How Painful Is Tattoo Removal?

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Not feeling that flaming skull tattoo with your ex’s name across it anymore and wondering if you can stomach the pain of tattoo removal? Rest easy — while laser tattoo removal can hurt, chances are it won’t hurt as much as getting the tattoo did.

Tattoo removal pain is comparable to the pain of a bad sunburn, and the laser pulses feel like a rubber band snapping against your skin. Cringe-worthy, yes, but tolerable.

How tattoo removal works
Laser tattoo removal uses pulses of high-intensity laser to penetrate the upper layer of skin — or epidermis — to break the pigment into smaller particles. Those smaller particles are then absorbed into your body and metabolized.
It takes multiple treatments to do the trick. How many depends on the size of your tattoo and the colors (lighter colors are harder to remove Trusted Source than dark ones). Then there’s the healing time between treatments — usually a few weeks each.

Laser isn’t your only option for removing a tattoo. There’s also dermabrasion, which involves sanding off the top layer of skin. (Ouch, right?)

Surgery is another option, though this is obviously more invasive — it involves cutting away the tattooed skin and stitching the remaining skin back together.