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Has your "Winona Forever" tattoo outlasted your relationship? Does the tribal art on your bicep fail to impress the senior partners? Or perhaps the tramp stamp on your lower back doesn't quite fit your soccer-mom lifestyle.

A new type of ink is aimed at preventing future cases of body-art regret by creating tattoos that are both permanent and removable. But not everyone thinks it's such a great idea.

The secret is microencapsulation: suspending the dye in biodegradable polymer "beads." The same technology is used for time-release medicine and scratch-and-sniff perfume ads, in which the beads burst to release scent when they're scratched.

The microencapsulated ink acts just like regular ink and the result looks like a normal tattoo. But when it's time to wipe the slate clean, one laser treatment bursts the microcapsules and releases the dye, allowing the body to expel the ink naturally.

Laser removal usually requires multiple treatments, sometimes a dozen or more, to erase a tattoo. All laser tattoo removals tend to leave a lighter patch of skin if they do remove all the ink.

Researchers at Brown University in Rhode Island developed the technology after a group of dermatologists discovered microencapsulation's potential for tattoo removal.

Freedom-2, a New York-based company, licensed the technology this month and hopes to sell the high-tech dyes in the United States and Canada by the end of this year.

Company president Martin Schmieg volunteered to be the first test subject: He got the company logo tattooed on his arm and then removed in one laser treatment.

"I can see why people are attracted to it," the otherwise-inkless Mr. Schmieg says of his tattoo experience, though he rated laser removal as "significantly worse than a root canal."

He expects the first clients will be "a little older and a little more discerning" - people who have considered tattoos in the past but held back out of fear of a lifetime commitment.

But isn't throwing caution to the wind and embracing permanence the whole point of getting a tattoo?

Mark Naraine, a Toronto tattoo artist, says the pursuit of perfection is integral to his profession, simply because the art is permanent. He'd hate to see removable tattoos wipe out that work ethic.

Already, Mr. Naraine says he is dismayed by the number of would-be clients who inquire about getting a tattoo and in the same breath ask how much it would cost to cover it up.

"Maybe you should think more about your tattoo," Mr. Naraine advises.