10 UNEXPECTED TATTOO TRAPS you need to know before you get your next one.

If you're planning the latest and greatest tattoo, it wouldn't hurt to hear a little wisdom first from the experts in tattoo mistakes: the folks who remove unwanted ones all day.

I'm a rare thing, an MD who specializes in laser tattoo removal. Besides being up on all the anatomy, physiology, physics, and chemistry, I've acquired another, altogether different skill, and that's the psychology of tattoos. That is, the emotions involved in getting them, removing them, loving them, and hating them.

So here's a rundown of the 10 most common reasons people remove certain tattoos, and tips on avoiding a mess.

"...even the best planned tattoos fall victim."

1
IT'S TOO. Too big, too small, too dark or thick. Never, unfortunately, too light or thin.

Prevention: Careful planning will help you steer clear of this one, of course, but even the best planned tattoos fall victim. Discuss your design carefully with an experienced artist, and fearlessly examine your expectations. If you're good at Photoshop, use it! Slap that puppy directly onto your body part, and see how it looks. If it's TOO, fiddle with it until it's right.

NOTE: You have to live with a tattoo for a few weeks or months before deciding whether it's really too TOO.

2
AN ARTISTIC MISS. Sometimes a tattoo can be great in every respect, but an artistic error throws it off. One client hated a portrait tattoo because the face was aimed outward, and not toward the midline. True, all rules are made to be broken, but this one just looked wrong. Also, arrows in bendy places... SMH "Straight as an arrow" is the expression, right? Artistic successes include people or animals over body parts that move, giving them added life.

Prevention: Think carefully about your artistic intent, and be sure your artist shares it. A good tattoo artist is just that: a good artist.

"[Narrow] the explaining down to people who see you with your clothes off..."

3
PRIVATE THINGS IN PUBLIC PLACES. If you want to memorialize something painful on your skin where other people can see it, expect endless questions about it--even from total strangers. For some people this gets very old, very fast. It can even prolong or worsen their grief. Same goes for anything of special meaning to you. You'd be amazed how quickly it gets un-special in a grocery checkout.

Prevention: Private things in private places. This narrows the explaining down to people who see you with your clothes off, and that's probably okay.

"No."

4
TECHNICAL FAIL, known medically as a Crappy Tattoo. Stick and poke. "Free" tattoo. Alcohol-related. I could go on and on.

Prevention: No.

5
MORE FUN TO PLAN THAN TO HAVE. Are you the type of person who loves the weeks leading up to a holiday or wedding, only to feel let down on the Big Day itself? It happens with tattoos, and the scary thing is that it happens to the most fastidious planners. Symptoms include acting excited about a new tattoo, but feeling, deep down... meh. People experiencing this pitfall usually head straight into planning the next one, to feel the fun again, and the cycle continues.

NOTE: We call this Christmas Day Syndrome, and it doesn't necessarily result in bad tattoos, as long as the tattoos that result aren't bad tattoos.

Prevention: Know yourself.

"Great sex should make happiness, not tattoos."

6
EX'S NAME(S). This one will never go away. We even have a special discount for it, because we feel sorry.

Prevention: Every partner is a potential ex, but this isn't a romance column. Wait, we will add that great sex should make happiness, not tattoos.

7
IT WAS PEER PRESSURE. It happens to the best of us. If you bought an expensive car or boat or whatever, chances are you were following someone else's example. It's not easy being with a bunch of friends in a party mood and the only one who refuses to get the souvenir tattoo everyone else is getting. Except you. Party pooper. The kicker is that you probably don't get to pick the tattoo.

Prevention: Tell them needles make you throw up to the point of dehydration, then offer to be the photographer/videographer of the event. Their sneers will turn to cheers.

"If a tattoo idea is popular, slow down. Think."

8
CHANGING TASTES AND FASHIONS. How to address this one briefly? We remove a lot of tribal tattoos. I mean a lot. What is in will eventually go out. That's the nature of community tastes, fads, and fashions.

Prevention: If a tattoo idea is popular, slow down. Think. If it still seems like a good idea, keep it too light or thin (See 1, above). For more advice on removability, see our blog entry on the subject here.

9
IT'S FUNNY! For 5 minutes.

Prevention: Learn a few really great jokes and tell them with, y'know, your voice.

"Never pass up a life lesson or a chance to laugh."

10
NOT A TATTOO PERSON, I GUESS. Sometimes when folks get their first tattoo, especially at a later age, they learn that it just doesn't fit them. We can help them erase it and have a good laugh about it.

Prevention: Advice instead: Don't ever pass up a life lesson or a chance to laugh.

Are You in The Gap?

We call it "The Gap" for short, "The Expectation/Results Gap" for long. It's that often-uncomfortable place between what you wanted and what you got.

What does The Gap have to do with tattooing and, by extension, laser tattoo removal?

Whenever we plan an action and carry it out, our satisfaction with the result has everything to do with how we were expecting to benefit from the action. For example, did you think the new car would be a date magnet before you bought it, as the advertising led you to believe? Did your social calendar burst at the seams after you took it off the lot? Or did that cake you spent hours baking look like the picture in the cookbook? If not, you found yourself caught in The Gap.

So often tattoo dissatisfaction (we don't like the word "regret") happens in The Gap. There are lots of reasons a new tattoo might fail to measure up to expectations.

• The tattoo concept was not fully communicated to the artist, or the artist did not fully understand the artistic intent.
• The tattoo was beyond the artist's technical ability.
• The customer had not fully developed or realized the concept.
• A less-than-ideal body site was chosen for an otherwise excellent piece.
• The finished tattoo seems more "noticeable" (too large, colorful, dark, etc.) than imagined.
• The subject matter of the tattoo hasn't aged as well as expected, as with "trend" tattoos.
• The customer was expecting more admiration of the tattoo from friends and family.
• The tattoo was a lot more fun to plan than to have.

...To name only a few.

Understanding your own psychology and personal experiences with The Gap can be very helpful when considering new tattoos and preventing calamity. Clearly many of the problems in the list above could be prevented by a good tattoo artist (not just a tattooer, but an actual artist) with experience and a willingness to collaborate. "Do your homework!" is a piece of time-honored advice that should never be underestimated. Apart from the artist, knowing yourself is the best way to negotiate The Gap.

Do you have a tattoo in The Gap? Do you know how it got there? Knowing the answer to that question is the single best way to acquire future tattoos with lasting relevance.

And TattooMedics can help you out of the one you're in.

Richard Rosol, MD