I have a tattoo on my right shoulder that I absolutely loathe. After three laser treatments at over $200 a pop it had hardly faded. That was especially frustrating because the tat is black, which is supposedly the easiest color to remove. It looks like I have the misfortune of having a low-quality tattoo in high-quality ink. I was extremely frustrated, and decided desperate measures were called for. I resolved to use salabrasion on myself, but only on a small portion of the tattoo, as a test. I knew I’d certainly scar, but didn’t care.

I hopped in the shower with a pouch of sea salt, turned on the water, poured some salt onto a wet cloth, and began rubbing my arm very hard. Within a few minutes I was bleeding, and within twenty the epidermis was gone and I had dug well into the dermis. The pain was excruciating, but only at first; it seems the salt began acting as an anaesthetic after a while. (Or it could have just been my endorphins kicking in.) I was spurred on by the fact that I could actually see the ink becoming patchier the more I rubbed. Eventually I had a deep red valley in my arm that bled surprisingly little–apparently salt staunches blood flow. It was terrible-looking, but didn’t hurt much. (Keep in mind that I’ve been whipped for fun, so my opinion of what’s painful might be taken with–well, a grain of salt.) I had spent almost two hours toiling and decided it was time to be done, though there was still some ink left. I rinsed off the salt with cold water, dried myself, put antibiotic ointment on the wound, bandaged it, and went to sleep.

A scab soon formed which had a hard time staying attached to my arm because the wound was so deep and there was nothing much for it to cling to. A lot of ink was contained in the scab–when it fell off, the ink that was left underneath was hardly visible. A second scab formed and fell off, with more ink in it. It’s now been a couple of weeks since the salabrasion and the wound is well on its way to healing, with hardly any ink visible. I pour hydrogen peroxide on it every day after I shower, followed by vitamin E cream and Neosporin. The tiny bit of ink that’s left seems to be very close to the surface, and I think it’ll completely disappear by the time I’ve fully healed.

I can now say from firsthand experience that salabrasion does work. It’s nasty, ugly, bloody, barbaric, painful, carries the risk of infection, and will certainly leave heavy scars, but that it gets rid of ink is beyond dispute. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll use it on the rest of my tattoo. That’d be a huge scar, and I’m not sure I want it.