Zapping unwanted tattoos

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Zapping unwanted tattoos
December 6, 2011
by Amy Smart
Times Colonist

Women aren't the only ones taking advantage of Tramp Stamp Tuesdays at Pete McKay's New Skin Laser Tattoo Removal.

"I'm actually kind of surprised that I get a lot of men in, but that's kind of the nature of it - they get a lower-back tattoo and they're like, oh my God."

McKay has a good view on body art fashions and faux pas, from those lower-back pieces to the oceanthemed creations that inspired Free-the-Dolphin Fridays, another weekly 25 per cent discount.

He has 10 to 15 appointments per week, although removal requires repeat visits, so many are returning clients.

Complete removal of a tattoo usually takes between six and 12 laser treatments every six to eight weeks. Prices typically range from $75 to $450.

"It's all about how much ink there is," he said. "You could say by square inch, but tattoos don't come by the square inch."

While Urge Studios, the tattoo parlour that hosts him, has been a mainstay for 17 years, McKay opened New Skin only 11?2 ago. years

The sheet-metal worker had always been a collector of tattoos, with well over half his body inked. So when he injured himself on the job he decided to move into the body art industry. But never having considered himself an artist, he thought removals would be his thing.

He went to Rocky Mountain Laser College in Denver where he was one of two men studying laser esthetics.

"I was definitely the most tattooed of the crowd," he said.

Fun fact: He can now do laser hair removal, too. McKay's company is new and still growing.

"I've only been open for a year and a half so I'm still building my clientele," he said. Artists from tattoo shops around town send him clients.

McKay said most of the removals have to do with those timely trends - he once had a tribal tattoo removed from his leg - but others are morally driven.

"I'm removing swastikas, I'm removing a skinhead from a guy's knuckles," he said. "I'm also removing some really horrible poke-and-stick stuff that people drunkenly get at a party."

Choosing the worst tattoo is impossible he said, because everyone has a different taste in body art. While tramp stamps and tribals may be out of fashion, he said the newer trend seems to be more artful, custom pieces.

"Twenty years ago, it was tiny little things picked off a wall," he said. "Because the tattoo artists - at all the shops in town are so talented and artistic, people are getting more and more art on their bodies."

That said, he had an appointment to remove a gorgeous Asian-style dragon from a woman's arm because it was too visible for her new job.

McKay is careful to point out that the term "tramp stamp" is only tongue-in-cheek.

"I'm not trying to say that if you have a lower-back tattoo that you're a tramp or that you should get it removed," he said. "I know a lot of women who love their tramp stamps - like my wife. And she's not a tramp."