It sounds like something from the Dark Ages: As little as 20 years ago, one of the best ways to remove a tattoo called for the actual destruction of the skin. Your first option was salabrasion, a technique that used an abrasive tool to, quite literally, scrap the tattoo off the skin. (Ouch!) Your second, dermabrasion, wasn't much better: a rotary device was used to sand the tattoo away. Neither were all that effective — and they both hurt like hell and left scars.