Photo by: Rebekah Zalatan
An all too familiar story. A young adult turns 18 and hastily decides to get their very first tattoo. They decide on a colorful image that perfectly expresses who they are. However, after graduation from college that tattoo becomes a problem.
This is Vanessa Brenengen’s story. After graduating from DU in 2007, Brenengen is struggling with what to do with her tattoo, a 6-inch picture of Yoda on her ankle.
Brenengen says that she is not “ashamed” of Yoda but she knows that if she wants an acting career, Yoda may have to go.
“It was a poor decision with what I want to do with my life,” said Brenengen.
But tattoos are permanent, right? No, not anymore. For people like Brenengen there are several options to erase unwanted tattoos.
The first option is excision where the tattoo is cut out of the skin, ouch. The second option is dermabrasion where the tattoo is scraped off, double ouch. Not to worry there is a third option, laser removal.
“Lasers are attracted to colored pigment and break up the pigment into microscopic solids that the body discards of,” said Shelley Novello, owner of the tattoo removal business Ink-B-Gone on Fifth Avenue and Acoma Street.
Novello said that the process “feels like a cross between a rubber band and being spattered by bacon grease.” Unlike excision and dermabrasion, lasers will not cause bleeding or scarring.
However, laser removal will cost you. At Ink-B-Gone one session is $99 for the first square inch and $39 per additional square inches (some tattoos require multiple sessions). At Rocky Mountain Laser costs can go into the thousands of dollars. Conversely, tattoo artist J.D. Dreyer only charges $120 an hour at Phantom 8 Tattoo on Broadway and Nassau Ave.
Ugly tattoos are common in Novello’s line of work. She says that that ugliest one she’s encountered was a tattoo that supposed to be a cute-feminine mouse. However, the result was hardly cute and as Novello described “it looked like a possessed possum with a pink bow.”
However, there are ways to avoid possessed possums and Yodas all together. According to Dreyer prospective tattoo recipients should “research what they want” before getting tattooed.
Brenengen also recommended that people “write every morning in sharpie in place where they want the tattoo for a month. Also, put the image of the tattoo in their bathroom mirror so that they see it every morning.”
As Dreyer puts it, “there’s nothing like getting something that you hate six months down the road.”
