Bad Tattoos: Conceal, Cover Up, or Remove Them Entirely?

There Are Right Ways and Wrong Ways So It’s Best to Be Prepared.

Tattoos are like marriages. Sometimes you don’t realize until too late that you’ve made a terrible mistake. While you can always tell your spouse that you’re going to “buy some smokes” and never return home, it doesn’t dissolve the legal bond, and it leaves a lot of loose ends. It’s time-consuming, frustrating, expensive, inconvenient, and painful to go through a divorce, but it does solve the problem. Getting rid of tattoos is all those things. With cosmetics, cover-ups, and permanent removal available, there are several options for making unfortunate tattoos disappear. It's good to be informed about each possibility before you choose.

Even tattoos that are loved sometimes need to be covered. Maybe it’s a shoulder-revealing wedding dress, a “no tattoos” director or photographer, a disapproving relative, a profession that takes exception to visible tattoos, or a job interview where you don’t know how they feel about body ink. Tattoos on the hands, wrists, neck, and face are most likely to go into hiding. The least invasive way to do so is to cover the tattoos with cosmetics. It won’t last forever, but it’s not painful or expensive. Once the makeup is removed, the tattoo remains, much to the delight or chagrin of its wearer.

Anyone who has ever applied cosmetics knows that it can take time and repeated effort to perfect your technique, so don’t panic if it takes a few attempts before it looks the way you want. Before you can experiment, the following items must be procured: a skin cleanser, makeup primer, full-cover foundation, and concealer (make sure they are the right skin tone), a puff or brush to apply face powder with, makeup sponges, setting spray, a color-correcting orange or peach crayon or coverup makeup in red or coral.

Makeup to Cover-Up

Once the beauty products are assembled, the transformation can begin. Clean the area in question. Soap and water or an alcohol wipe work if skin cleanser is unavailable. Once clean and dry, apply makeup primer over and around the tattoo so it blends. This will make the makeup last longer. Now that the art is ready to disappear, color-correct the ink with coverup. The budget-minded can use a color-correcting crayon instead. This step is important unless you want to use more concealer and foundation.

Tattoos that use blue ink require orange or peach corrector, green and black ink is best covered with red corrector. The darker the skin, the more vivid the shade should be. Next, blend foundation around the tat with a sponge so it all looks more natural. Apply a skin-tone matching concealer on top of the foundation and mix with a sponge or finger. Set it all with a translucent dusting powder and then use hairspray or a cosmetic setting spray to make sure the tattoo stays hidden.

New and Improved Art

If the time has come to make your tattoo go away permanently, one option is putting a better and bigger tattoo on top of it. A 2022 Rasmussen Report found that almost half of Gen Z, Millennial, and younger Gen X Americans are tattooed. That’s a lot of potential for regret. Since the goal is to cover the old with something new that lasts and looks good, it’s vital to look for a tattoo artist who not only works in your preferred style but is also familiar with tattoo cover-ups.

You may spend more, but the ink won’t clash, mix badly, or not adequately cover the preexisting art if you go with someone who knows what they’re doing. While not every tattoo can be covered, when they can, the new tattoo needs to be twice or three times as big as what is being covered. How painful this is will depend on any preexisting scar tissue and nerve damage. The more damage, the greater the chance of pain.

And Then There Were None

Tattoos that absolutely need to go can usually be effectively erased by laser removal. It won’t be fun, but it will get the job done. How laser technology works is dramatic because its high-intensity light beam pulses cause the individual ink particles to explode under the skin. This feels like a bad sunburn with blisters. Black ink tattoos are the easiest to remove but most will take repeat visits and treatments before the body’s immune system removes the ink. It can take 10 or more nearly 30-minute appointments to irradicate most or all evidence of the tattoo. At about $100 per session, the need to wait three months between them, and the average time for completion is two and a half years, tattoo removal is an investment.

Talk with a dermatologist, plastic surgeon, or certified tattoo removal specialist before making a final decision about removing a tattoo so that you can ask about pain management available during the procedure, risk factors, realistic expectations, cost, skin condition, and how long it will take. In some cases, it may be best to combine laser removal with a cover-up tattoo. This takes fewer sessions and will cost less than laser removal alone. Older tattoos that have faded and those near the heart are easier to eliminate.

Common risks relate to infection, bleeding, scarring, and blistering. To help it heal, you will want to avoid lotion, cream, or makeup on the affected skin and, instead, keep it dry and clean. Cover it with an antibiotic ointment and a sterile bandage for three days after each appointment. Even after the bandage is removed, keep the area dry and clean. Vitamin E, petroleum jelly, and hydrocortisone cream can be applied to hydrate the skin. Speaking of hydration, don’t go into a laser tattoo removal appointment without being hydrated or on an empty stomach. Ideally, you’ll stop smoking for at least a few days prior to each session since it slows the healing process.

Do not give in to the temptation to sunbathe, spend a lot of time in the sun, or go to a tanning salon for at least a month after treatments to allow the skin to heal. Before each appointment, you can take acetaminophen but don’t take aspirin or Advil since they promote bruising. Whatever you do, don’t get suckered by inexpensive at-home tattoo removal creams and the like. They won’t work and you’ll just be back where you started but with less money.