Want to remove an unwanted tattoo? Well, DIY kits are not the way to go.
Unwanted tattoos can be a kick to your self-esteem, but would you rather have a bad tattoo or a nightmare of skin infection and possibly permanent damage? Probably not, which is exactly why you should avoid any DIY tattoo removal kits which can be found online.
A picture of one woman’s tattoo before she tried a DIY tattoo removal kit
Just a few days ago, the BBC did a piece on one woman who tried a “DIY tattoo removal kit” and the end result was not only a painful reminder of her once unwanted tattoo – but also a terrific reminder that she should have just left it. Sometimes called a peel or “chemical peel” the ingredients in these kits can not only burn your skin but leave you with an indentation coupled with an infection.
The result after her trying the kit.
The reason? Well, most of these tattoo removal kits simply attack the top layer of the skin and it results in the chemicals simply burning the skin with corrosive chemicals like trichloroacetic acid, a substance that’s banned in cosmetics in many countries, and hexachloroethane, a chemical used to make grenades. These chemicals do not get to the middle of the skin, where you’ll find the link from a tattoo.
On the flip side, others use a “pin-prick” method in which they use a needle to try and leech the ink out of the skin, while others use chemical goes and creams which have been known to cause an immune system reaction and therefore destroy the ink. In most cases, such archaic methods cause irritation infection, and scaring to those that try to remove the tattoos themselves.
Medical professionals and artists alike both discourage these methods of removal and still recommend laser tattoo removal as the safest possible treatment out there.
