Some arts is forever.

Provided by 7DAYS.ae

There are many of us who have woken up the morning after a messy night asking, "what have I done?"

And while most foolish behaviour is easily forgiven and forgotten, there are some things that are not so easy to erase. A shotgun wedding Vegas-style may be the worst case scenario, but a strong contender for second is the tattoo. Call it what you will - body art, self-expression or a testament to love - the truth is, scrawling 'Pedro Forever' across your lower back is not the best (nor the classiest) idea.

Considering the statistics on divorce rates and failed relationships it's pretty delusional to think that a permanent etching on your body is any guarantee of long-lasting love. And questionable judgement aside, it is the lack of aesthetic value of many tattoos that makes us wonder why anyone would be willing to put needle to skin, scarring themselves for all eternity. The good news is, tattoos are not necessarilyAa permanent anymore, thanks to the option of removal by laser. Lucky for ladies, as a new study shows that women are more likely to regret getting their body art and now opt to erase their mistake (oh that bad boyfriend choices could be zapped away so easily).

While tattoos have become extremely popular with the 18 to 30 age group, Myrna Armstrong, the study's author, says that they are still far from socially acceptable. "You can't go to a wedding these days without seeing one bridesmaid with a tattoo on her back. But there are still a lot of people in our society who have problems with that. "So anybody with a tattoo takes a social risk," Armstrong told Reuters.

According to her study, an estimated six per cent of people eventually undergo a procedure to erase tattoos, two-thirds of which are women. They cited embarrassment, problems with finding the appropriate clothes to hide their scribbles and attracting negative comments as some of the reasons why they chose to go the removal route. An ill-advised decision to get a tattoo will cost you however, both financially and in terms of pain. Olimpia Carmen, a laser specialist at Dubai Cosmetic Surgery, regularly treats patients looking to get their tattoos removed for a variety of reasons. She says religious concerns are top of the list for removal requests, although many others claim their body art is a result of being young and foolish or the result of being drunk. "I have treated patients who wanted to remove the name of a partner who doesn't exist anymore; others who simply got them when they were young and now do not find that it fits them quite the same," she says.One man, she says, who is now 25, had a Tweety Bird tattooed on his shoulder when he was 14. Weighing in at 180 pounds today, he realised it was not the right choice for him anymore. Getting a tattoo done may be painful, but it doesn't compare to the pain of removing it. Repeated laser sessions are required and just how many depends on the depth of the ink and the size of the tattoo.

"The removal process is layer by layer of the skin, where a specific kind of laser is used to remove the ink. We cannot predict how many sessions it will take - the patient must come in regularly for treatment until it disappears," Carmen adds.What makes the process unpredictable is the number of factors there are to consider. "It depends on how deep the tattoo artists has inserted the ink and what kind of ink they've used. Regulated, FDA approved ink is uniform and so we know what we're working with and whether it has spread deeply into the tissue. But for tattoos that are unprofessional, it is more difficult to treat, but not impossible," Carmen explains.And while the majority of inks used respond to the treatment, if the composition has iron oxide in it, removal can be very difficult and in some cases, impossible.Depending on how many sessions you have, your tattoo mistake can disappear entirely, but for those with sensitive skin, hypo pigmentation (the lack of melanin) may occur, leaving the treated area with a lighter skin tone."From a dermatological perspective, a small tattoo is not terrible for the skin, but it is advisable to avoid getting the more extensive ones that cover up large parts of your body," Carmen says, adding that the injection of a foreign object in the tissue will cause trauma and the removal process adds more trauma so people really need to think about getting a tattoo - not just act on a whim.Aa And with each laser-removal session setting you back dhs1,000 (and that's just the starting rate), is it really worth that whim?

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