Can Hair Be Removed with Laser Over Tattoos
Many people today have tattoos, they have drawings and patterns on different skin locations, arms, back, shoulders, chest, legs and close to pubic area. Some of the tattoos are colorful, some are black and white, many women have permanent makeup tattoos on the lip contour and eyebrows.
In all those places where there are tattoos there is also body hair growing, over the back, the chest, arms, on the legs and pubic. Hair is growing also close to the permanent make up tattoos on the face: lip liner and upper lip hair, eyebrows permanent makeup and eyebrows hair.
It is not so rare that people think of doing laser hair removal over their tattoos.
Laser Hair Removal Over Tattoo Is Dangerous
Having laser hair removal over tattoos can be extremely dangerous!
It is important to learn the risks of doing laser treatments on skin areas which are covered with tattoos. The laser technician needs to know and warn you before you do a laser hair removal at their clinic or Med-Spa. The laser skin clinic should let you know that laser can not be done over tattoos and even in case that the tattoos covers large areas of your skin, these areas can not be treated by the laser.
Nevertheless it is your responsibility to make sure no laser hair removal beam gets near the tattoos area. Any mistake will cause permanent damage to your skin and to your tattoos, it will be your skin which will be scarred; and severe burns that will be left over the skin will go with you for years, if the laser light reaches your tattoo.
Laser Light And Tattoos
The way laser hair removal works is by the fact that light gets attracted to dark matter, and the dark matter (usually the hair) heats up till it is destroyed. The surrounding skin should be lighter than the hair color, high skin hair contrast, other wise the light will be absorbed by the skin and burns will occur. This is why it is dangerous for dark skin people to be treated by laser. Most lasers have safety precautions to avoid Fitzpatrick skin types scale types 5 and 6 (dark brown and black skin) to be laser treated.
Tattoos are ink pigments that have colored the skin in the lower dermis skin layer, the ink is dark pigment (other wise it would not be seen) and as dark pigment they attract light just like any other dark matter. For the laser light a tattoo area is like totally black skin, and the light energy will ‘blast’ it self on it and try to vaporise it. The direct effect will be that the skin with the tattoo will be severely burned!
Laser Hair Removal Side Effects To Tattoos
The least concern you should worry about is that the laser hair removal will cause the tattoo to fade, it can happen in many cases that the light cause some tattoo colors to fade, and blank spots will ruin your tattoo design. In some cases the tattoo will turn totally black and will look like a ugly spot on your skin. Why this is your least concern? Because the rests of the side effects regarding laser hair removal over tattoos are painful and real ugly.
When the laser light gets to the black tattoo it just vaporizes it in high temperatures, this causes immediate pain in the middle of the session, as not only the hair gets ‘zapped’ but the skin it self gets immediately burned! In some cases the burns will cause redness and blisters to show over the tattoo.
In the worst case, when the laser used was high power laser, with the stronger wavelength the reaction can cause the skin over the tattoo to be so deeply burned that a deep hole will done as the whole piece of skin and flesh will burn into a third degree burn. These kind of burns will leave a permanent scar, and the skin will become hard and twisted.
Avoid Laser Risks To Skin With Tattoos
The laser technician should draw a circle around the tattoo, and leave 1 inch safety border parameter so when working with the laser hand device, they do not even get close to the tattoo pattern.
In cases where you have a lip liner permanent tattoo makeup the upper lip can not be done with laser, you should try electrolysis and other hair removal methods which not depend on light energy. This hair removal safety tip is relevant to all other permanent cosmetic tattoos, like permanent eyebrow tattoos or and nipple coloring.
Get the FDA approved TRIA laser 4X newest system model (see image above).
When you are doing laser hair removal at home, with a home laser hair removal device, you should make sure the skin tone lock is functioning perfectly. Before you try to treat a skin with a tattoo, do the skin check to see if you hear the safety beep and the green light.
The FDA approved IPL – Silk’n SensEpil IPL system (see image below)
In the new laser hair removal home systems, and IPL home systems, there is usually a safety lock to prevent laser beam being projected on dark skin. The skin tone lock does a quick color reflection tests, and if the skin is too dark the laser is disabled.
These kind of skin tone color safety locks are available with the and the NEW Tria laser system.