You want a cover-up, and every design you like is too small to hide what is already there. Two or three PicoSure sessions at Cannelle in Oxford lighten the old ink and hand your tattooist a free hand.
You have been looking at cover-up designs for weeks, and they keep getting bigger and darker. That is what solid old ink asks of a tattooist. It is a shame when the design you actually want is a lighter one. PicoSure at Cannelle Skin Clinic in Oxford lightens what is already on your skin. A lightened tattoo gives your artist far more room to draw.
The delight of it is in the speed. A pulse lasting about a trillionth of a second shatters ink by pressure rather than by heat. The fragments are fine enough for your lymphatic system to carry away, and the design keeps fading in the weeks between appointments. Your skin surface is never removed, which is exactly what your next tattoo needs.
Dr Mattia Parducci (GMC 7635663) leads the clinic and sets every PicoSure plan, along with the settings that go with it. More than 100 of these laser treatments sit behind him already, performed at our sister clinic in London, Dr Joney De Souza Skin & Laser. A fade is planned as carefully as a full clearance, because the new design depends on it.
A cover-up is a design drawn to a constraint. The old ink has to disappear underneath the new one. The artist reaches for darker pigment, heavier shading and more area than the design would otherwise want. A small patch of solid black on your wrist can dictate a much larger piece around it.
The tattoos people bring in are rarely large ones. Often it is a name on the inside of a wrist, or a line of script from a decade ago that no longer sounds like them. The problem is never the size of the old piece, it is how solidly the ink sits. Dense black in a small area sets more rules for a new design than a big, lightly shaded one does.
None of that is a limit on the artist’s skill. It is simply what old ink does to a plan, and good tattooists say so at the first consultation. Ask any of them what they would rather draw on, and the answer is a lighter starting point with fewer rules attached.
Around 3,600 people a month look up tattoo cover ups in the UK. Most of them are choosing between two options they believe are separate. Lightening the old ink first is the option that joins the two together.
Two or three PicoSure sessions are usually enough to lighten a design for a cover-up. A full clearance takes four to eight, so the aim here is different and the plan is shorter. You are not clearing the ink out, you are softening it until it stops dictating the new design.
What that gives you is choice. A lightened tattoo can be covered with a smaller design, in brighter colours and with finer detail. The artist is no longer working over something solid. Fine line work, soft washes of colour and pale palettes all become possible where they were not before.
Colour matters as much as density. Black and dark blue lighten the most predictably at 755 nm, and greens and blue-greens respond strongly too. Red, orange and yellow depend on other wavelengths and lighten more slowly, so a warm-coloured piece asks for a little more planning. Dr Mattia will tell you which parts of the design will lift quickly and which will take longer.
[ASSET PLACEHOLDER 1: Partial fade, before and after two sessions, a design lightened and ready for a cover-up. Credit: Images courtesy of Cynosure]
The mechanism is genuinely elegant. A picosecond pulse is over before heat has time to spread, so the energy arrives as a sharp mechanical pressure instead. Solid ink shatters into fragments small enough for your body to carry off through the lymphatic system, a little more with every session.
The surface of your skin is never taken away, and that is the detail that matters most when a new tattoo is coming. Your artist needs healthy skin to work on, and PicoSure leaves it exactly that. You walk out pink and warm for a few hours, then get on with your week while the fading carries on quietly.
Sessions sit six to eight weeks apart, which gives your body time to finish clearing before the next pass. Watching a design lighten over a few months is oddly satisfying. It is usually the point at which people start enjoying the process rather than enduring it.
A fading session is short, and it fits around a working day. The area is measured, the settings are matched to your skin and your ink, and the handpiece passes over the design. Sunscreen goes over the area daily while it settles, and no part of the appointment needs booking off work.
[ASSET PLACEHOLDER 2: Graphic, how a 755 nm picosecond pulse shatters ink by pressure rather than by heat. Credit: Images courtesy of Cynosure]
The best version of this is a conversation between three people. You know what you want next. Your artist knows what the new design needs underneath it. Dr Mattia knows how far the old ink will lift and how long that will take. A fade aimed at fine line work is not the same as one aimed at a large piece of colour.
Bring the drawing, the reference or your artist’s notes to your consultation. Dr Mattia plans the number of sessions around the date you would like to be back in the studio chair. He is glad to speak to your artist directly where that helps. Cannelle works alongside the studios people already trust rather than in competition with them.
Plenty of people arrive at a consultation having been told a cover-up is their only option, and they are relieved to hear otherwise. Fading and covering are two halves of one plan, and the order they happen in decides how good the new tattoo can look. If a full clearance would serve you better than a fade, Dr Mattia says so at the consultation.
Some people change their minds halfway through, and that is easily accommodated. Two or three sessions in, with the old design already much lighter, a few of them decide they would rather see clear skin than a new tattoo. The plan simply carries on towards a full clearance, which usually runs to four to eight sessions in total.
