Tattoo regret is the feeling of disappointment or remorse that some people experience after getting a tattoo, and it’s quite common! The feeling can be triggered by a variety of reasons including the tattoo not turning out as expected, changes in your personal preferences, or a tattoo having an association with negative memories. This regret could lead you to want to remove the tattoo, and with so many DIY methods appearing online, is it possible to remove a tattoo with salt and ice at home?
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Can Salt Remove Tattoos?
The short answer is no. Even though salt has been used as an exfoliant for dead skin cells for centuries, the fact of the matter is that tattoo ink is far too deep in your dermis to be impacted by this method. You could end up creating a burn by rubbing too hard on your skin, causing more damage than the tattoo itself.
Can You Rub Salt on Your Tattoos?
If your tattoo is brand new, rubbing salt on your open wound could cause severe infection, distortion, or scarring on your tattoo. Not to mention, it would hurt a lot! If you are having instant regret about your tattoo, don’t jump into a panic and try to remove it on your own. This will end up making the tattoo more difficult for a professional to adjust or remove.
Rubbing salt on an old tattoo will generally just exfoliate the region and make your tattoo appear brighter. In some instances, you could create a severe burn on your skin by rubbing too hard. It’s best to avoid rubbing salt on tattooed regions.
Is It Safe to Remove Tattoos With Salt and Ice?
It’s not safe to remove tattoos with salt and ice. This is a popular DIY method that involves numbing the skin with ice, rubbing salt onto the tattooed area, placing more ice on top of that salt, and then vigorously rubbing until the skin is raw and the tattoo effectively “scrubbed away.” This method is very ineffective and potentially dangerous.
Trying to remove your tattoo with salt and ice can cause serious damage to the skin. Rubbing salt can actually cause a chemical burn on your tattoo or potential infection, while ice used along with the salt has the potential to cause frostbite and permanent nerve damage. Along with that, it may end up making your tattoo look worse rather than removing it at all.
Removing a tattoo should only be carried out by a professional. Any attempt to do it on your own could end up causing permanent scarring and irreparable damage. For more information on professional tattoo removal, check out our article How To Remove Tattoos: How It Works, Process, Healing & Scarring.
What Is Salabrasion and Can I Do It At Home?
Salabrasion essentially means salt abrasion, and there are professional procedures that use salt as an abrasive substance for the removal of tattoos, usually in the format of a saline solution. Removing a tattoo at home is dangerous and this is a method that requires professional direction and implementation.
A German study on the effectiveness of tattoo removal through salabrasion were quite positive, stating, “perfectly acceptable to good results,” on patient tattoo removal.
Our Final Thoughts
It’s not safe to remove a tattoo with salt and ice at home. Attempting to remove a tattoo on your own can lead to scarring, infection, and other serious complications. Professional tattoo removal services are much safer and more effective than DIY methods circulating on the internet. Licensed and experienced dermatologists or tattoo removal specialists use safe and effective methods such as laser removal to ensure a tattoo is completely removed without any unnecessary harm to the skin.
If you have tattoo regret, check out our article, Tattoo Regret: Here’s What You Can Do About It And How To Deal With It.
