Things&Ink

Things and Ink music writer, Jen Adamson (@knifeintheheart), shares her tattoo removal experience. Part one…

Most of us have embarrassing tattoos. Maybe it’s those neo-traditional, early 2000 pin-ups, that piece of tribal or the name of an ex that seemed like a great idea at the time. For whatever reason, we got it wrong. I started getting tattooed far too young, trying to make some kind of statement that, even to this day, I can’t figure out. All I knew was that I loved tattoos, but the only access I had to them was through tattoo magazines and flash on the walls of the few shops I could get tattooed in. Safe to say those shops were not the best.

The tattoos I want removed, I’ve kept covered up for eight years now. As you can see from the photos, the area of the tattoo is large and, after talking to various tattooists, removal seemed the only route. So 2014 is the year for me, ten years after having started my tattoo journey. After researching a few methods, Wayne, who works at The Circle in Soho, London, and his Picosure machine appeared to be the best option. This January, we started the first removal. I wasn’t nervous at all as I’m heavily tattooed and have had some painful places tattooed already, like my tummy. After filling out the health and safety forms, Wayne explained the process in detail.

Then we prepared ourselves. I began to feel a bit nervous and a little jumpy at this point. You hear so many different versions of how the pain is going to feel – some say it’s like hot oil being splashed on you, some say it’s like elastic bands being flicked. And I guess I was expecting it to feel like getting tattooed, but it doesn’t. The first zap made me jump, then while Wayne moved the laser round, it felt like a plaster being slowly pulled off. The laser makes your skin feel very hot, so a cold air blast is used in-between the laser’s progress, which helped. After being lasered for about three minutes, we had a little break. It feels like a slow process, but in fact it’s lightning fast. A large area of skin is lasered in seconds. The whole of the top of my arm was done in 15 minutes, excluding breaks. The skin itself goes white for about an hour after, which fools you into thinking it has vanished like magic, so don’t be disappointed when it returns to colour. The worse thing for me was the smell. My skin and the little singed hairs smelt like burnt plastic.

Once the session was complete, Wayne carefully wrapped my arm up with gauze and a padded plaster and explained the aftercare process, which meant keeping my arm dry and covered for 24 hours. On the way back to our lovely Editor’s house (who agreed to look after my sorry ass) it suddenly hit me. First, the extreme tiredness and then the strong urge to eat. I tried to keep my arm elevated for the next few days. My shoulder felt sore but didn’t hurt. After two days tiny blisters came up on half the tattoo, which I was told to leave well alone and covered up.

It’s been a week and some of the black shading that I thought was gone has crept back, but it’s noticeably faded. Already, the darkest area of black on the tribal has gone and I’m happy with the results. We also filmed the process, so watch out for posts on our blog, th-ink.co.uk, and I’ll be posting about the next treatment. Wish me luck!

Jen is having her tattoo removed by Wayne at The Circle, in London.

Watch this space for more diary entries, plus we are filming the entire process! Look out for updates.