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Tattoos may not be forever — but that doesn’t mean getting rid of them is pretty.
One influencer was left reeling after a tattoo removal session led to a “disgusting” complication, sending her racing online for advice.
“If you don’t want to see something gross, please keep scrolling,” Kyra Green (@kyra212green) warned her more than 800,000 followers on TikTok in a recent video.
The 29-year-old realized something was amiss after her third tattoo removal session, during which she’d told the technician to “amp up” the laser treatment on the back of her leg.
“I have a high pain tolerance,” Green said. “I was like, it’s fine. It’s been fine.”
But when she got home, she noticed the area felt “a little hot,” and when she looked down, her skin had started to bubble up.
“I was like, OK, those are probably like just little blisters,” Green said. “I’ve heard that can happen with tattoo removal. That’s fine.”
The next morning, however, things took a turn for the worse.
Covering her tattoo, a massive blister had formed on the back of her knee. It was filled with a greenish-brown liquid.
“This is what it looks like,” she told viewers while showing it off. “What is that?!”
“It felt like a water balloon was attached to the back of my leg,” Green later told People. “I was terrified it would pop.”
Bewildered fans freaked out in the comments, with one urging the content creator to “go straight to the emergency room.”
Others reassured her that blisters like these are actually pretty common after laser tattoo removal.
During the treatment, the laser fires rapid, high-intensity pulses of light to break up ink particles in the skin, which the body can then flush out naturally.
The laser generates heat on the treated area, inflicting controlled injuries on the skin’s surface.
In response to this trauma, the body’s natural healing mechanisms kick in, sometimes forming a fluid-filled sac like the one that ballooned on the back of Green’s leg.
She wrestled with whether to drain the blister, worried it might pop on its own or get infected, or just “ride it out.”
“I’ve heard that you’re just supposed to leave blisters alone,” Green said. “That gross skin is its own protective barrier and you shouldn’t touch it … I don’t know what to do.”
Luckily, she didn’t have to decide.
About a week later, Green revealed in another TikTok that the blister had “exploded” after she accidentally brushed up against it. Her mom came to the rescue, helping clean and bandage the wound.
Shaken, Green said she hasn’t returned for another tattoo removal session.
“I definitely wanted to let my skin fully heal before thinking about going back in,” she told People, noting she’s had multiple removal sessions before and never experienced anything “even close to this intense.”
Looking ahead, she plans to take future removals more slowly.
“For a tattoo as dark as mine, they said upwards of six sessions,” Green told the outlet. “There’s no way to fully know until you’re in the process, since everyone’s skin is different.”
After a tattoo removal session, experts recommend keeping the treatment area clean and dry as it heals.
If blisters appear, you can carefully lance them with a sterilized needle by poking a small hole at the bottom to let the fluid drain. But don’t pick or peel the skin — it serves as your body’s natural protective barrier, according to Removery, a leading tattoo removal company.
Once the blister is drained, gently wash the area with a fragrance-free soap and apply a thin layer of Vaseline. Cover it with a nonstick bandage, change it regularly and avoid tight-fitting clothing to prevent accidental popping from rubbing.
If the area becomes red, painful or the fluid inside the blister changes color, contact your doctor.
