我是纹身师gogo - How to get rid of your unwanted tattoos.

在gogo.tattoo官方Steemit的这篇关于老虎纹身的文章里，@hassanabid 提出了一个很有趣的问题。

On gogo.tattoo offical Steemit page, @hassanabid commented in this article on the tiger tattoo about his friend's unwanted tattoo.

纹身是一辈子的事，但是如果不喜欢了怎么办呢？

现在越来越多的人选择去纹身，但是也有越来越多的人想要用激光去除纹身。这不是因为现在的纹身越来越差，而是人们总有各种各样的原因，比如曾经的信念破灭，恋人分手，或者仅仅是因为不再喜欢这个纹身了。

我本身也经历过几次祛除纹身的过程，因为我本身对紫色色料过敏，为治疗“文刺色素中毒过敏排异综合征”，我决定让自己成为实验小白鼠，试试看能不能用激光去除这紫色，并解决我的过敏问题。

Tattoo can remain on your skin for the lifetime.
But what if you no longer like it?

Now more and more people choose to have tattoos, but there are also some people who want to use laser to remove tattoos.
This is not because tattoos are getting worse. There are always a variety of reasons, such as, for example, having broken faith; lovers breaking up, or simply because they don't like this tattoo anymore.

I also experienced the tattoo removal process a few times, since it turned out I am allergic to the purple pigment.
For the treatment of the "tattoo pigment poisoning allergic rejection syndrome", I decided to use my own skin to make an experiment -- try to use the laser to remove the purple part of my tattoo, and hopefully solve the problem of my allergies at the same time.

激光清洗是国内最常见的洗文身方法。在这里可以介绍一下激光去除纹身的原理。
我们的皮肤分为浅层的表皮层和底下的真皮层。我们的表皮层的更新循环是很快的，然而真皮层则不会更新脱落。当我们制作纹身的时候，是将色料植入到真皮层上，从而达到纹身的永久性。
因此，祛除文身并不是一件容易的事情。

所以作为纹身师，我们在平时的接待工作中一定要耐心仔细的询问客户，是否确实喜欢这个文身并且愿意携带终身，而不是单纯的赶时髦或者心血来潮。

Laser tattoo removal is the most common way of tattoo removing in China. In this article you will see some basic introduction of the principle of laser tattoo removal.

Our skin can be divided into two parts: superficial epidermis and the lower dermis.
The regeneration cycle of our epidermis is very rapid, but the dermis does not renew and fall off. When we make tattoos, we put the pigment into the dermis so that the tattoo can be permanent.

So, of course, getting rid of tattoos is not an easy job.

So as a tattoo artists, we have to be patient and ask our clients carefully, are they really fond of this tattoo design, willing to carry it for the rest of their lives. If this client just simply do it for fashion trend or whilst prompted by a sudden impulse, we have to confirm that they won't regret.

动图来自网络 gif from baidu

激光射入真皮，将色素颗粒击碎为极微小碎屑粉，然后被巨噬细胞吸收和清除，通过皮肤脱痂排出，或是血液循环排出及细胞吞噬完成色素代谢。意思就是激光射入皮下将真皮层上的色料打散然后让身体吸收，但这是一个漫长且痛苦的过程。相比被文身来说洗纹身绝对是比较痛苦的，类似被电击和火烧的感觉，甚至还能闻到自己被烧熟的味道。洗纹身的痛苦至少是纹身的3倍以上，并且不是一次就能成功的，许多颜色较深的文身是需要多次清洗，而每次清洗之间最好给予皮肤3个月的恢复期。而且即便是多次，纹身并不会百分百的被去除干净，无论洗的多么彻底，远距离看没什么问题，但近距离一定能模糊的看到文身的痕迹。

激光去除纹身的恢复过程也是额外痛苦。起水泡，结痂，若处理不当非常容易感染。

When the laser shoots into the dermis, the pigment particles will be crushed to tiny little pieces, then, by macrophages uptake or by discharge of blood circulation, metabolism pigment phagocytosis completes.
It means that the laser shoots into the skin and scatters the pigment on the dermis, and then absorbs it. But it's a long and painful process compared to tattoos. The tattoo removal is absolutely painful, similar to the feeling of being electrically shocked, while you can smell yourself being burned.
The tattoo removal process is at least three times more painful than the process of getting one. And what is more scary, a tattoo cannot usually be successfully removed at one time. Many darker tattoos require repeating the process of laser removal.
The best time period between each month of tattoo removal is 3 months.

洗纹身之后的结痂过程太恶心啦 (>0<)/

The scab process after tattoo removal is super disgusting!

四年间这块皮肤经历了种种折磨，变得好丑。但是事实证明，激光的确不能治“文刺色素中毒过敏排异综合征”，因激光的势能会对有毒的色素起催化作用，使有毒色素渗得更深、更难脱色。
还有，紫色纹身用激光完全去除的确是非常困难的。

In four years this piece of skin experienced all kinds of torture. In my case the laser wasn't able to really cure "acupuncture pigment poisoning allergy rejection syndrome", because the potential energy of the laser played catalytic role in toxic pigments, so those toxic pigments seep deeper and they are more difficult to get decolorizated now.
Also, it's really difficult to remove the purple tattoo completely with laser.

gogo.tattoo/gogo/tattoo/hydrangea_flower

“大吉”将会被紫色花朵纹身覆盖。（花朵形状的红色和黑色的线是画上去的）

This tattoo is going to get covered by some purple flowers. The black and red lines are for preparation, and two Chinese characters "大吉" under the sketches is what ready to be covered.

