Abstract
People in today's society get tattoos to decorate their bodies, to identify with particular groups or gangs, or to camouflage areas such as birthmarks or other tattoos. Tattoos may be divided into five categories: professional, amateur, cosmetic, traumatic, and medical. Dermabrasion, thermal destruction and cryotherapy are the mechanisms used to remove tattoo. Lasers remove tattoos by altering the optic properties of their pigments. Early laser tattoo removal methods included the argon laser and the carbon dioxide laser, both of which carried significant deficiencies and side effects. More recent discoveries involving the use of quality‐switched lasers have allowed the production of nanosecond lasers, using high‐powered pulses with very short duration, which decrease the incidence of thermal damage to surrounding skin layers. The most common complications of laser tattoo removal include textural changes in the overlying epidermis, scarring, pruritus, hyperpigmentation, hypopigmentation, and allergic reactions.