News

Jun 17, 2023

St. Augustine business uses organic method for removal

Florida is the bad ink capital of the world. A short walk down the beach will

Florida is the bad ink capital of the world. A short walk down the beach will reveal a tableau of late-night decisions, lost lovers's names and sun-faded regret.

Many tattoos have stories behind them but very few hold up as well as permanent ink. Playboy bunnies, peace signs, song lyrics, tribal patterns and lounging lizards must go. The only question left is: How?

Bonnie Monahan is the owner at Let's Go Tattless of St. Augustine. It's housed inside her husband Clark Monahan's chiropractic clinic at 419 Anastasia Blvd.

Go Tattless provides an organic, non-laser tattoo removal service. Monahan's granddaughter Kimber Strickland is the esthetician.

Strickland said the problem with laser removal is that it takes off more than just the tattoo. Certain lasers also have difficulty removing colors like green and black, which are common among tattoos.

Without the burn

Whereas laser removal deposits ink into the body, the Go Tattless procedure lifts the ink out during the healing process.

"It looks pretty bad but that's what happens when the ink starts rising up into the scab," Monahan said. "It looks ridiculous."

While the scabbing process isn't pretty, it is effective. Most patients see a significant difference after the first procedure.

It takes about 14 days for scabbing to fall off naturally and another five-to-six weeks for the healing process to complete.

How long it takes to extract the ink depends mainly on color, size and depth. Many removals take multiple sessions.

It doesn't matter whether it's new or old ink, but tattoos on fleshier parts of the body can take time to remove.

A lot of their business comes from cover-ups.

"They don't like what they got, or they're tired of it, or they're no longer dating that person," Monahan said. "That's a big one."

Monahan wouldn't appear to be a likely candidate to get involved with anything that has to do with tattoos. But her daughter Krista Monahan owns The Lovely Pearl Tattoo Studio at 247 San Marco Ave.

Often receiving calls - from non-customers - looking for removal options, she suggested her mother and Strickland look into providing such a service.

"It just kind evolved as something we've really liked," Monahan said.

She opened an original location in Gainesville and then in St. Augustine just a couple of weeks ago.

Monahan is currently a licensee of Go Tattless, but it will be going to a franchise.

The procedure

A small rotary machine is used to reach the ink. A saline solution with Himalayan salt is then applied on the area, taking about 10 minutes to seep in.

Topical anesthesia is applied before and during the procedure, making it less painful. The solution also acts as an antibiotic and instructions are provided to avoid infection.

Patient Tara McBroom, a bartender at Cap's on the Water, is in the process of getting un-inked. She said the removal procedure is no more painful than getting a tattoo.

Her tattoo is about two years old and she has wanted to get rid of it for at least a year. She said her "Alice in Wonderland"-inspired tattoo was a result of one too many drinks of champagne.

Taking up the length of her forearm, it includes a quote from the story, rabbit ears and a top hat. She is having the procedure done in sections.

McBroom didn't want to do laser removal because she is fair-skinned. When she heard about the Go Tattless procedure, she jumped at the chance.

"You can instantly see results," she said. "I've been amazed just after two weeks."

For more information, call 679-8739.