When I heard the song by Face, I was really disappointed but didn't knw what to do about it,
"Tattoo gurls , where dem dey?
Read this before you get the stuff on urself

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/12967767.html


NOT WORTH THE INK IT'S WRITTEN WITH
Tattooing hurts; removing it is worse
By Wendy Ruderman
Philadelphia Daily News

rudermw@phillynews.com 215-854-2860

GOODBYE, 2007. Hello, 2008.
Now is the time to wipe the slate clean and start anew.

But what if that slate is your skin and the thing you want wiped clean is injected into your flesh with indelible ink?

The tattoo boom of the early 1990s has given rise to tattoo regret, and an increasing number of hipsters want to get rid of ink that was soooooo last year, studies show.

"It's all about growing up and time passing and your life changing," said Dr. Andrew Pollack, director of the Philadelphia Institute of Dermatology.

"Who hasn't opened their mouth and then said, 'Oh, man, I wish I could take it back.' I'm the guy who helps people take it back," said Eric Bernstein, a Bryn Mawr dermatologist who specializes in tattoo removal.

Pollack and Bernstein are in the burgeoning business of using lasers to erase people's colorful pasts. Among their patients:

_ The once rebellious teen who got a butterfly tattooed on her shoulder is now a 20-something woman who wants to wear a strapless dress at her country-club wedding.

_ The former frat boy who got Greek letters inked on his leg and is now a young lawyer who's embarrassed to wear shorts at the annual company picnic.

_ The ex-con who wants to shed the gang emblem and go straight.

_ And the reformed neo-Nazi with the swastika tattoo who just met a nice Jewish girl and is joining her folks for Passover dinner.

OK, that last example was a bit of a stretch. Actually, the guy who had a swastika tattooed on his forehead never said why he wanted it removed.

"I think the decision spoke for itself," said Pollack, who has also removed numbers from Holocaust survivors.

Bernstein said he recently removed the word "bitch," etched in black ink, from a woman's lower lip.

"She told me she thought they were writing something else on there," Bernstein said.

Like what?

"I don't know," Bernstein said. " 'I love my dentist?' I couldn't tell ya."

A 2006 study by the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that 24 percent of Americans ages 18 to 50 are tattooed. Of those, 17 percent had considered removal.

The top reason for tattoo regret is a faded romance, according to dermatologists.

Donna Maleczkowicz's boyfriend convinced her to get his initials - "CS" - inked on her bikini line during a drunken escapade. At the time, she had been dating him for just a month. They met at Delilah's, the Center City gentlemen's club, where she still works as a hostess.

"I really, really thought that he was the one," she said last week.

They were talking marriage when he broke it off after more than three years of dating.

"I actually went to see Dr. Bernstein and I said, 'Listen, I want you to get this thing off right now. I don't care if you have to burn it off,' " said Maleczkowicz, 27, of Holland, Bucks County.

By the end of 2008, CS presumably will be history and so will another unwanted tattoo she got on a whim: A pair of flowers with vines that wrap around her navel. She's worried that if she decides to have a baby someday, the tattoo will stretch across her bulging, third-trimester stomach like a scraggly weed.

Tattoo removal is not quick, cheap, or painless.

"When I say painful, you can't believe it," Bernstein said. "I've had Marines pass out unconscious. It's a killer."

Bernstein numbs the skin and then uses special lasers that fracture tattoo pigments into tiny particles, which then get absorbed by the body.

Professional tattoos require six to 10 - sometimes more - laser treatments to remove. Each session can cost between $250 and $500. Bernstein said he performs roughly a thousand laser treatments each year, and that number is growing.

Tattoo regret was highest among inked Republicans, according to a 2003 poll by Harris Interactive, a New York-based research firm.

Kerri Valentine is a Republican.

At 18, the college freshman got a blue and purple mushroom tattooed on her lower back, just above her butt - a common tattoo location that Philly cops jokingly refer to as a "tramp stamp."

Yes, a mushroom, as in fungus. Valentine said the choice had nothing to do with so-called "Magic Mushrooms," the psychedelic drug popular on college campuses in the 1990s.

