Practitioners discuss how to safely and successfully remove unwanted tattoos
Irish-American tattooist Samuel O’Reilly first patented the twin-coil electromagnetic tattoo needle in New York in 1891, paving the way for modern inking and the continued popularity of tattoos.1 In 2015 it was reported that almost one in five (19%) of the UK population now has a tattoo, however 14% of those regret getting inked.2 Based on the UK’s estimated 64.6 million population,3 those figures suggest that there are approximately 1.7 million people living in the UK who are unhappy with their tattoo. This is not surprising, according to professionals interviewed for this article, who report seeing huge numbers of patients for tattoo removal consultations and treatments on a regular basis. Head of medical education at sk:n, which has 40 clinics nationwide, Lisa Mason, says, “I know that in a year we do about 14,000 treatments; the fact that we don’t convert all consultations to…
