NY Times on tattoo removal

[PinkUnicorn]

The piece seems rather superficial, but FYI...

 

Quote

 

In 2009, after a laser treatment every four weeks for a year ($3,000), the tattoo “looked like a bruise — like someone stepped on my foot with a high heel,” said Ms. Cardellino, the senior beauty editor for Cosmopolitan.com. “It looked worse than it did as a tattoo.”

Ms. Cardellino had resigned herself to covering the tattoo with a flesh-colored circular Band-Aid when, in December 2012, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new kind of laser that could remove, among other things, so-called recalcitrant tattoos. After seven treatments ($400 a session) in the office of Dr. Paul Friedman, a dermatologist in Manhattan and Houston, the tattoo was gone.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/fashion/tattoo-regret-a-painful-if-improved-reversal-awaits.html

[Mike Panic]

Poorly written article that was barely fact-checked and actually doesn't talk about the real reason the client's tattoo wasn't gone. 

The article simply says the new laser called picosecond, which is the technology, not the laser, but indicates new technology in 2012 which I believe they meant to say PicoSure, as that is a brand name of a laser sold by Cynosure.  At present, there are at least three picosecond capable lasers on the market.

The real reason (I'm assuming) the author was able to continue and get her tattoo removed is not due to the picosecond technology but due to the 755nm wavelength the PicoSure operates at.  That specific wavelength destroys blue, green and blue-based purple pigments.  The only laser on the market that gets close is the Quanta Q+C at 694nm, but it's not a picosecond laser and the picosecond technology doesn't play into why it's not as effective. 

Also, the mention of money is also slightly skewed too. The author started tattoo removal seven years ago, when the technology wasn't being used as much (demand wasn't where it is now) so few clinics bought machines because the ROI was so terrible on them.  The fact she paid $400 / treatment for what appears to be something the size of a quarter seems more of a rip to me. 
 

[well-fed unicorn]

I get the impression some medical professionals are really looking at this as a potential cash stream. My GP on a recent visit said they'd been looking into it. He also asked if I knew the most popular reason for tattoo removal is to get another tattoo