Purple looks great！

也许我们可以深入的分享一下原因为什么有些的颜色是激光难以去除的。

我们可以认知物体表面的颜色的原因是：物体表面吸收了某些波长的光，反射了某些波长的光从而显现出了各种颜色。例如：黄色的物体吸收红光蓝光反射黄光，黑色的物体吸收所有光，而白色物体反射所有光。

现在的纹身用品市场里的激光洗纹身机有两种激光光头：一个是绿光头，波长500纳米左右；一个是白光头，波长1000纳米左右。
当激光打到有纹身的皮肤上，就会被相应颜色的色素吸收，从而起到效果。

Maybe we can share some of the reasons of why some colors in tattoos are difficult to remove.

The reason why we can recognize the color of an object's surface. The surface of an object absorbs some wavelengths of light and reflects some different wavelengths of light, thus showing a variety of colors. For example, a yellow object absorbs red light, a blue light reflects yellow light, a black object absorbs all light, and a white object reflects all light.

The current laser tattoo removal machine basically have two kinds of laser heads to choose, one kind is green bald, it is about 500 nm wavelength, another one is white bald, about 1000 nm wavelength.

When the laser hits the tattooed skin, the pigment absorbs the corresponding color laser light, then, some pigments get crashed.

根据图谱可以看到，绿光头的波长是在黄绿色区域。
绿色的互补色是红色棕色，所以红色棕色的纹身能很好地吸收这个波长的激光。因此绿光头对于红棕色纹身有很好的去除效果。

而白光头在可见光区域之外。
黑色能吸收所有波长的激光，像深蓝色深青色之类的深色对于这个波长的激光吸收效果也是较好。
而对于黄色绿色等颜色，它们虽然可以吸收白光头的激光能量，但吸收效果远不如黑色青色。

因此洗纹身的真实情况是：红黑色最好去除且能基本完全洗净，而其他颜色是很难去除干净的。

According to the atlas, the wavelength of the green bald is in the yellow green region.
The complementary color of green is red or brown, so the red or brown tattoo absorbs in the green bald at this wavelength very well.

Therefore, the green head has a good effect on the reddish tattoo.
The white bald is outside of the visible region.
Black absorbs lasers of all wavelengths and absorbs better laser light at this wavelength.
For yellow, green and other colors, although they can absorb the laser energy of white bald, but the absorption effect is far less than black or blue.
Therefore, the truth of the tattoo removal is: red and black is easy to remove, and maybe can completely disappear. But other colors are difficult to totally remove.

接下来是激光除纹身是否会留疤的问题。

浅色皮肤人种的普通皮肤组织因为不吸收激光所以受影响较小。纹身部位会根据色料的颜色吸收激光，比如：黑色对于激光的吸收最为强烈，而黑色色料又是纹身中最常用的色料，以及被很多深色部位的媒介色，所以在激光除纹身之后，产生渗血或是红肿，长水泡这些都是正常情况。

但是只要设备质量过关，设备使用人员手法得当，客户自己在家的护理阶段也处理小心，洗纹身恢复之后是不怎么会留疤的。必须要听从医生或者纹身师的嘱咐。根据我的个人经验，去除纹身后的第一二天会长水泡，如果不去戳破它，给它一周的时间让它自然消褪会比较不容易留下肌肤损伤痕迹。

The next question is whether the laser will make scars or not.

However, as long as the equipment is qualified and used with appropriate techniques, lasers don't make mistakes. It only effects to the dark color spots on your skin, and ignores the light color spots.
The most important part is how the clients deal with the tattoo removal aftercare. They must obey all the doctor or tattoo artist's advise.

但是，建议尽量不要去除纹身。
因为，虽然我们在上海的楚上风文道里也有激光洗纹身机，但是购置这台机器的原因不是为了利用去除纹身来牟利，而是为了来做纹身覆盖的客人的获得更好的成品，因为在使用激光使纹身颜色稍微洗淡去一些之后，可以盖上更鲜艳的颜色。

一些可以直接更改的纹身，就不需要使用激光去除再做纹身覆盖了。

If you are not ready to go through the process of tattoo removal, you can do a tattoo cover.

Although we have a laser tattoo removal machine in chushangfeng, we do not recommend clients to use it. Coverups in my opinion are always better :)

Example gogo.tattoo/gogo/tattoo/dai_flower

这位女士不再想要背后的字母。
与其经历去除纹身的痛苦，不如按照原有的基础稍微做一些小变动。

The lady no longer wants the letters on her back.
Rather than experiencing the pain of removing them, let's make some minor changes on the basis of the original, still nice.

gogo.tattoo/gogo/tattoo/yan_flower

毫无原先的痕迹了吧！

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我是纹身师gogo - With love!