Redness and swelling may occur, similar to sunburn. This settles within days. Some patients may develop blistering, which is quite normal and does not indicate potential scarring. Blistering does not require treatment and will usually settle within days.

The treated area should not be exposed to strong sunlight between sessions without the use of sunblock (SPF 30). Holding an ice pack to the skin for no longer than 5 minutes may help (try a pack of frozen peas wrapped in a tea towel).

You should also avoid swimming or saunas until any broken areas of skin are healed and scabs have gone. 

As treatment sessions progress, the skin may bleed or blister slightly before scabbing over for about a week.

It may help to regularly apply moisturizer and or Vaseline.

We recommend a gap of 6 - 12 weeks between treatments to allow the body time to break down the inks and remove the waste. 

Limitations: 

It can be a frustratingly slow process: we will not treat a tattoo again within 6 weeks of the previous treatment.

Although lasers are great for the removal of pigment, some tattoos are not entirely removed – you may be left with some fragments of color.

Some colors don’t fade as well as others.

Tattoo removal is not recommended for people with dark skin, a suntan or fake tan. It's not suitable if you’re in the early stages of pregnancy, although there are no known risks for women who are breastfeeding. A full consultation will be carried out to make sure there are no contraindications regarding your treatment.

Our lasers are actively Q-switched, this means the lasers deliver high power in a very short pulse (billionths of a second!) ensuring there is normally no lasting damage to the skin. Very occasionally, mild changes in skin texture may occur.

When light hits an object some of that light from certain wavelengths will be absorbed by the object, some might pass through the object and other wavelengths will be reflected. It is the wavelength of light that is reflected that determines what colour we see the object as having – i.e. a blue ink is ‘blue’ because it reflects light with a blue wavelength most effectively and absorbs other colours/wavelengths such as green or red. The light absorbed by the object puts energy into the object which is most often released again as heat. In laser tattoo removal the ink particles are subjected to very short (e.g. nanosecond) bursts of very high energy light. The ‘optically dense’ ink particles absorb this light very effectively but because it is such a large amount of energy in such a short period they can’t get rid of the energy as heat fast enough and instead ‘shatter’. The fragments of ink are then small enough to be removed by the body’s own white blood cells.

Most of the cells in our skin don’t absorb the laser light as effectively and therefore don’t have to cope with this sudden influx of energy. The only thing that is naturally like ink in the skin is Melanin. Melanin is the natural pigment in the skin which determines how dark or pale our skin is. When you get a tan it is because your skin produces more melanin molecules as a defence against sun exposure. These molecules can also be destroyed by laser light.

The lighter the colour, the more difficult it is to treat because it’s more difficult to get the ink particles to absorb energy. In particular white ink will reflect all wavelengths of light. Turquoise and bright blues are similarly difficult to treat. They are sometime reduced however as a ‘bystander effect’ of treating a darker colour that is right next to it. Luckily these very light colours often become dramatically less noticeable once other darker colours in the tattoo are removed. Most colours can be removed with laser tattoo removal. Black, dark blue and red tattoos respond really well to laser removal. More difficult tattoo colours to remove are white, yellow, purple and pink, but are easier to cover up. Green is probably the most difficult tattoo colour to remove. Transform Health and Beauty Clinic use an advanced laser that is good for most colours giving you the best results possible.

Sometimes yes, but not everything can be covered well. If you only want to fade a tattoo ready for a new tattoo cover-up, you may need just 2-3 sessions over say 2-3 months, depending on what you want to cover it with. A new light-coloured tattoo will need more of the old tattoo removing than if you plan a new dark tattoo to cover the old one. Some tattoos require a little help from the laser in preparation for cover-up, with a far superior result. A cover-up tattoo should always look good in its own right. Beware of promises to “cover it with black”. You may end up with a worse tattoo than the original. Even the best cover-ups are rarely 100% effective. If the original tattoo was very dark and strong it may seep back through in time.

The right equipment in the right hands makes laser treatment very safe but just like everything in life there are some risks. The risks are generally rare or else we wouldn’t be doing the treatment! This is one reason why patch testing (trying the laser on a small part of the tattoo) when you have your initial assessment is so important.

Skin colour change: Laser treatment affects the natural pigment molecules (called melanin) in the skin and can sometimes cause a lightening effect (hypopigmentation) on the area of skin treated. This is rarely permanent. More common is a slight temporary darkening of the skin following treatment. Again this is usually temporary but rarely either effect can be permanent.

Tattoo colour change: Occasionally the pigments used in the tattoo, particularly iron oxides which are used in red, pink and white may actually darken when hit with the laser. This darkening may be removed by more laser treatment or it may be permanent.

Scarring: On a microscopic level the laser does cause temporary damage to the skin. The body repairs this damage as it would any skin injury. Occasionally it will repair this damage with more scar tissue than normal and there may be some minor textural changes to the skin or more rarely visual scarring. If there is already scarring within the tattoo the laser treatment will not remove this but will remove the tattoo ink. Very rarely the body may react to any skin injury by producing a much thicker, bulkier scar tissue called a hypertrophic scar or even a scar known as a keloid scar. If you have had this response before you may be at greater risk of further keloid scar formation and should think very carefully about having any laser treatment.

Infection: Infection is highly unlikely if you’ve kept the area clean and dry afterwards but if you feel your skin in the few days post treatment is getting redder or hotter or more sore then you may have an infection. We can’t prescribe for you but we can help assess if it is an infection or just inflammation and you should contact your GP.

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MEDIUM AREA - £100

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