For his YouTube channel “Dans Ton Corps”, videographer and former nurse Julien Ménielle tested laser tattoo removal after having Cyril Hanouna’s face tattooed on his back: he tells us about this costly experience, which lasted almost 4 years.
- Julien Ménielle is a former nurse and ex-journalist turned health YouTuber, whose channel opened in 2016, “Dans Ton Corps”, is followed by more than 715,000 people.
- On YouTube, he experimented and filmed his laser tattoo removal sessions, after having deliberately tattooed Cyril Hanouna’s face on his buttocks.
- To completely erase it, 21 tattoo removal sessions in two different centers will have been necessary, for a final cost of 5,250 euros.
“I came across ads for tattoo removal centers on Instagram that really gave the impression, without saying so explicitly, that in a flash of the laser it was gone. I thought to myself that it was obviously not possible. So I wanted to document that”, explains Julien Ménielle, 48 years old. This former nurse who practiced for 10 years, but also a former journalist in a major free daily, has been running a health YouTube channel since 2016 called “In Your Body” and followed by more than 715,000 people. As part of this, he experimented and filmed his laser tattoo removal sessions.
Tattoo removal: “the best thing to know was to experience it myself”
“The vast majority of studies I found on laser tattoo removal were commissioned by either laser equipment manufacturers or tattoo removal centers. Even though it was supposed to be done by independent organizations, I didn’t think it was objective enough to be taken up, so I said to myself: the best thing to really know what I’m talking about is that I experiment myself”he recalls.
As Julien likes to use humor to better popularize his subjects, he imagined a little staging for her tattoo video : “I wanted to stage a failed tattoo and then do tattoo removal sessions and show visually, session after session, what it looks like, while providing scientific explanations on how it goes away and why it leaves traces, etc. .”
The tattoo in question? The face of Cyril Hanouna. And not just anywhere: on the buttocks. “Initially, I wanted to tattoo the face of Keen’V, instead of that of the singer of the metal band Motörhead that I had requested in the staging. But I had a bit of qualms, since I had nothing against Keen’V. I had to get a tattoo of someone I hate, which really justifies my taking it off. And two days before the session, it was about nocturnal illumination, I woke up saying to myself ‘it has to be Hanouna’”remembers the videographer. “I chose to do it on the buttocks because it is a place that is not visible on a daily basis and not exposed to the sun”he adds.
21 laser tattoo removal sessions for a total cost of 5,250 euros
“I then contacted a laser tattoo removal center which had ‘Qswitched’ technology, it was not the most recent, and which offered sessions at 150 euros. The doctor told me that I had to have it for 6 sessions, with 2 months between each session, so a year. I already imagined that it would last longer, for example 1 year and a half, but not beyond ten sessions”, he says. Unfortunately, he was way off the mark: “After 7 sessions, there was no real visible result. So I changed to a center which uses a latest generation laser technology, called ‘Picosure’, where the session cost 300 euros. I was told that I had 4 sessions, each spaced out by a month.”
14 additional sessions were finally necessary for the tattoo to come off completely, so 21 in all, over a period of 3 years and 9 months, for a total cost of 5,250 euros. “I admit that there was a moment when I had a little sweat thinking that it was never going to go away completely”, he confides. Fortunately, today “It’s completely gone. There’s a tiny little scar left from the needle splits, but it’s fading. You really have to have your nose glued to it to see something and given the place where it is there are few people with their nose glued to it”jokes Julien.
Pain: “It’s like a white-hot blade going around the tattoo”
A relief for him, especially since laser tattoo removal sessions are particularly painful, as the former nurse remarks: “I found that it was much more painful than the tattoo. I compare it to the feeling that I was being passed a white-hot scalpel blade over the entire contour of the tattoo because, at the same time, it stings very strongly with a cutting sensation and, at the same time, it heats up very strongly. with a burning sensation. Afterwards, it’s still much faster than tattooing, since a laser tattoo removal session lasts 3 minutes”he nuances.
Despite the necessary investment and patience, Julien does not regret this experience at all. “As this did not handicap me on a daily basis and people liked the videos, this validated my initial approach: to demonstrate that it is important not to rely solely on what is told in certain studies. and that you have to rub shoulders with reality to see if it works as well as they say”he points out.
The recommendations he drew from it for people who would like to have their tattoos removed? “What is important is to have a center where a doctor supervises the operation, or even the practice. And you have to insist with the doctor to make a prescription for analgesia, such as an anesthetic ointment like ‘Emla’. We apply it 1 hour or 2 before the session, we put on a bandage and when we arrive to go to the laser, the skin is anesthetized. It really makes a difference.”
Small bonus of this experience, which he takes as a joke: it will have earned him to see his buttocks on prime time on television. “I had the great pleasure of seeing my ass on huge TV on the giant screen of the show ‘Touche pas à mon poste’ on C8. So just for that, I don’t regret having given almost 4 years of my life to it”, he laughs. Following this, a member of the show’s team even offered him an invitation to the set, declined by Julien.
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