Think before you ink: The truth about tattoos

You are through with high school and entering college, you and your school buddies were going different ways; but you had sworn lasting friendship, and to seal the pact, you decided to get a wacky tattoo done on your arm.

Years later you can’t even remember what made you agree to a tattoo. And it now embarrasses you to the extent where you’ve even started wearing long-sleeves to hide it. You’d like to get rid of the horrible thing but you don’t know how. So before you get a tattoo done, or you want to get rid of one, think.

If you are one of those who thought tattoos were all about cobras, skull and crossbones, you are wrong.

The tattoo craze today is cute, the back/neck tattoos, like an arabesque or mandala sunburst made ‘chic’ by the likes of Drew Barrymore.

If you have already made your mind up to get a tattoo, then do take the following precautions:

• Make sure the tattoo artist breaks open a fresh pack of unused, sterile needles.
• Check and make sure he/she breaks open new packs of unused ink and pours them into disposable, unused cups.
• If he/she refuses to meet these standards then walk out… without a tattoo. After all your health, and even your life could be at stake.

Remember, AIDS, HIV, Hepatitis B & C and other skin diseases can be transmitted through contaminated tattoo needles.

Pamela Anderson had Hepatitis C. She got it when a tattoo artist used an infected tattoo needle on her. And that too, in a health-conscious country like the U.S.A.

If there’s one other thing that’s growing as fast as the “get a tattoo trend,” it’s the “take them off again trend,” as the U.S. witnessed almost 98,000 laser removal of tattoos in the past one year.

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