laser removal musings

Bit of a random blog post today but I still think that its Beabarella related. I want to have a bit of a witter about tattoos. I'm completely obsessed with them and would be covered in them like an old sailor lady if the Beau would let me. These are my feets tattoos (just like the sounds of feets....) The left one took three and a bit hours and after it was done I could only wear flip flops for a week because it swelled up so badly; to say it was painful is an understatement but I'm a hard ass mother flipper and manned it up- just about...

 I am getting a few additions though! At the minute I'm going through laser removal on an ill advised tattoo on my arm. Sorry about the shitty picture quality but at the time I never though I would really be showing them to anyone. 

So this is my cruddy tattoo before I got any work on it- not the clearest picture but you get this jist...It's on my right forearm, about the same size as a wineglass maybe and the worst tattoo ever. It's ridiculously badly executed- I still love what it means though. It's meant to say "True Love Never Dies"  and then has mine and the Beau's birthdays on it. I got it when we had been together maybe 5 months - yes I am one of those ridiculous people but were still together and now married 6 years later so there must be something in it. So after I got this tattoo I got the left foot one and just looking at the two there was no comparing- it made a bad tattoo even worse. Hence the laser removal.

So after one removal session it looked like this: 

and after my second one today it looked like this:

It's crazy how precisely it swells up!! I probably need 1 or 2 more sessions to get it to the stage where I can have it covered. Well, if I thought that a tattoo stung a little then it's nada compared to the laser but with each horrible little zap I'm one step closer to being able to cover this shitty piece with something beautiful. Its an odd process. The first session doesn't really remove any colour as your first go breaks down the collagen molecules that have wrapped themselves around the ink. It's your second, third, fourth etc that really get down to the nitty gritty of breaking the colour up so your body rejects it. It's costing me £30 per session so by the end I will have paid about three times more to get rid of it then I did to acquire it! Some people have said that they thought it would put me off the whole tattoo thing but it hasn't it's just made me think a lot more about what I REALLY want. I wish that was something I had done in the first place and if I ever give any advice to anyone about a tattoo it would be to really think about your design. Never rush into something like this. If you have a design you love, hide it, don't look at it for a month and then see that you still absolutely love it. If you are still obsessed with it being the one, then it probably is. Also get to know your tattoo artist. See their portfolio, check out their style. I'm a bit jammy as the person I am going to use has done a few on a friend and on the Beau yesterday and it looks great, bit of a difference between his and mine isn't it! 

In another 5-6 weeks I can have my next session, hopefully my last one and then I'm in the market for a beautiful Russian Doll on my arm. Im so giddy about getting her done and I think I'm going to be that little bit prouder of her when I think back on the punishment I've had to have for getting a bad one in the first place- I think it's some kind of penance to pay....

Have any of you lovelies had a tattoo that you regret or are you lucky enough to have yummy tattoos that you are proud of? Also have any of you had laser surgery and what do you think of it? Am I just being a wimp or does it hurt like hell?