How Do Lasers Remove Tattoos?

Lasers remove tattoos by targeting pigment colors in the skin’s dermis, a layer of skin between the epidermis and subcutaneous tissues. They do this with high intensity light beams which fragment the tattoo’s color pigment so that it can be absorbed by the body and eliminated. Laser treated tattoos generally fade over the course of a month.

Q-switch lasers are pretty much the elite of tattoo removal lasers. They produce pulses of light that are incredibly powerful. The Q-switch laser’s might makes it the most common laser used for tattoo removal. Several types of Q-switch lasers exist, each targeting a different range of the color spectrum. Quite often more than one Q-switch laser is used during a tattoo removal treatment – and they all produce impressive results. Q-switch lasers are so precise that concentrated color pigmentation fragments instantly. This ensures your skin sustains minimal damage.

Certain color pigments can be more tenacious than others. Yellow, green, and fluorescents are more difficult to remove because their absorption spectra falls outside the lasers’ targeted color spectrum. If you have a tattoo in one or more of these colors you may need multiple laser treatments.