The tattoo, once flaunted mostly by soldiers, sailors and ex-cons, has come into the mainstream thanks in part to TV shows such as L.A. Ink, Miami Ink and the influence of celebrities.
But today's expression of individuality through body art can sometimes be tomorrow's unsightly embarrassment.
Like the guy who appeared at Jason Rivers's Vancouver dermatology clinic asking to have the corkscrew tattoo removed from his penis.
Judging from the growing number of people sporting ever more elaborate tattoos, dermatologist Dr. Rivers and his Ottawa colleague Sharyn Laughlin will likely get busier in the coming years.
"Some people don't realize that what's cool when you're 20 doesn't look so great when you're 75," says Dr. Rivers. "The context of a tattoo in a young person versus somebody who's older is totally different."
A veteran Vancouver tattoo artist, who didn't want to be named, says there's a definite trend towards larger, more complex tattoos covering arms, backs and chests on both men and women. It became almost cliché for young women to tattoo the lower back just above their butt cleavage.
"Personally, I love tattooing that spot and it's a beautiful area," he says. "Then somebody came along and coined the term 'tramp stamp.' Virtually overnight that spot's not popular any more." Instead, he says women are opting to have the side of their ribs done.
Besides pigeonholing the wearer, tramp stamps have another adverse side effect, says Dr. Laughlin. "The problem with those is when those little girls decide to have babies of their own, the anesthetist won't go through their tattoos to give them an epidural," she says.
Age also is not the tattoo's friend. "If a woman gets a butterfly on her breast, there's a good chance in a few decades it's going to be a pterodactyl," the artist says.
Distorted tattoos are a common reason patients show up at Dr. Laughlin's and Dr. Rivers's clinics. Other times it's buyer's remorse, like a teenage girl who came to Dr. Laughlin the day after she and a friend got matching hip tattoos to commemorate their high-school graduation. Luckily the artwork hadn't set and Laughlin was able to use an immune-enhancing cream to fade the tattoo. But the girl's friend opted to cut out the tattoo herself rather than face her parents. More often, though, it's a change of lifestyle that prompts tattoo removal.
"They say they're not the same person they were at the time they put them on," says Dr. Rivers. "I've had people, for example, who've moved up the corporate ladder and they've had tattoos on their shoulders. Now they're literally golfing with the boss and they can't roll up their sleeves."
Until the 1980s, getting a tattoo was a lifetime commitment. The only sure way to erase it was painful dermabrasion - essentially sanding it off - or surgically cutting the tattooed skin away. The advent of tattoo laser removal in the last three decades has made it seem easier to reverse a regretted tattoo. Pulsed Q-switched lasers blast the larger ink molecules apart so the immune system can get rid of them, says Dr. Laughlin, who sees an average of 300 patients a year for tattoo removal.
"By smashing the ink up in tiny little fragments the body can deal with them and get them to go," she says. "Now they'll go to the lymph nodes and stay there forever but it doesn't scar."
But people still seem unaware it's a time-consuming, costly and somewhat painful process that doesn't guarantee success, says Melanie Grossman, a New York dermatologist who pioneered the technique.
"What they don't understand is it's not always that simple," says Dr. Grossman. "Sometimes it's more difficult to remove them and sometimes they don't come off at all."