"Mushrooms are my favorite pizza topping," she said.

Valentine, now 30, of Lafayette Hill, Montgomery County, said she had four laser treatments in 2007 and will undergo another six this year before the mushroom is gone.

Kristin Sunderman, a 32-year-old paralegal from Lansdale, is in the process of zapping three tattoos she got as a teen. She's perhaps most embarrassed by the tattoo of drama masks - one smiling, one crying - on her ankle.

The tattoo has nothing to do with theater. It's supposed to be an expression of teenage angst. The whole hiding-your-pain thing.

"I was a very depressed youth," Sunderman laughed in a New Year's eve interview. "It's a whole dark pain kind of thing. At that age, you don't really know much about anything and your hormones are out of control. When I look at it now, I think, 'My goodness, what was wrong with me?' "

Of course, all tattoos seem like a good idea at the time.

A decade ago, Dave Donch got a cover album of his favorite band, "Sublime," tattooed on his leg from knee to ankle. The 1992 album included song titles like "Date Rape" and "We're Only Gonna Die for Our Own Arrogance."

Then a few years later, when he no longer liked the band enough to be a walking billboard for its music, he got a "cover-up" tattoo that he liked even less. He had a tattoo artist draw over the album cover, turning the image into an angel with a sword with a stained-glass-window-like background. The artist threw in some "tormented souls" with one soul rising above the rest.

"I was doing like a good-over-evil thing," Donch said. "At first, I kind of liked it. Then I was like, 'No, this wasn't what I was going for.' As I got older and matured, I grew out of the artwork."

Donch, 33, who lives in Collingswood, N.J., said he's been to Bernstein's office about eight times and the tattoo is significantly faded.

"I'm going through a lot to get it off," Donch said. "But, hey, if that's the biggest mistake I've made in my whole life, I'm doing good."

Some people decide to live with their mistakes.

Sean Dubowik, a 37-year-old manager at a topless bar in Phoenix, Ariz., made national headlines in late December after a surgeon got fired for snapping a photo of Dubowik's tattooed penis with his cell phone camera. The doctor admitted taking the photo while inserting a catheter into Dubowik's penis during a gallbladder operation. The tattoo on Dubowik's private part reads, "Hot Rod." In an interview with the Daily News last week, Dubowik said he got the tattoo on a dare from friends who offered to pay him $1,000 if he went through with it.

"They never paid up," Dubowik said. "It was horrible. The pain was horrible. I can't even explain it.

"That's the only reason why I couldn't have it removed. I couldn't go through the pain again." *

Was contemplating have one but with the gory information .

@ Poster
thanx for the information

i LOV tattos

ya some ppl regret getting them later, but so what?
havent u eva gone 2 a salon n come back regretting that u went at all??
alot of ppl get tattos as a way to mark a period in their life,
or as a remembrance for a loved 1. and i think it is a good idea.

tattos r only bad if u did not think very well b4 getting them, or if u got them because of a dare.
but apart from that i find them pretty hot!

eva watched Miami ink?? nif u haven't i suggest u do.
it is a great show, n it proves that tattos r not stupid ut a great way of expressing ones fellings or belives.

good 'un

meanwhile here r stories of tattos actualy helpig people.
i got this from the net. 'http://www.tattooconfidential.com i found loads of inspiratonal stories on this site

Asher's story
When I was 13 I really started to have problems with depression and mood swings and I was diagnosed as being Manic-Bipolar. I started struggling with school and family and friends. In my freshman year in Highschool, I hit rock bottom and turned to cutting to help relieve the stress and pain I was feeling. No one seemed to understand so it became my own secret.

Over the years, I have been working on overcoming this choice or release. I needed to find something that would help me stay away from hurting myself. I started sketching and came up with this design. I chose the star design because of my love for celestial things and the colors are my favorite, red and black. I decided to put it on my left wrist because that was my arm that is the most scarred, that way I could look at it whenever I was feeling down or depressed.

The spiral stands for the path that I don’t want to go down again. To me, it’s a downward spiral that I’ve fallen down before and I know that I’m strong enough to handle my depression. So now, if I ever get the urge to hurt myself or I get really down, I can look at my wrist and know that I can over come it.

