The Guy with the Dragon Tattoo - London, GB

I am in the process of a Tattoo disaster that goes back a few years! Stupidly when on a stag do in Magaluf I had a black & grey dragon done on my upper arm that was terrible but I lived with it as it was out of sight. I had it reworked not long after getting back but that was just to firm up the lines.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago I decided to have it reworked again and also to add to it to become a Japanese style half sleeve. The artist talked me into a samurai mask below the dragon, again blank and grey, but the picture I provided and the end result were miles apart, it was also far too big for my liking as it dominated the whole sleeve, I expected it to be a small feature. Also the placement was terrible, whenever I flex my bicep the face scrunched up! I immediately cancelled the next session and went into a panic.

A few weeks later I went to a different highly regarded artist with the intention of covering it, however he advised all he could do was try to fix it, however he has just made it bigger & darker and added a load of cherry blossom around it. I am gutted.

I immediately started looking into Tattoo Removal & stumbled across this site which was a huge help. Knowing I wasn't the only person to have made this type of stupid mistake was reassuring.

I considered several laser places before deciding on Wayne Joyce at the Reset Room in Soho who has the PicoSure laser. I am currently on the train to London for my first session. My early impressions of Wayne are very good, a real down to earth guy who seems to know his stuff and laid the cards out on the table from the start. He is hopeful that I could be ready for a cover up in after about 3 sessions which would be incredible... I expect it to be a few more!

Wayne was recommended to me by a couple of Tattoo artists I spoke to and also has excellent reviews. Fingers crossed.

I will update this review after my first session with some before and after pictures.

Wish me luck!

So it has been about 24 hours since my first session with Wayne at Reset Room and I'm feeling positive. I have added some before / after photo's. Loads of the dark shading has already gone and some of the thinner lines are breaking up. Overall the whole lot seems to have faded, difficult to tell in the photo's because of photo quality / light etc. Considering the fading is supposed to continue for several weeks after a session I have my fingers crossed that Wayne's prediction of 1-3 sessions before it is ready for a cover up may not be too far off. So the actual lasering itself was uncomfortable rather than painful and lasted around half an hour, not bad for a large area. Wayne uses a cool air machine as he's zapping so that keeps the area nice & chilled. Last night it was very red, swollen, hot to the touch & the blisters starting appearing 2 of which are very bulbous & seem ready to burst at any point! I kept an ice pack on since (except when I was in bed!), this helps. Today my arm is still hot, red & swollen but not as bad as last night. Wayne provided plenty of after care advice which I will try to follow. It is now down to my body & it's immune system to shift that ink so the after care is crucial. Feel free to ask any questions & I'll try to answer as best I can. Cheers!

So it's 2 weeks since my first session with the PicoSure so I thought I'd post a quick update with some pics.

My arm was gross for about 1 and half weeks after the laser. Lots of blistering, my whole arm swelled up, the whole area was red and sensitive to touch.

I'm fairly pleased with the progress, there is definite fading and most of the shading has gone, some of the thinner lines have started to break up. However there is still a lot of dark area's, in certain light I catch a glimpse and think it is really faded then in other light it looks like there's no change. I guess it's my mind playing tricks on me.

I forgot to mention in my earlier posts that we did not take on the red in the first session. The reason was that the red will definitely blister and Wayne thought it best not to traumatise my skin too much first time around, we'll be attacking those bits next session!

I've added some photo's including a side by side view of the mask.

Would love to hear peoples thoughts.

Cheers!