{"id":10271,"date":"2011-12-16T05:30:32","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T10:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=10271"},"modified":"2011-12-16T05:30:32","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T10:30:32","slug":"the-tattoo-removal-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/12\/the-tattoo-removal-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Tattoo regrets"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Despite the current economic doldrums, a new business is booming: \u00a0 the tattoo removal industry.\u00a0 Emily Wax reports:<\/p>\n

She arrives quietly, coming in from the rain after work. She lies down on her stomach atop a sleek, white reclining chair. She lifts her shirt and tugs down her jeans slightly.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s enough to unveil a large pink flower tattoo with fat, webby green leaves, which she\u2019s here to have lasered off her lower back. She wants to become a mother someday, and she doesn\u2019t want her children to see this. The process could take up to 10 sessions, she says. She pauses. Then she starts crying.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was only 18. It was a homemade tattoo done at a party,\u201d says Lizeth Pleitez, 30, who quickly dries her eyes. Her voice is shaking. \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about what it meant, you know? Little did I know it meant something else \u2014 like people calling it a \u2018tramp stamp.\u2019 I\u2019m a Pentecostal<\/a>, and the body is a temple. And I felt really ashamed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nIf tattoos are the marks of an era \u2014 declarations of love, of loss, of triumph, of youthful exuberance or youthful foolishness \u2014 then tattoo removals are about regret, confessions that those landmarks are in the past. They\u2019re about the realization that whatever you believed in with such force that you wanted it eternally branded on your skin is now foreign to you.\n

According to the Pew Research Center, more than 40 percent of Americans between the ages of 26 and 40 have at least one tattoo. Getting a tattoo, once the province of sailors rather than suburbanites, is so mainstream that tats are inked at the mall and seen on everyone from Middle American mothers to H Street hipsters to Hollywood starlets.<\/p>\n

Perhaps not surprisingly, a parallel trend is emerging: tattoo removal, with dozens of businesses and training schools opening across the country. . . .<\/p>\n

Tattooing was once considered audacious, powerful and rebellious, precisely because of its permanence.<\/p>\n

But for a generation that has come of age during an unprecedented revolution in medical technology, tattoo removal by a super-powered laser seems like a facelift for young people, a chance to start over, erase, rewind. Like deleting a bad photo from a digital camera or defriending a Facebook friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such an underserved market,\u201d says Christian Slavin, 54, who has an MBA from Harvard and owns Zapatat<\/a> in Arlington County, which opened in September. \u201cThe difference between the regret rate and the removal rate is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
While older lasers burned off the skin, Slavin\u2019s new model interacts only with the ink and \u201cmakes it shake and makes it break,\u201d he says. But it still hurts \u2014 it feels like hot rubber bands snapping against your skin, most removers say \u2014 and often is more painful than getting a tattoo.\u201cWhen it\u2019s all said and done, I\u2019m just not that guy anymore,\u201d says Corey Newman, 29, who is getting married in May and wanted to get three tattoos removed: his left arm\u2019s panther, his right shoulder blade\u2019s bull, and two small Chinese characters on his right leg. He is spending $2,500 to take off tattoos that cost $600 to put on. (Which might explain why tattoo removers tend to be better dressed and better paid than tattoo artists.)<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

via Rethinking the ink: Laser tattoo removal gains popularity \u2013 The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n

OK, so if the demographics of this blog hold true, 40% of you 26-40 year-olds have tattoos.\u00a0 Who has stories of tattoo regret?<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the current economic doldrums, a new business is booming: \u00a0 the tattoo removal industry.\u00a0 Emily Wax reports: She arrives quietly, coming in from the rain after work. She lies down on her stomach atop a sleek, white reclining chair. She lifts her shirt and tugs down her jeans slightly. It\u2019s enough to unveil a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,44],"tags":[2154],"class_list":["post-10271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-technology","tag-tattoos"],"yoast_head":"\nTattoo regrets<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Despite the current economic doldrums, a new business is booming: \u00a0 the tattoo removal industry.\u00a0 Emily Wax reports: She arrives quietly, coming in from\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/12\/the-tattoo-removal-industry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tattoo regrets\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Despite the current economic doldrums, a new business is booming: \u00a0 the tattoo removal industry.\u00a0 Emily Wax reports: She arrives quietly, coming in from\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/12\/the-tattoo-removal-industry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-16T10:30:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/12\/the-tattoo-removal-industry\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/12\/the-tattoo-removal-industry\/\",\"name\":\"Tattoo regrets\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-12-16T10:30:32+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-12-16T10:30:32+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"Despite the current economic doldrums, a new business is booming: \u00a0 the tattoo removal industry.\u00a0 Emily Wax reports: She arrives quietly, coming in from\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/12\/the-tattoo-removal-industry\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/12\/the-tattoo-removal-industry\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2011\/12\/the-tattoo-removal-industry\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tattoo regrets\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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