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Hi all. I got my very first tattoo September 2018 and safe to say I chose the wrong tattoo artist. His black and gray work is amazing so I thought I was in good hands but I don’t think he cares much for the style I was going for. He didn’t seem to care about my vision for my tattoo and when I got up and said “so what if I wanted to come back and tweak the colours?” He says “I don’t know why you’d want to”.... because it’s my arm and it’s looks nothing like the photos I showed you? Anyway, after doing some research I felt that picosure was the best way to go for a colourful tattoo like mine. I’m not 100% sure if I’ll continue with full removal or maybe do a cover up later on. At this point I’m really in no hurry to go getting more ink. Fast forward to today and I just had my first treatment with Tiffany at Urban Lasers and aesthetics in Sherwood Park, Alberta Canada. She used the black hand piece on me first to target the darker colours and said she wold do the red hand piece next time to start on the pinks and yellows. They also have a third hand piece.. can’t remember what one but I’m sure you can find out on the Cynosure website? She started me with a 3.5 spot size and she did 1953 pulses (if that means anything to anyone). I paid $15 extra for the numbing cream which I sat with for about 15 minutes. She elected to use a “blt” cream which is a combination of benzocaine lidocaine and.... something else google probably can tell you. The treatment itself lasted probably 2-3 minutes and was probably a similar level of pain compared with the tattoo on a 1-10 scale but where a tattoo feels scratchy I found this to feel more like being poked repeatedly with a little pin or needle. The dark green spots hurt slightly more than the rest and it was pretty evident that the pink was not reacting as it didn’t frost like the other areas. My treatment cost $380 after tax and tips are encouraged at this establishment.. honestly I felt very okay with leaving a tip as the service from front desk to treatment room was truly wonderful. I am now about 10 hours post-treatment and can’t resist peeking! I’m so thrilled to see that it looks like the purple and green are essentially GONE? WHAT?!? I could cry happy tears all night long. It makes me feel really optimistic that at the least I can expect to have something really workable for a coverup by next year if I decide to get one! Yay!!!! Updated on 13 May 2019: Quick update for a few days post treatment. Healing has been easily less uncomfortable than healing after getting the tattoo. Happy to see still very little green or purple shading remaining, green line work will need more work. Really looking forward to seeing how it looks after hitting it with the red hand piece! Updated on 23 May 2019: Almost one week post first treatment. Just posting this for anyone interested in seeing the healing journey because I spent so many hours going through reviews on real self leading up to this! Itching comes and goes but I’ve also not done a great job of keeping it moisturized. Also for anyone interested, I’m quite active, healthy eater, drink lots of water, non smoker, non drinker. Though my skin is quite fair I do tan very easily which is usually a great thing but is a bit of a consideration where tattoo removal is involved. Normally I don’t touch sunscreen so that will be a test for me this summer! Updated on 24 May 2019: Updated on 28 Jun 2019: I don’t think there has been much change over the past several weeks, but posting an update anyway. No idea yet when my next treatment will be but I’m hoping I can go in fall. Updated on 12 Oct 2019: I did a pretty good job of staying out of the sun this summer, but I do tan super easily. I swear my skin just knows the sun is out and tans whether I am actually exposed to it or not... anyway, it's a half day of flying to get to a good place with pico so I knew it'd be a while anyway. Here is my tattoo 11 days out from my second treatment which I just booked at the same place with the same tech. This time will be the red hand piece. Wish me luck! Updated on 24 Oct 2019: Had my second treatment today, same place and same technician. I think it hurt less than expected the first time so I went into it this time not worried at all, but it hurt more than I remembered! She did turn it up this time so that could be why. After the first session she said she would be using the red handpiece next time, however when she looked at it today she worried it would be too much given the dark shading that is still there. If she had used it she thought I might blister horribly and scar. I did ask her to do a test patch with the red handpiece just so I can see how it goes, so the pink streak thing closest to my hand was treated only with the red hand piece while the rest was done with the black handpiece. She says some people notice the red handpiece is less painful but I thought it felt the