A fade is priced the same way as a removal, by the measured size of the design. The smallest pieces start from £90 a session. Two or three sessions is the usual plan for a cover-up, so a fade generally costs less than clearing a tattoo completely. The bands sit on the PicoSure page, alongside the rest of our prices.
You start with a consultation. Dr Mattia studies the tattoo under good light, measures it, and asks when and where it was done. He also asks what you are planning to have instead. VISIA skin imaging shows him how your skin behaves, and that guides the settings he chooses for you.
Every course opens with a patch test, treated at least 24 hours before your first full session rather than on the same day. All six Fitzpatrick skin types are treated on PicoSure, with the settings matched to your tone each time. You leave knowing how many sessions the fade needs, what it costs, and roughly when your artist can start.
If a cover-up has been sitting in your notes app for a year, an assessment is the useful next step. Bring the design to Summertown, whether you are coming in from Cowley, Botley or somewhere further out in Oxfordshire. Read what else the laser clears from tattooed skin, then get in touch when you want a date with Dr Mattia.
Bring your artist’s design to a consultation with Dr Mattia Parducci in Summertown. You will leave knowing how many sessions the fade needs and what it costs. Call 01865 537885, message us on WhatsApp, or book the consultation online.
People deciding between covering a tattoo and clearing it tend to ask the same things, from how many sessions a fade takes to what their artist will make of it.
It gives your artist far more to work with. A cover-up over solid old ink has to be bigger, darker and heavier on shading, because the original design must disappear underneath it. Lightening that ink first means the new piece can be smaller, brighter and more detailed. Two or three PicoSure sessions are usually enough to reach that point.
Two or three sessions is the usual plan, compared with four to eight for clearing a tattoo completely. You are lightening the ink rather than removing all of it, so the course is shorter. Sessions sit six to eight weeks apart and the design keeps fading in between. Your consultation turns that range into a number for your own design.
Usually, yes. A fade is priced the same way as a removal, by the measured size of the design, from £90 a session for the smallest pieces. Because a cover-up fade needs two or three sessions rather than four to eight, the total is lower. The size bands are set out on the PicoSure page.
Most are delighted. A lighter starting point removes the rules a cover-up normally has to follow, and it lets an artist draw the design they would rather be drawing. Bring their notes or the reference artwork to your consultation, and Dr Mattia is happy to speak to them directly about how far the old ink needs to lift.
That is agreed between Dr Mattia and your artist, because ink carries on clearing for weeks after a session and the skin needs to be settled before new work begins. Sessions themselves are six to eight weeks apart. Tell us at the consultation when you would like to be back in the studio chair and the plan is built around that date.
Black and dark blue lighten the most predictably at 755 nm, and greens and blue-greens respond strongly as well, which older single-wavelength lasers often could not manage. Red, orange and yellow rely on other wavelengths and lighten more slowly. White and pale inks are the least predictable. Dr Mattia tells you which parts of your design will lift quickly.
The surface of your skin is never removed. A pulse that brief, about a trillionth of a second, arrives as pressure rather than as heat, and it acts on the ink rather than on the skin around it. Most people are pink and warm for a few hours and then carry on with their day.
Yes, and it is a common request. Dr Mattia can lighten one area of a design while leaving the rest untouched, which suits people keeping part of a piece and replacing the rest. He plans it at the consultation with the new artwork in mind, so the lightening happens exactly where your artist needs it.
It suits all six Fitzpatrick skin types, with a strong safety record on types four, five and six when settings are matched to the skin. Published reviews find picosecond lasers among the devices shown to be safe for darker skin, where heat-based devices carry more risk. Dr Mattia sets your settings himself and patch-tests beforehand.
Dr Mattia Parducci (GMC 7635663), our Lead Aesthetic Doctor, plans every fade and every clearance, and he chooses the settings himself. He built that experience on more than 100 of these laser treatments at our sister clinic in London, Dr Joney De Souza Skin and Laser. You meet him at the consultation, where VISIA skin imaging and a patch test come before any full session.
Our clinic is located in Summertown, Oxford, just north of the city centre in one of Oxford’s most sought-after neighbourhoods. Discreet and easy to reach, we offer a premium setting for bespoke skin, aesthetic and wellness care.
We welcome patients from across Oxford city and Oxfordshire, including Summertown, Headington, Kidlington, Abingdon, Bicester, Witney and the surrounding towns and villages. Whether you’re coming for routine skin-health treatments or specialist aesthetic consultations, our location is well connected and simple to access.
Our clinic, Cannelle Skin Clinic, is just minutes from Oxford city centre and easily reached by car, bus or rail. Oxford’s mainline stations Oxford Station and Oxford Parkway are a short taxi or bus ride away, and regular services link to London, Reading, Didcot, Banbury and beyond.
By car, we’re conveniently accessed via key local routes with nearby parking options; by public transport, frequent bus routes along Banbury Road drop you within a short stroll of the clinic.
Whether you’re travelling from within Oxfordshire, further afield in the UK or internationally, our clinic offers a calm, personalised and professional environment for your visit.
