How does laser tattoo removal work
In: Biology
Yknow how if you leave a blanket or table cloth or tshirt, or the paint on the outside of your house, or pretty much anything colorful, outside in the sun for a really long time it starts to fade?
Light/radiation can break down pigment molecules.
Laser hair removal is basically blasting the pigment molecules in your skin so they break up, and the remnants are then washed away and filtered out of the blood stream
A high powered laser basically boils a small amount of the ink in the tattoo and it gets released into the blood stream, eventually the ink in the blood cells passes through the kidneys and gets stripped out. Eventually you pass the ink out of your body in your normal bathroom activities.
tattoos uses heavy metals in the ink to make the image, the heavy metals are to large too be absorbed by the body
the laser superheats the tiny pieces of metal, the rapid temperature change breaks the tiny pieces of metal into smaller pieces which can be absorbed by the body
Different colors absorb different wave lengths of light. The laser is set to one of these wave lengths (1064nm for black, 755nm for free, and 532nm for red are the best). The pigment in the tattoo absorb the light, heat is created, and it explodes the pigment within the cell. Your body is already working to remove these foreign bodies anyway (which is why tattoos fade over time anyway) but now that the foreign bodies are much smaller (having been exploded), they are much easier to remove. So your white blood cells are removing the foreign bodies and you excrete them as you would anything else.
Black is the easiest color to remove (black absorbs all wavelengths, same reason a black car gets hottest in summer). Blue next. Green is the toughest. Professional tattoos are more predictable than amateur ones as the pigment is inserted at a consistent level within the skin. You should space out treatments significantly, allowing your body plenty of time to do it’s thing. Doctors that bring you back once/month are just trying to get more money out of you. Every three months, max.
Tattoos on your core go away faster than on your extremities. More blood flow in your core so it can be excreted faster.
Source: worked for a laser company for seven years and treated thousands with tons of different docs.
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