Professional, Amateur or Cosmetic Tattoo: How Removal Differs

Why the kind of tattoo matters

Maybe yours is a stick-and-poke from high school, a full-color piece from a busy shop, or eyebrows that were microbladed a few years ago. People often assume a homemade tattoo will be the hardest to remove, or that permanent makeup will be quick because it is small. Neither is always true.

Clinical reviews sort tattoos into a few broad groups: professional, amateur, cosmetic, traumatic and medical. Each tends to differ in how much ink was used, how deep it sits and what the ink contains. Those three things shape how a laser plan is built.

This guide compares the three common kinds side by side. It cannot replace an exam, because one tattoo can mix features of more than one group, such as a professional cover-up placed over an old homemade tattoo.

Professional tattoos

A 2015 clinical review describes professional tattoos as placed with a tattoo machine into the deeper layer of the dermis, the second layer of skin, and made to be permanent. It says they generally require repeated treatments to remove. Another 2015 review adds that multicolored professional tattoos can be hard to remove completely, sometimes leaving some pigment or a faint ghost image.

Professional work often means more ink, more colors and sometimes layers, such as a cover-up over an older design. The Kirby-Desai scale, a tool some clinicians use to estimate sessions, scores the amount of ink and any layering alongside skin type, location, color and scarring. Our complete guide to laser tattoo removal explains how that scale is used. In the original 2009 study of 100 patients, the authors reported that the total score tracked closely with the number of treatments patients needed.

Amateur and homemade tattoos

Amateur tattoos include stick-and-poke and homemade-machine work. The same 2015 review describes them as usually smaller, lighter in color and applied more superficially with handheld needles or homemade machines, and says this tends to make them easier to remove.

One older study gives a sense of the gap. In 1995, a Georgetown dermatologist treated 24 multicolored professional tattoos and 18 blue-black amateur tattoos with a Q-switched laser. The professional tattoos needed an average of 8.5 treatments for total clearance, compared with 4.6 for the amateur ones. That was one small study with an older laser, and the professional tattoos also had more colors, so treat it as a rough comparison, not a prediction.

Easier on average does not mean easy for everyone. The FDA warns that do-it-yourself inks and kits have been linked to infections and allergic reactions, and that nonsterile water used to dilute pigment is a common cause of contamination. If a homemade tattoo was ever infected or left a scar, tell your provider, since scarring is one of the factors clinicians weigh. With homemade work, the ink itself is often a complete unknown, which can make the response harder to predict, as our guide to what's in tattoo ink explains.

Cosmetic tattoos and permanent makeup

Cosmetic tattoos include permanent eyeliner, eyebrows (including microblading) and lip liner. They are small, but the 2015 review notes their inks often contain red, brown, white or flesh-colored pigments, and that inks containing titanium dioxide and iron oxide are difficult to remove. The FDA lists permanent makeup among the inks that can oxidize, or turn black, when lasered.

That color change is called paradoxical darkening, and our darkening guide explains it in full. In short, reviews suggest treating a small test spot first for these inks, and our guide on whether to get a test spot covers what that involves. Because cosmetic tattoos sit near the eyes and lips, reviews also describe protective eye shields for treatment close to the eyes.

The FDA notes that permanent makeup injected too deeply can spread beyond the original area and look blurred. It adds that makeup that looked flattering at first may later clash with changing skin tones and facial contours. If your brows or lip color have faded oddly or shifted, see our pages on permanent makeup removal and lip blush removal.

Traumatic and medical tattoos

Two other groups come up less often. Traumatic tattoos form when dark particles are forced into the skin by a scrape, cut or blast injury. The 2015 review notes these particles can be driven into the deep dermis and look black or blue, depending on how deep they sit.

Medical tattoos include small marks used to outline radiation treatment areas. Both kinds can often be treated with laser, but they come with their own history to share with your provider. We have separate pages on traumatic tattoo removal and radiation tattoo removal.

What actually shapes your result

Laser Eraser offers free, no-obligation consultations, where a provider looks at your tattoo in person and gives you an exact quote for a Complete Removal Package. Results vary, and no one can honestly promise complete removal in a fixed number of sessions. You can start with our tattoo removal overview or try the how many sessions quiz for a general idea first.

The type of tattoo is a starting point, not an answer. Several other things affect how removal goes, whoever applied the ink:

• Ink color. The FDA says dark blue and black are the easiest colors to remove and some colors are much harder. Our ink color and skin tone guide covers each one.
• Amount of ink and layering. Dense work and cover-ups hold more pigment to clear.
• Scarring. Scarred or raised skin from the original tattoo is one of the Kirby-Desai factors.
• Location and skin type. Both are scored in the same scale.
• Age and depth. The AAD lists how long you have had the tattoo and how deeply the ink sits among the things that affect results.
• Your health. The AAD also lists your general health, the medicines you take and any history of raised scars.