Picosure Tattoo Removal

Tattoos fade gradually with multiple laser treatments. It is not currently possible to remove all tattoo ink in the skin with one treatment. But PicoSure™ works faster than traditional tattoo removal with lasers. 

The PicoSure™ laser does a much more thorough job at breaking apart tattoo ink particles. This is because of the way the laser light is delivered into the skin. It uses very, very short pulses (these last for just trillionths of a second). The pulses create pressure from energy, causing the ink to break into smaller particles than with traditional lasers. That then makes it easier for the body to remove those particles through absorption by the lymphatic system. The result is permanent tattoo removal, almost as if the skin never had one to begin with.

In the past, the ‘breaking apart’ of ink in the skin had to be done in increments, and by using heat. You can visualize this by imagining the ink of a tattoo as a giant rock boulder. The first treatment was like creating one ‘blast’ to break apart the so-called ‘boulder.’ Then each smaller piece from the initial ‘blast’ had to be broken down in subsequent treatments. This process would repeat until the ‘boulder’ would turn into very small ‘rocks’ – like ‘sand’ even. The skin could then absorb the ink in that state. But we couldn’t do too many ‘blasts’ at once. We also couldn’t create very high heat ‘blasts,’ because that would damage skin, which we want to preserve.

With picosecond technology for laser tattoo removal, it is like the ‘blasts’ to break apart these imaginary ‘boulders’ go much, much faster. They also happen without heating up the skin. Instead of breaking tattoo ‘boulders’ into large ‘rocks’ as a first step, these new lasers start by shattering them into tiny particles, right at the outset. This causes the disappearance of tattoos with fewer treatments. Each treatment is doing a more effective job at ‘shrinking’ ink particles, so they are small enough for the body to absorb, and then remove them.