• Video
  • What Happens to the Ink in Tattoo Removal?
{{ showTranscript ? 'HIDE' : 'SHOW' }} TRANSCRIPT
Male Voice: When you have the ink, I like to think of it as having a big bolder in the skin and the laser is like a chisel, chiseling away this big bolder. You get small pieces that fall off. The body's own lymphatic system drains those small pieces through the liver and you excrete it.

The number of treatments that it takes depends on two things, one, how good was the laser at shattering that ink and number two, how good was your body at absorbing that shattered ink, processing it, and getting rid of it. So as a practitioner, I will get paid more to shatter ink at a higher frequency, but as a physician who cares about results, I'm going to wait the maximum amount of time so that the value is there for the patient, where the ink is shattered, the body has absorbed it, there is no more ink to absorb, now we're ready to laser again and typically that's eight weeks out.

The easiest is black and the second easiest would be red ink. The hardest tends to be white or blue, just because of the wavelengths of light that are needed to shatter those particular tattoo pigments.

What Happens to the Ink in Tattoo Removal?

Doctor H. L. Greenberg describes the process of laser tattoo removal, how many treatments it takes, and what happens to the ink once it's shattered.