When a person wants to remove unwanted body art, his or her options depend on whether the art is a piercing or tattoo. There is only one method to remove a piercing. A person can remove the jewerly and typically the hole will close. However, bad scarring can result from the piercings. To get rid of these scars, a person may require plastic surgery.

There are several options to choose from if a person decides to get rid of an unwanted tattoo. However, most of these methods are time consuming, expensive, and painful. To avoid the expense and pain, some people decide to cover up their old tattoos with new ones.

Although a cover-up has advantages over removing unwanted tattoos, it can be technically involved. One method is to first cover the old tattoos with a flesh-colored pigment. This does not completely cover the tattoo because flesh colors do not blend completely with human skin. However, this method gives the tattoo artist a cleaner slate to work with before inking a new tattoo over the old one.

Another method is to ink right over the old tattoo with a new tattoo. The more complex a tattoo is, the more difficult this method is. According to author Jean-Chris Miller, “A good tattooist maps out the colors and lines of your existing tattoo and then designs a new piece that corresponds to the old one. For example, if your old tattoo had brown on top and yellow at the bottom, the new one while being completely different design will also have to be dark on top and a darker color on the bottom. The reason is that you can’t cover dark pigment with a lighter pigment.” Tribal design tattoos are often used to cover up old tattoos. Tribal tattoos are typically done in black ink and abstract so they can be shaped to cover up most tattoos.