Hydrogen Peroxide Tattoo Removal – A Beginner’s Guide

how to fade a tattoo with hydrogen peroxide
Picture Credit (CC0 License)

Hydrogen peroxide is a mild antiseptic that is commonly applied to cuts and burns. It’s a household product that you may already have in your cupboard as part of a first aid kit. However, it is starting to be used as a method for removing tattoos at home. Already, you can see an advantage to this – you could potentially remove a tattoo without paying for any costly tattoo removal treatments, like laser therapy.

Naturally, there will be some disadvantages to this technique, which we’ll explain later on. For now, we’ll jump straight into hydrogen peroxide tattoo removal, along with the science behind the method.

How to remove a tattoo with hydrogen peroxide.

Firstly, get some hydrogen peroxide from your local pharmacy if you don’t already have some.

Secondly, get a clean washcloth and apply some of the hydrogen peroxide to it. From here, you can dab the washcloth directly on your tattooed area. Ensure the whole tattoo is covered and leave the cloth on the skin for up to 15 minutes. This helps the hydrogen peroxide sink into the skin and get to work.

Be warned, you will not see immediate results and you will need to repeat this process multiple times a day for numerous weeks until you see the tattoo gradually begin to fade.

hydrogen peroxide to fade tattoo

This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links. The Choice Is 100% Yours

What are the pros and cons of hydrogen peroxide tattoo removal?

The main benefit is that this is a relatively pain-free method of tattoo removal. You see, hydrogen peroxide works by releasing oxygen into your skin. This will make the area foam up, which gets rid of dead skin cells in the area. As a result, with repetitive use, more and more skin cells are removed, meaning the tattoo begins to fade away.

Another advantage is that this is incredibly cheap to do. It barely costs anything and is highly convenient as you can do it all at home without any supervision at all.

The downside is that it will take a very long time. You’re looking at multiple weeks, and you may have to apply the hydrogen peroxide four times a day. If you don’t have the patience to do this, then you aren’t going to see the desired results.

Furthermore, there are doubts that this will ever make your tattoo completely disappear. Because of the way tattoo ink is injected into your skin, most at-home treatments like this won’t get deep enough to remove it. As such, you can fade it slightly, but you’d still need something like salabrasion or laser tattoo removal to actually get rid of the tattoo.

Overall, hydrogen peroxide is a safe and convenient method of fading your tattoo at home. It won’t remove your tattoo entirely, but it can lighten the ink to an extent. While this doesn’t give you the best results you could hope for, it is still actually very helpful. A lighter tattoo is easier to remove using other tattoo removal methods, so you’d need fewer appointments to finally get rid of your tattoo!