When a tattoo doesn’t age gracefully or an idea just isn’t executed to your liking, a cover-up or reworking the tattoo may be viable options.  Sometimes, however, the original tattoo may be too dark to allow for many new or different options.  In cases like these, a few sessions of laser tattoo removal can be a great way to lighten the ink and expand your cover-up options.  By having a few laser treatments, you may be able to cover the tattoo with a wider variety of colors or the new tattoo may be able to be smaller than originally thought.

The number of laser treatments necessary to make your desired cover-up possible is dependent on a number of factors including the colors desired for the cover-up, how dense and dark the original tattoo was, the experience of your tattoo artist, and more. When having laser tattoo removal treatments for the purpose of a cover-up, we recommend having 2 treatments and then consulting with your artist to get his/her thoughts on how much lighter the tattoo needs to be to achieve an awesome cover-up.  Typically 3-5 treatments are necessary.

After the necessary number of laser tattoo removal treatments, it is important to wait until your skin is fully healed before getting your cover-up.  As soon as your skin is healed from the last laser treatment, have a great time getting your new awesome ink, like the one pictured below.  The “op” in the before picture was treated at Vanish 3 times.  Once it was healed, Daddy Jack at Daddy Jack’s Body Art Studio fixed the typo and added color to complete this beautiful piece.  The client is super happy with the new ink.  Also pictured is the progression of the laser treatments on the “op” section of the tattoo.