We have many patients that come to us for removal of cosmetic tattoos.  The most common are eyebrow tattoos but we also get requests for lip liner and eye liner tattoos.  They may have been placed at a medical office or by an esthetic tattooist, or they may have been created by a primarily artistic tattooist.  The most straight-forward for laser removal are eyebrow tattoos.  One issue that has to be addressed is whether iron oxide pigments were used in the tattoo.  If so, laser treatment could cause the tattoo to change color from a rust/brown to a black or gray.  Although the tattoo may still be removable, it takes more laser treatments than otherwise and may be an unacceptable color during the laser process.  Usually, the patient does not know and is unable to find out whether the ink contained iron oxide.  For this reason, we perform a tiny test spot at the first treatment to make sure that the tattoo doesn’t change color unacceptably.
Eye liner tattoos are difficult to deal with since lasering over the unprotected eyeball is dangerous.  Therefore, we don’t perform eye-liner tattoo removal as it requires intra-ocular protection and is much more uncomfortable.  Our approach to lip-liner tattoos is similar to that of eyebrow tattoos.

Otherwise, cosmetic tattoo removal is similar to removal of artistic tattoos.  Treatment intervals and aftercare are essentially the same.  Pricing is set based on the location of the tattoo, rather than by the square inch.  It is best to come in for a free consultation to have the tattoo evaluated and discuss the pros and cons of cosmetic tattoo removal.

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