By MICHELLE SHELDONE
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
An "inkling" of an idea has been hailed as a big innovation for 2007.
With this erasable tattoo, a single, low-level laser can remove the names of "exes" in heart-shaped body brandishes or body art that might be admired on the beach but admonished on view in the boardroom.
The Freedom-2 tattoo was patented by plastic surgeon Kim Koger of Tequesta, Fla., who calls it a "new generation of ink" and one that could increase interest in body art.
"I think it's going to revolutionize tattooing as we know it," Koger said.
A study published in the June 2006 Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology reported that 24 percent of Americans aged 18 through 50 are tattooed.
Of them, 17 percent were considering removal but hadn't gone through with it.
More people with tattoos would probably get them removed if the process were easier and more affordable, according to Michael "Spike" Sobol, manager of Ink Link Tattoos & Piercings in West Palm Beach, Fla.
Existing removal methods "take a nice piece of artwork and turn it into a smudge instead of completely erasing it," Koger said.
"Somebody could spend $200 on a tattoo and $10,000 removing it. It would take about 10 to 15 treatments of lasers and never make it go away completely."
Philadelphia-based Freedom-2's product, made with FDA-approved materials, features dye pigments inside microscopic capsules, according to the company. Like other tattoos, they're applied with a needle, maintaining their color until the capsules rupture under laser.
Fortune Small Business listed the Freedom-2 tattoo as one of 10 big ideas coming from small businesses in 2007.
It was patented while Koger was a 1990s Duke University resident and researched and developed with colleagues there and at Harvard and Brown.
Freedom-2 is expected to become available this summer in tattoo parlors internationally and wholesale at www.freedom2inc.com.
Tattoos with this erasable ink are expected to cost more than traditional tattoos but less in instances where they're removed, Koger said.
"It might be a bigger draw for certain people," Sobol said. "Some of the more hard-core clients . . . working on total coverage probably are going to look at it a little negatively, because they're addicted to the permanence and rush you get (from the) fact that you can't take it off."
The erasable tattoo, through its capsule, Koger said, has the potential to launch glow-in-the-dark and "mood" tattoos that, like mood rings, "change in color depending on how flush you are."
