“I was in love with a guy from my college. We were in a relationship for two years and, like other couples, we used to go to restaurants and pubs,” said a Bhubaneswar-based girl who prefers to remain anonymous. “Once we met a couple who had tattooed each other’s names on their hands. Then, my boyfriend asked me to tattoo his name on my body. I knew my parents would be angry if they came to know, so I inked it on my shoulder. But after a few months, I came to know that my boyfriend was in a relationship with another girl. I decided to remove all memories of him from my life, but I could not remove my tattoo. I wanted to find out if there was any way to remove tattoos, and I found that one can get another tattoo on the same area to cover up the first one. I then got a new design etched which I could show to my friends and parents.”
About 10 per cent of youth in India have at least one tattoo on their body. But not all of them are happy about their tattoo. About 25 per cent of them say that they regret etching a name or design. Tattoo removal techniques like laser treatment, excision, dermabrasion or salabrasion are risky, time-consuming and expensive.
Laser treatment can help remove tattoos by breaking up the colour pigments using high-intensity light beams. Black tattoo pigment absorbs laser wavelengths, making it easier to erase but other colours can only be treated with the help of special lasers depending upon the tattoo colour.
“Although laser treatment is safer than other tattoo removal methods, there are a few side-effects too. In some cases, certain colours may be erased more successfully than others. For example, blue and black tattoos respond well to the treatment but other colours do not. Your skin which is treated may become paler than the skin surrounding it. The tattoo removal area is at risk of infection. And there is a possibility that such erasing may leave a permanent scar on the skin,” said Dr Deepak Swain, senior resident doctor at AIIMS, Bhubaneswar.
Tattoo artist K Santosh of Deewan Bazaar, Cuttack, said, “Every week, one or two persons come to me for tattoo removal for various reasons such as poor design, misspelt names and fading colours of the tattoo. Sometimes, I suggest that they make another tattoo over their old one as this is less expensive and the risk factor is almost zero.”
“Poorly inked, faded, or light tattoos can easily be covered. Sometimes white ink can be applied to lighten an old tattoo before proceeding with the cover-up. Covering up an unwanted tattoo is cheaper than removal,” the artist added.
Subarna Keshari Rout of Bhubaneswar said, “Once I inked the pattern of the sun on my arm at the Baliyatra fair in Cuttack. The tattoo artist offered an unimaginably cheap price and showed me some good patterns. I immediately got it done but when I came home, I found the design was not very attractive and the lines did not gel well. I wanted to erase the design and consulted a doctor. But I found the process very costly, tedious and risky. The doctor advised me to go for a cover-up tattoo. I went to a professional tattoo artist in the city who etched a good design over the old one. I really liked the new design.”
IT professional Sthita Pragyan Nanda from Bhubaneswar has an interesting story to tell. “Last year, I attended a job interview and I was shortlisted after several rounds. In the final viva voce, the HR person at the interview who saw the tattoo ‘OM’ on my hand asked me to remove it before I joined. The HR insisted that the workplace environment should be secular. I accepted the offer and sought a few days to remove the tattoo. On making enquiries, I found that the laser process was expensive as well as perilous. Fortunately, a friend suggested a cover-up tattoo. I approached a tattoo artist, and within a few hours, he inked a new tattoo over the old one.”
Nikhil Subudhi, a tattoo artist of Bhubaneswar, said, “We all make mistakes. Maybe your tattoo artist didn’t understand your idea, maybe over the years you start hating an old tattoo you got when you were fresh out of college, or maybe the relationship you were in no longer exists. In such situations, you might prefer not to demonstrate your design to the world. If a laser removal is not feasible, the best option is a cover-up tattoo.”
Cover-up tattoos are not easy to do. They require careful planning and implementation. A truly skilled and professional tattoo artist will cautiously draw a new design that overwrites your old unwanted tattoo in a clever way such that the earlier tattoo will stay alive only in your memories.
FACT FILE
Design choice
A cover-up tattoo is like any other tattoo. Just select a design and ink it. The real difference comes with the design option you adopt, depending on what you want to conceal. Some designs just won’t work. It’s really about selecting what works best with the old tattoo and whether you like it or not.
Tattoo size
Making a tattoo over another tattoo means the new one will have to be bigger. There’s no other way. In terms of cover-ups, bigger is most positively better.
Colours
The colours used in cover-up tattoos are dark such as blues, browns and blacks, because they are best for covering old ink. Colours like reds, yellows and oranges can occasionally fail to fully cover dark inks. Light colours are used in covering other light inks. The bolder and darker you ink the better the cover-up will be.
Go to an experienced artist
Finding the right tattoo artist is key to the success of your cover-up design. Explore and find someone with experience in cover-up tattoos. A tattoo artist will most certainly have good suggestions of how to incorporate the old with the new ink and design.
Laser treatment
If your tattoo is bold, dark and deeply shaded, then before it can be concealed by a new design you may need to undergo one or two laser removal sessions, just to reduce the density of the ink on your tattoo. But be assured, it will make the cover-up a bit easier and open up options for a new design.
SOYONG, OP
