Show Notes
In this episode of the Faded Podcast, Billy DeCola breaks down everything you need to know about saline tattoo removal — particularly for permanent makeup like eyebrows, freckles, and lip blush.
He explains how hypertonic saline works by drawing pigment to the skin's surface through an osmotic effect, and covers the key reasons someone might choose saline over laser:
- Resistant pigment colors (especially yellow and white)
- Medical conditions (Accutane use, gold injections)
- Very dark skin tones (Fitzpatrick 5–6)
- General reluctance to use laser
He also sets realistic expectations: saline is more invasive than laser, carries a higher infection risk, and requires 1–3 months of healing before results can be evaluated.
Recommendation: Exhaust laser options first — particularly the PicoWay — and only turn to saline if you've hit a plateau or laser isn't an option.
Transcript Highlights
"A lot of people want to jump right into saline before they try the laser, and honestly, saline is, in my opinion, the very last resort." — Billy DeCola (00:00)
"Welcome back to the Faded podcast. This episode is for people who are considering saline tattoo removal, and most people who are getting saline removal are getting it for permanent makeup, whether it's brows, freckles, or lip blush removal."
On how saline works:
"You're tattooing salt into your wound, into your skin, and your body doesn't like that, so it's gonna react."
On saline vs. laser:
"We have the PicoWay laser. That thing is amazing. It breaks pigment up. It allows your body to take away those pigment particles with your lymphatic system."
Closing recommendation:
"I would break down the pigment as much as possible, reduce the saturation as much as you possibly can with the laser. And once the laser's not effective anymore... then and only then is when I would recommend doing saline removal."
Full Transcript
In this episode of the Faded Podcast , we break down everything you need to know about saline tattoo removal — particularly for permanent makeup like eyebrows, freckles, and lip blush. We explain how hypertonic saline works by drawing pigment to the skin’s surface through an osmotic effect, and we cover the key reasons someone might choose saline over laser: resistant pigment colors (especially yellow and white), medical conditions like Accutane use or gold injections, very dark skin tones (Fitzpatrick 5–6), and general reluctance to use laser. We also set realistic expectations: saline is more invasive than laser, carries a higher infection risk, and requires 1–3 months of healing before results can be evaluated. Our strong recommendation is to exhaust laser options first — particularly the PicoWay — and only turn to saline if you’ve hit a plateau or laser isn’t an option. Saline removal is a valid tool, but it’s a last resort, not a starting point. FULL TRANSCRIPT Billy DeCola 00:00 A lot of people want to jump right into saline before they try the laser, and honestly, saline is, in my opinion, the very last resort. But it’s definitely not my first choice in the toolbox. Welcome back to the Faded podcast. This episode is for people who are considering saline tattoo removal, and most people who are getting saline removal are getting it for permanent makeup, whether it’s brows, freckles, or lip blush removal. So let’s talk about the reasons why you would choose to go with saline removal over laser removal. But before we jump into when saline removal is a good option, let’s talk about how it works. So how does saline removal actually work? It’s pretty simple. You take a tattoo machine with a needle, and you dip that needle into saline water. They call it hypertonic saline water, I believe, and that just means it’s extra salty, I think. Hey, Claude. How’s it going? Hey, Billy. I’m doing well. What do you need? I was just wondering, what is hypertonic saline solution compared to regular saline solution? Good question. Regular saline is basically salt water at the same concentration as your body’s natural fluids. It’s isotonic, meaning it’s balanced. Hypertonic saline has a much higher salt concentration than your body’s fluids. That higher concentration creates the osmotic effect we talked about earlier. It draws fluid out of the surrounding tissue, which is what pulls the pigment particles toward the surface. That’s why hypertonic saline is used for removal rather than regular saline. Well, there you have it right there. Instead of regular saline, we’re gonna use hypertonic saline. Hypertonic saline solution is extra salty. So what you’re doing is you’re taking salt water and you’re tattooing it into your skin, and when you tattoo that salt water into your skin, the salt will draw that liquid and draw that pigment towards the salt, and they say that it binds with the pigment. I’m not really sure if that’s w- exactly what happens, to be completely honest, but that’s what they say. They say that the salt binds with the pigment, and then your body rejects that salt and pushes out the salt along with the pigment that has bound to it. That’s how saline removal works. Now, it’s not the most pleasant treatment. When you get saline removal, you have to think about it. You’re tattooing salt into your wound, into your skin, and your body doesn’t like that, so it’s gonna react. You’re gonna have irritation, some soreness for sure. Um, in some cases, you may scab. It, it’s not all created equally. Some people perform saline, and they go very gently, and other people go too strong, and they just overwork the skin, and some people do it just perfectly, right in the middle. But, um, not all saline is done equally. You know, talent does vary from technician to technician, so keep that in mind if you are looking for somebody to do saline. But let’s talk about why and when you would choose saline over laser tattoo removal. The number one reason why we have people coming in to get saline removal is because they’ve tried laser, and the laser broke down some of the pigment, but it wasn’t able to get rid of all of the pigment. So when you’re stuck with some pigment and you can’t get rid of all of it, especially when it’s a bright color like yellow, and we see that quite often in eyebrows and in other permanent makeup like freckles, and sometimes we see it in lip blush where there’s white pigment tattooed into the lips because that’s how you make pink. You mix red and white, and there you have pink. So when you’re trying to remove those types of colors and the laser doesn’t Work. The pigment’s not responding. That’s when most people choose to go the saline route. When you’ve tried doing laser removal and it just didn’t work, that’s when you have to look for alternative solutions, and unfortunately, saline is the only other option at that time. So if you’ve started doing laser and the laser didn’t get all the pigment out, then that’s a great time to transition into saline removal. So another reason why people choose to go with saline