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Green tattoos the toughest to remove
26/01/2001 12:18 - (SA)
New York - It's not easy being green - unless you're a tattoo. It seems green tattoos often cannot be cleared by laser removal techniques, and researchers suspect the culprit is a white pigment added to some tattoo inks.
Although green inks are not the only colours resistant to lasers, researchers report that green is definitely a "nuisance colour" in the world of tattoo removal. The stubbornness seems to come from titanium dioxide, a pigment added to some tattoo inks to enhance their "brilliance", according to a report in the January issue of the Archives of Dermatology.
Investigators led by Dr E. Victor Ross of the Naval Medical Centre in San Diego, California, took biopsy samples of 20 tattoos that had been laser-treated. Treatment had lightened seven of the tattoos, made no change in nine, and actually
darkened four.
Ross and colleagues found that tattoos made from ink spiked with titanium dioxide were more resistant to laser removal. Most of the tattoos that lightened were black, a colour that typically has no added titanium dioxide.
Dermatologists have noted that green tattoos are the most difficult to treat, the report indicates. The authors point out
that titanium dioxide is also commonly used to brighten blue,
yellow and purple inks, and mixtures are made such that green ink
is typically composed of 30% to 40% titanium dioxide.
Manufacturers, the researchers conclude, may need to search for alternative dyes so that "permanent" tattoos are also "laser-friendly".
- Reuters
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