be seen and treated.
The laser tattoo removal process typically takes several sessions to be effective. After your first session, you may notice the tattoo pigments have even gotten darker. This is a normal part of the process. After two or three sessions, you will see a noticeable fading.
Laser Tattoo Removal After 1 Session
After the first session, most people can expect some significant fading, especially outlines. It's also important to note that differences in your tattoo will affect how the fading appears. You might see substantial fading in one portion of your tattoo and less in others.
The average number of sessions necessary for complete tattoo removal is 6-10, although it can be more than 10, depending on certain factors, which are described below.
There may be many unwanted side effects when a tattoo is removed too early. One side effect that is likely to occur is blistering of the skin. This happens because if the tattoo is not fully healed, there are still ink particles sitting in the top layer of the skin, which causes blisters to form.
How you treat your skin, and its condition, affects tattoo removal as much as when you got the tattoo. Though most people find that there's little to no scarring from the process, it does happen. More frequently occurring in those with darker skin tones, scarring can come about due to a loss of pigmentation.
The ink's chemical composition and the size of its pigment granules are among the reasons for an ink's ease or difficulty to be removed. Tattoos that are very simple designs with fine lines tend to fade quicker than more complex designs that are heavily inked.
Typically, black, green, and blue are the easiest tattoo pigments to remove. On the other hand, whites, reds, yellows, and oranges are more difficult. Though it's not impossible, it can take longer and more sessions to erase these tattoos. The age of your tattoo is another factor to consider.
1 square inch: $75 per treatment. 2 square inches: $100 per treatment. 3 square inches: $150 per treatment. 4 square inches: $200 per treatment.
Generally speaking, it takes two to four weeks for a new tattoo to heal. Usually, if the tattoo hasn't healed within the month there's another problem.
Different dyes respond to different light wavelengths. Black and dark green are the easiest colors to remove; yellow, purple, turquoise and fluorescent dyes are hardest to fade.
Laser tattoo removal not fading can be caused by several factors. Some of which are the type of laser used, laser wavelength and ink colour, the laser technicians experience, recovery time between each session, and your immune system. Tattoo removal using laser treatment is not magic.
Laser treatment is the process of breaking down those ink particles into small enough chunks for the white blood cells to access. Tattoo removal lasers pulse light energy into the skin to heat the ink particles so that they can expand and shatter.
Generally speaking, smaller tattoos with less ink peel off up to 1 week. For larger tattoos with more ink, it might take up to 2 weeks to fully finish peeling. Don't worry if your tattoo hasn't started peeling within five days or is taking longer than two weeks to peel.
In general, a tattoo under 2 inches is tiny, something 2 to 4 inches is small, 4-6 inches is medium, and 6 or more inches is large. It is important to understand that these sizes are subjective though. Each tattoo artist will have to determine their sizes and how they price them.