- Asher

SAMANTA'S STORY
From the time I was 3 until I was about 13 my stepfather sexually molested me almost every night. In 7th grade I finally told someone and it seemed as if my life would always revolve around him and what I went through as a child. 5 years later I decided that it was time to put it all behind me and start with a clean slate.

I live in NY, but I got this tattoo in Canada, 2 months after my 18th birthday. My dad designed it for me with the tattoo artist that day. It means so much more to me because of that.

The dragonfly symbolizes endurance and my mental and emotional growth and maturity. It is said that people who have the dragonfly as their totem have had passionate and emotional early years, but as they grow older they achieve emotional and mental clarity and control. That’s me.

The character to the dragonfly’s left is the kanji symbol for “LIFE.” The symbol is a reminder to me that I have so much to live for, that the life I lead for last ten years does not have to be the one that leads me for the next ten.

And if you look closely there is an “S” where the dragonfly’s body should be because I am that creature and that creature is me.

I GOT THIS TATTOO SO THAT WHENEVER I LOOK OVER MY SHOULDER AND TO THE PAST I CAN REMEMBER THAT I HAVE ENDURED, THAT I HAVE GROWN, AND THAT THAT PART OF MY LIFE IS BEHIND ME…

- Samantha


KALINA'S STORY
The story behind this tattoo is pretty basic. This was my first tattoo, I now have 3. My aunt died is the attacks on the World Trade Center Twin Towers, and this is my way of remembering her. She was in the North Tower, on the 58th floor.

I didn’t get her name tattooed on me because it was just too much to take in. I felt it would have been too much pain for me, and this tattoo of the eagle and the Twin Towers and the Empire State building was a way to remember not just her but all of the others that lost their lives on that tragic day.

I want people to look at my tattoo and think about that sad day and how strong America is, and remember how important our country is to us. I don’t want people to look at it and just see a picture on my back. I want them to understand why it is there, and why it is important to me. The attacks on 9/11 isn’t something that should ever be forgot about in my eyes. And that is the story behind my tattoo!

- KALINA

TRACY'S STORY

This is my second tattoo (my first one is on my ankle.) It’s located on my right shoulder. I got this for my Mother who passed away when I was only 15.I didn’t get it until I was 17 because I didn’t want to rush into just anything, it had to be something that would apply to her and me.

It was the craziest thing, one day I was sitting at my table and I looked at this notepad we had and there were two elephants on it. Since elephants were her favorite animal everything in my house is elephant. Why I never saw it before, I don’t know but once I saw that picture I knew that’s what I wanted.

So I made it personal by adding the Halo and the writing, Called up my tattoo guy and got it done. It really helped me get through the hard times and made me feel that now she would always be with me.

-Tracy

@ youngbabe.Tatoos culture and orientaion based.There is absolutely nothing wrong in it,it's just the misconception about having it the idea its a fashiosn accesory.A lot of people have them without indept thoughts and obviously regret it.One thing,tatoos are not for everyone,especially in places like 9ja.

@ iice, i knooowwww the dragonfly one is gawjuss isnt it?? luvlee

but i do have that fear sha, that i'll grow out of the tat, pass that phase and then what? so if im gettin one? itll be on my booooorie!! where i can cover it and my inlawz and boss dont have ta see it

I have five of them and still counting, and im loving them too, dont see myself regreting anything oh,

i have one, too freaking scared to get another one jor

i want to get a tattoo but im not sure which one to get or where to get it
i will get it soon tho

bluespice:

i want to get a tattoo but I'm not sure which one to get or where to get it
i will get it soon tho

Get "BRASH" tattooed on you baby!!

the problem is that many pple dont understand a tattoo is a long term committment. . . u hav to be absolutely sure u want it and it has to mean sumthin (ur boyfirend deosnt count as relationships end)! the pple who end up regretting them r the ones who go and get them on a whim and/or just becos its in vogue. . .

Lol HRH.
I'm thinking on having a tattoo (my first), either on my lower back or on my laps . It's definitely going to be a temporary one. Wouldn't mind some suggestion on what to inscribe.