Tattoos may leave lasting impression you don't want
Why doctors say more and more people are getting their body art removed
5:01 p.m. Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Angelina Jolie. Tommy Lee. Dennis Rodman. They are just a few of the celebrities who have glamorized skin art.
While love sometime fades, it takes a lot more than that to make a tattoo disappear.
Giustina Rossi had two cherubs tattooed on her lower back when was 21.
"It was impulse, got it done and realized that it doesn't look good on me. It just wasn't what I'm about," Rossi said.
Today, after a shot to kill the pain, Rossi got her eleventh and final laser treatment to remove those cherubs. Total cost: about $4,400.
It's a growing market. Tattoo removal lasers are now big business.
Dr. Bruce Katz, a board certified dermatologist, has been removing tattoos for more than a decade.
"We have not seen so many tattoos as in the last few years, ever," he said.
Katz says 80 percent of his clients are women who've changed their minds.
"A lot of women today, and some men have had tattoos placed when they're in college or high school, get into the real world, into business. They're in Wall Street or investment banking, and they realize this is not professional. And that's when they realize they want to have them removed," Latz said.
Tattoos where the ink is very deep in the skin or with many colors, are hard to take off.
"There are aqua, yellow, orange, turquoise. They become a lot more difficult and they require more sessions to remove them," he said.
Rossi wishes she'd known that before she got her tattoo in the first place.
"I should've listened to my parents when they said that I'd be paying for it later on. They were right," she said.
Post a comment
(Requires free registration.)