At Home Tattoo Removal – Home Remedies
While it is clinically proven that lasers and certain fading balms can remove tattoos, there are a number of homemade solutions that people often wonder about, specifically lemon juice and baking soda, two more common household items that are often recommended for cheap home tattoo removal.
Does Lemon Juice Fade Tattoos?
Yes, but not instantly, and if you want a more complete (but likely not total) removal, you’ll need to work for it.
Be sure to use a real lemon, not bottled lemon juice, just to be sure you aren’t introducing anything unexpected to your skin. Squeeze lemon juice into a small bowl, then add in 100 grams of salt and stir it in thoroughly. You can then dab this solution onto the tattoo with a clean cotton ball or washcloth. Rub it in for about 30 minutes, then rinse with warm water.
You’ll also need to exfoliate the area regular as you perform his treatment. The deeper a tattoo is, the less well this treatment works. It will fade it, but it will take much longer.
Does Baking Soda Fade Tattoos?
Fade it, yes. Remove it, no. The ink sits too deep under the skin for the baking soda to reach.
To use hydrogen peroxide to fade a tattoo, you need to apply hydrogen peroxide daily to the tattoo using a cotton swab or soft washcloth. Exfoliate regularly to help achieve a better effect.
Other Tattoo Removal Options
There are many other tattoo home remedies out there, including various undiluted essential oils, especially lavender oil. The application process is the same, though the results can vary depending on what you’re working with, the nature of your tattoo, and your skin type. Avoid using salt, which not only hurts but can also scar and will not work. Don’t mix different tattoo removal home remedies as you may cause a bad chemical reaction.
To understand how these and other tattoo removal home remedies work or do not work to help fade tattoos, you need to understand what tattoos are. A tattoo is ink that has been deposited about a millimeter under the skin. Tattoo ink is insoluble, which means that the body’s natural systems cannot break it up and remove it. The ink particles are simply too big.
When you see a tattoo, you aren’t seeing a mark on the surface of the skin, the epidermis. The ink actually sits in the dermis, the second layer of our skin that is more stable and- as far as chemicals are concerned- much harder to get to.
Lemon juice, baking soda, and other tattoo removal home remedies work by bleaching the ink and skin. They are in no way removing the ink particles. They usually work best on lighter coloured ink.
If a chemical or special treatment only deals with surface skin, it may fade your tattoo significantly, but it is doubtful that it will remove it. You need to address the ink particles that sit a deeper level of skin, which is something that should only be done with professional supervision to make sure you are safe and healthy.
Do you have any experience with tattoo removal home remedies? Did they help? Let us know!
