What is “Tattoo Regret?”

Tattoos are a very personal expression of who we are and how we see ourselves. Getting a tattoo often marks an important point in our lives and the design we chose may represent special people or memories we don’t want to forget. But sometimes we change and what was “cool” or “awesome” when we were twenty isn’t so great when we are older. That is part of life; we grow, stuff happens and we have to change with it. “Tattoo regret” is a very common phenomenon. According to recent polls almost 50% of people who have ink have thought about getting it removed and a recent survey of 163 men and women with ink showed a full one third regretted getting ink done.  Look no further than the following celebrities:

Angeline Jolie – after her divorce from Billy Bob, she removed the dragon tat and his name from her shoulder (left image), replacing it with a list of latitudes and longitudes of where her children were born (right image).

Eva Longoria – after her divorce from Tony Parker she had his “number nine” tat removed and his initials were also removed from some “undisclosed” part of her anatomy.

Megan Fox is removing the Marilyn Monroe tat on her right forearm.

Britney Spears and Pamela Anderson are two other celebrities who have had success in removing tattoos they no longer wanted.

Johnny Depp has over a dozen tattoos. His most famous was the “Wynona Forever” tat on his right bicep. When they split up he had it changed to, “Wino Forever”!

Other famous people who have successfully moved beyond tattoos they no longer wanted include 50 Cent, Billy Idol, Eminem, Charlie Sheen and Kobe Bryant. Mark Wahlberg decided he would teach his kids a lesson and brought in two of his four children, Ella Rae, eight and Michael, five, to watch more than 20 of his painful laser treatments. His tats are gone and his kids are scared straight! As he says,

“I don’t want my kids getting tattoos. If I fail as a father, then it’s all been for nothing. That’s by far, the most important role that I’ll ever play in my life….being a parent and a husband.”

One-third of people in theUKunder the age of 44 have at least one tattoo. The Brits are the most tattooed people inEurope– even the wife of the Prime Minister has one!

The good news is tattoos are now no longer “permanent.” Tattoos often mark a phase in ones life but they shouldn’t become an obstacle to happiness. You don’t have to live with a choice you made years ago that now makes you unhappy. You can free yourself and this blog will show you the many ways today it is possible to safely remove or fade unwanted tattoos from your skin.

Laser treatment for tattoo removal is the fastest growing area of dermatology with clinics sprouting up all across the country. Those clinics provide a service yes, but they are there to make money and they can’t make money unless they sell you that service.

What about the various creams on the market? Some work and some don’t and some are downright dangerous. Each marketer will give you a song and dance about why their cream is the “only way to go.” Again, their motivation is to sell you their cream.

What about surgery, or “tattoo excision”? After talking to a surgeon you may walk away (after paying several hundred dollars for a consultation fee) thinking surgery is the “only way to go.” Remember, that nice surgeon needs patients like you, he has a mortgage and car payments too.

I am not directly criticizing the many different hard working service providers and product marketers in the business of tattoo removal but it is a business. It is hard, if not almost impossible, to get the full picture of unbiased advice which is why I am putting together this blog. Read on and get the information you need to make the right choice for you.

Pete Peterson

Image credit: alteredidentity.com/Marty Katz photography