3 Benefits of Laser Lightening a Tattoo Before Doing a Cover Up

When you get a tattoo, you want it to be something you love and are proud to show off to the world. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case — whether the tattoo designs weren’t right, you picked a poor tattoo artist, or it’s simply not what you wanted, you may end up with ink that you don’t want. Tattoo cover ups are common in these situations. In fact, about 5% of people in the U.S. have had one tattoo covered up with another one. But before you start a cover up, you may want to consider laser lightening the ink first. Let’s take a look at a few reasons this may be beneficial.

You can stick with a similar size: If you’re doing a cover up, your new tattoo designs are most likely going to have to be bigger than your original tattoo. This is because going bigger will allow the artist to fully cover the original ink. But if you go through a few tattoo removal steps, you might not have to go way bigger — since the ink will be lightened, or mostly gone, you should be able to have a similar size with the cover up tattoo.

You can have a new tattoo sooner: When you begin a cover up, you need to understand that it’s going to take multiple sessions to get to your new tattoo. This is especially true if you don’t do any laser lightening beforehand — going over dark ink takes a lot of time. Fortunately, you can save yourself some time by getting the ink lightened. This will allow your artist to finish your cover up tattoo sooner because there is less existing ink to go over.

You can use lighter colors: Because cover ups need to essentially get rid of the existing ink underneath, tattoo artists primarily use dark colors. Using black and other dark colors allows the existing ink to be completely covered. But if you get your original ink laser lightened, you might not have to stick to primarily dark colors. While you’ll still likely need to use dark colors to ensure the cover up does its job, you might not be limited to only dark colors, giving you the chance to mix in some lighter colors as well.

As you can see, there are several benefits to getting your tattoo laser lightened before getting a cover up done. It can help save time and allow you to explore more possible tattoo designs.