Tattoo removal has been performed with various tools during the history of tattooing. While tattoos were once considered permanent, it is now possible to remove them with treatments, fully or partially.

Pre-laser tattoo removal methods include dermabrasion, salabrasion (scrubbing the skin with salt), cryosurgery and excision which is sometimes still used along with skin grafts for larger tattoos. Some early forms of tattoo removal included the injection or application of wine, lime, garlic or pigeon excrement. Tattoo removal by laser was performed with continuous-wave lasers initially, and later with Q-switched lasers, which became commercially available in the early 1990s. Today, "laser tattoo removal" usually refers to the non-invasive removal of tattoo pigments using Q-switched lasers. Typically, black and darker colored inks can be removed more completely.

In the United States, about 17% of people with tattoos experience some regret. According to a poll done in 2008, the most common reasons for regret are "too young when I got the tattoo" (20%), it's "permanent" and I'm "marked for life" (19%), and I just "don't like it" (18%). An earlier poll showed that 19% of British people with tattoos suffered regret, as did 11% of Italian people with tattoos. Surveys of tattoo removal patients were done in 1996 and 2006 and provided more insight. These patients typically obtained their tattoos in their late teens or early twenties, and just over half were women. About 10 years later, the patient's life had changed, and more than half of the patients reported that they "suffered embarrassment." A new job, problems with clothes, and a significant life event (wedding, divorce, baby) were also commonly cited as motivations.

William Terence "Will" Kirby (born January 2, 1973)^{[citation needed]} is an osteopathic physician and an American television personality. He was the winner of the American reality television show Big Brother 2 and also appeared in Big Brother 7: All-Stars.

Born in Florence, Italy, Kirby was raised in Tallahassee, Florida where he graduated high school from Florida State University High School (colloquially "Florida High School"). In 1995, Kirby received his degree in Biology from Emory University. He obtained his degree in Osteopathic Medicine from Nova Southeastern University in 2000 and did his first year of postgraduate training in Internal medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center & Miami Heart Institute in Miami Beach, Florida in 2001. His dermatology residency training, which he completed in 2007, took place in association with Western University of Health Sciences/Pacific Hospital of Long Beach where he served as Chief Resident in the Department of Dermatology.