Cosmetic tattoos can be hard to fix

By Shari Roan
Los Angeles Times

Removal of permanent makeup can result in colors such as bright orange or dark green. Numerous treatments must sometimes be used to address various colors, depending on the colors the tattoo artist used to achieve the original tone. Advertiser library photo • June 12, 2001

The case, reported by a team of dermatologists last year in the journal Dermatologic Surgery, was an extreme example of what can go wrong when doctors use lasers to attempt to remove certain colors of tattoos, such as the reds and browns used in permanent makeup.

Such tattoos are popular among women who want to save time applying makeup or who want to appear as if they have makeup on all the time. But, eventually, the colors can change — as can the face's contours, resulting in makeup that looks distorted. Requests for removals are common, doctors say.

One Miami woman who had tired of her red lip liner and brown eyebrow tattoos requested laser removal of the ink, recounts New York dermatologist James Spencer. After the first laser treatment, however, the woman's red lip liner turned black and her eyebrows turned bright orange. The black faded after another laser treatment, but the eyebrow color turned yellow and dark green. Several additional laser treatments over a period of weeks were required to rid the eyebrows of most of the tropical hues.

"Cosmetic tattoos can be interesting," says Spencer, vice chairman of dermatology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and one of the doctors who reported the case. "But it can be alarming to the patient if you don't explain this could happen in advance."

Different lasers and numerous treatments must sometimes be used to address various colors. Spencer said the Miami woman's eyebrows might have proved problematic because the tattoo artist had used several colors to achieve a brown tone.

Removing permanent makeup requires patience, added Dr. Harold Lancer, a Beverly Hills dermatologic surgeon.

One of Lancer's patients regretted her tattooed eyebrows almost immediately. Sally Hermann of Acton, Calif., had the ink applied in April 2002 to thicken the appearance of her eyebrows. But she experienced inflammation and itching.

A medication prescribed by her doctor failed to calm the allergic reaction and Hermann, 64, was referred to Lancer, who began the long process of trying to remove the ink.

"It was so hard," Hermann said. "It took me going to Beverly Hills every week for a while, then once a month, for a year. It cost me $3,000."

Lancer couldn't use a laser initially because doing so would turn the eyebrows purple. The inflammation was affecting the ink color, he said, and there was such a mix of inks used to make the brown eyebrows that removing some colors with a laser would temporarily leave other odd colors behind. Instead, the doctor used medication (to treat the inflammation), microdermabrasion and, eventually, laser in small doses.

"It was a matter of treating and waiting, treating and waiting," Lancer recalls. "Removals are never, ever, a quick fix."