same, could be because the wrist hurt the most anyway. This treatment cost the same as the last one but she thinks the price will start coming down next time as we start focusing on the red/pinks. Updated on 24 Oct 2019: Had my second treatment today, same place and same technician. I think it hurt less than expected the first time so I went into it this time not worried at all, but it hurt more than I remembered! She did turn it up this time so that could be why. After the first session she said she would be using the red handpiece next time, however when she looked at it today she worried it would be too much given the dark shading that is still there. If she had used it she thought I might blister horribly and scar. I did ask her to do a test patch with the red handpiece just so I can see how it goes, so the pink streak thing closest to my hand was treated only with the red hand piece while the rest was done with the black handpiece. She says some people notice the red handpiece is less painful but I thought it felt the same, could be because the wrist hurt the most anyway. This treatment cost the same as the last one but she thinks the price will start coming down next time as we start focusing on the red/pinks. Updated on 28 Oct 2019: No blistering this time! Just dry dark patches. It has not been uncomfortable really since the day of, I forget that I had it done until I bump or brush up against something with this part of my arm but even this isnt very painful. I realized I forgot to mention something my tech said, sometimes when the ink responds really quickly it suggests that the ink wasnt placed very deep which makes it easier and faster to treat. Hoping so hard that fading goes quickly! I dont see the dramatic results I did with the first but you can see some of the (formerly) green line work breaking up already and theres definitely a change with the pink ink that we tested the red handpiece on. I think itll be at least a couple weeks before I get a good idea and these dry patches come off. I used to read these forums and be really sad when people would just stop posting about their progress, now that it's me doing the posting I see theres really not much interaction and I dont know if it's even helping anyone that I'm posting? If you're reading this and find it helpful please say hi or hit helpful? Updated on 14 Dec 2019: So not much change really, just not thinking much about it and hoping the next session will be even better. One thing to share is that the one piece of pink that she did with the red handpiece was terribly itchy for weeks after and felt hard and raised for a long time after too. I can still just barely feel that its hardened there.. so guess words of advice are listen to your tech if they think you're not ready! The pink that was treated actually looks slightly darker now, a bit more towards purple but hard to tell. Also nice to see some of the old green line work breaking up. Adding a close up of where I know there was white ink before because someone mentioned they worry about their white ink. It looks like mine has turned gray in some spots but there wasnt much there to begin with so I'm not bothered Updated on 24 Jan 2021: Hey all, I was just browsing tattoo cover up ideas and getting excited when I thought I should log on here and leave an update. I haven't had another treatment. With covid and having to travel a bit to get to my nearest laser it just hasn't happened. I'm not super concerned as I dont hate how my tattoo looks now.. weird as that is to say since if you really look at it the colors are pretty ugly. But if you're not looking closely I think they blend in kind of nicely with my skin and have more of the subtle look I was originally going for. Anyway I'm starting to think about going for a cheaper laser place next time and trying the Ruby laser to hopefully tone down these pinks. The test patch I did with the red handpiece for pico really doesn't look like its much lighter than the rest at all. Huge advocate for a test patch here! Any tips on finding a good artist who does cover ups? I was thinking of asking around at tattoo removal shops maybe. Any other ideas would be great. I think I've healed from the trauma of having a horrible tattoo experience and am just as excited about what could be on this forearm as I was before it ever happened. I even went out and got two new (small) tattoos with a wonderful artist. She was sooo kind and eager to make sure that I got what "I" wanted. The original inspiration for my first tattoo was the quote "love louder" but the tattoo artist had a big thing about never doing script oriented in the direction I asked for so he refused to do the script (holy F what was i thinking. What an @$$). So I finally went out and got the words I wanted on my body and I looove how delicate and pretty it is. The flowers were just because I liked them and thought they'd look nice.. talk about being over my trauma right!!