UN-INKED: Everything You Need To Know About Tattoo Removal In 2023

The Method

In frustration at work, I had begun digging into my tattoo with a paper clip. The first few scrapes didn't hurt too badly, everything afterward did. But it was me or the tattoo. I kept grinding away. Soon my hand was bleeding.

I continued to take calls at work, giving my hand a rest from the scraping, scraping, scraping. Soon it hurt so much that the scraping didn't even amplify it so why not keep going?

For about three hours I took insurance quotes calls as i scraped the webbing of my left hand where the cross tattoo was. Pretty soon i could see it anymore, just blood and red, inflamed skin.

At some point i remember the pain going from almost unbearable to totally off-the-charts and I yelled and stopped. I looked where I'd been digging and i saw white, bubbly stuff. I know now that white bubbly stuff was fat and I'd gone too far. I was to the dermis layer below the first one.

Around this time my shift ended and i went home, my hand wrapped in tissue. I hoped that by attacking it so fiercely, the tattoo would at least be faded enough to avoid drawing attention. I drove one handed and laid down to rest when I got back to my apartment.

Laying in bed i thought about what I'd accomplished and i realized it wouldn't make any difference. The ink was in there and i wasn't digging stuff out to throw away. I was just pissing the tattoo off. But I had accomplished something -- it was exposed now, out in the open air. No longer hidden under layers of keracytes.

Then it hit me. Bleach! While it was exposed i would bleach it. I found some under the kitchen sink. And believe me, I stared long and hard at that bottle before I applied it. This was gonna REALLY hurt!

And so it did. I dabbed some bleach on a towel at first and put that on the wound. Owww! Yep, it hurt! Then I soaked the towel in bleach and held it on the wound. Then I decided hell since it hurts anyway and this is the only shot you'll have at the ink being directly accessible.... drown it in bleach.

So i pressed the wound to the mouth of the bleach bottle and flipped the whole thing upside down. There aren't words to describe the screaming pain i felt nearly to the point of passing out. But I held it there until the pain dulled somewhat. I held it there for thirty minutes or more.

Then I righted the bleach bottle and looked at my handiwork.

Wow. The bleach had soaked through the entire exposed area and it was now bleached a blinding white. I mean new T-shirt white. And it didn't end there, it had soaked through the surrounding skin and whiteness radiated at least an inch in radius around the targeted area.

I was satisfied. I had done the best i could to destroy the cross tattoo.

.........