Naples tattoo removal center gives patients second chance

For some people, getting a tattoo is a rite of passage, but for a growing number of them, the appeal has faded while the ink has not.

Right now, it’s millennials and Gen Zers who are feeling the pain of regret. Christopher Cornelli is one of them.

A night in Vegas left Cornelli with a hangover. After this trip, he went home with a lasting reminder—a late-night tattoo as a souvenir.

“I decided to go with like a 1950s pinup,” he said.

The problem for him was that the tattoo didn’t look as good in hindsight. That’s why Cornelli came to see Naples laser specialist Kim Winthrop.

“A lot of people that remove the tattoos are regrets. When somebody gets it at the age of 18, and then they become 30, they don’t want the tattoo anymore,” Winthrop said.

Older and wiser, Cornelli is one of a growing number of people who outgrew his ink.

“From a business standpoint, [it] doesn’t look that good. I don’t like it. I know [that] It’s more tolerable today, but with some of my clients overseas, it doesn’t float well, so that’s one main reason. The second reason is if I want to have a family in the future, I can’t imagine having a little girl and having a look at this on my arm and be like, ‘Daddy, what’s that?'” he said.

Tattoo regret is a thing, especially with the millennial and Gen Z age group. What’s different than in decades past is that more people are getting bigger patchwork tats that cover an arm or a leg.

Think of full-arm sleeves or back tattoos. Painstakingly put on, they can still be erased. After numbing the area with ice packs, advanced lasers break down the ink into smaller particles, leaving the surrounding skin intact.

“The laser busts up the particles, but your lymphatic system removes it and filters it out, so when you get a big piece like that, you have to split it up in session, so maybe we’ll start one area, then we’ll have them come back four weeks later, and then we’ll do another area to actually get it all removed,” Winthrop said.

Cornelli’s artwork was gone in minutes.

Modern lasers can adapt to colors that used to be hard to remove. Winthrop said it feels like the snapping of a rubber band—a fairly painless way to wipe away the past.

“We get them completely gone. It’s just you have to have a lot of patience,” she said.

The cost of removing a tattoo varies depending on its size, location, and color. It can range from about $150 to $1,500 per session.