over laser is because of a medical condition that they may have that prevents them from doing laser. So if you’re not a candidate to get laser tattoo removal, then the only other option would be to try saline. So some of the reasons why people can’t get laser is, uh, because maybe they’re on a photosensitive medication. Accutane is a big one. If you’ve taken Accutane in the past six months, you should not get laser treatment. Another one we’ve seen, and it’s not super common, but this one is, uh, pretty intense, is, uh, gold injections. Sometimes people get gold injections for rheumatoid arthritis, and if you’ve had gold injections, even if it was years ago, then laser tattoo removal is not an option. So sometimes people have photosensitive medications that they’re taking, and they’re just not a good candidate for laser. In other cases, and this kind of falls under the medical conditions, maybe you have such dark skin tone that the laser, especially the certain wavelength that we need to target the color that’s in your skin, is not gonna work with your skin tone. If you have a lot of melanin in your skin, if you’re Fitzpatrick five or six and you have red pigment that you’re trying to get out, there’s a very good chance that laser’s not the best option for you. And in some cases, we do target red in Fitzpatrick five, um, but we have to be very, very careful with that. We have used the 532 wavelength on Fitzpatrick five, and we’ve been successful with it, but if it doesn’t work at a very low setting, that’s when you wanna switch to possibly trying saline removal. So that’s another reason why, um, you may not go with laser, and instead you would go with saline. And last but not least is, uh, some people just don’t want to put a laser on their skin. There are a lot of people out there who are fearful of the laser. They just get nervous when they think about laser on their skin, and I get it. Everybody has their phobias. So if laser’s not for you, if for whatever reason you don’t feel comfortable doing laser, then the only other option to get that pigment out of your skin would be to try saline removal. So let’s talk about what you can expect when you get saline removal. Saline tattoo removal is a lot more invasive than laser tattoo removal. If the laser’s done correctly, it’s not gonna damage your skin, you’re not gonna have blisters and bleed and have oozing skin. But when you get saline removal, your skin is being opened. You’re tattooing salt into your skin. That is gonna definitely cause some trauma, and you’re gonna have a little bit more of a difficult time healing it. You have a much higher chance of getting an infection when you get saline removal as opposed to getting laser removal. So these are all possible outcome. That doesn’t mean it’s gonna happen, but if you’re getting saline, you should be aware of all of the possible outcomes. And we usually go through everything in the consultation, but since you’re watching this video, you’re gonna be informed before you even inquire. Let’s talk about the healing process. So the healing process is pretty straightforward. You’re gonna have to treat it like an open wound. You don’t wanna soak it. You don’t want to go into jacuzzis or saunas or do hot yoga, anything like that, for a little bit. You wanna baby it. You wanna treat it like an open wound, and you want it to heal without any complications whatsoever. It could take a week. It could take two weeks, depending on your body. And it also depends on how aggressively the saline is applied into your skin. So if you go super aggressively, you’re gonna have more of a difficult healing process. If you go very gently and just kinda pepper that saline in, then it’s not gonna be as rough of a healing process, but it’s most likely not gonna be as effective either. You gotta kinda find that medium there and hit it just right. So everybody’s skin’s a little different. The healing process, you should expect to have an open wound, and you will be taking care of it kinda like when you got tattooed. Realistic timelines for results. Now, this is a tricky one, because especially if you’re trying to remove a yellow or any type of very light sunset type of color that is, like, red or peach or orange or yellow, anything like that, what’s gonna happen to your skin when you apply the saline, first of all, it’s gonna break your skin open, and you’re gonna have to heal. So your skin’s gonna be irritated. Most likely, it’s gonna mask that pigment. So you might think that the yellow’s completely gone because that skin is irritated and it’s kinda masking it But you won’t know for sure until your skin completely heals and all of that irritation is gone. So once your skin is back to normal, and it could take a month, it could take a month and a half, who knows? That’s dependent on your body and how you heal. But depending on that, that determines how long it will take for you to know if it was effective or not. So normally when somebody comes in and they get saline, I don’t even want to do another session for at least three months. Your body has to heal that area. And in order to heal, it needs time. And let’s talk about one thing that happens quite often. And I just want to let you know, I don’t think it’s the right way to approach it. A lot of people want to jump right into saline before they try the laser. And honestly, saline is, in my opinion, the very last resort. Saline can be very effective in some situations, but it’s definitely not my first choice in the toolbox. We have the PicoWay laser. That thing is amazing. It breaks pigment up. It allows your body to take away those pigment particles with your lymphatic system. So breaking the pigment and allowing your body to do the work without causing trauma to your skin is definitely the way to go. I would not start with saline removal and then try to do laser. A lot of people out there, and these are the people who are doing saline, they promote it that way, where they say, give saline a try, break down that pigment and bring it to the surface, and then try laser. I think that’s completely wrong. I would do it the opposite way. I would break down the pigment as much as possible, reduce the saturation as much as you possibly can with the laser. And once the laser’s not effective anymore, and that time might never come because the laser might get rid of all of the pigment. But if the laser’s not effective, or if you hit a plateau and you’re just not seeing any more fading, then and only then is when I would recommend doing saline removal. Hopefully this episode helps you decide what to do if you’re considering doing saline removal. And if you found this episode helpful, please like, share, subscribe, leave a comment, and let me know how your experience went with either laser removal or saline removal or the combination of the two. I’d love to hear from you. Thanks again for tuning in to the Faded Podcast, and we’ll catch you again next time.