A tattoo is meant to be permanent. Unfortunately, what a person might want today may not be what he or she wants two or twenty years from now. Both the procedure of and cost of getting a tattoo are relatively minor in comparison to having it removed at a later date. It may be wise to consider these facts before visiting your local tattoo artist with design and cash in hand.

Two of the most commonly used methods of tattoo removal are also two of the most unsatisfactory. The first method involves removing a piece of skin from a less-noticeable part of your body, and grafting it on top of the tattoo. This odd form of “plastic surgery” covers up the tattoo, but generally leaves scar tissue, as the skin is not in its normal state. Another popular method is to simply go to a tattoo artist and have another design tattooed on top of the unwanted one. With this method, the black outline from the original tattoo will be noticeable through the new one; the larger the original, and the more black ink it has, the more difficult it will be to cover it.

A surgical method which is equally if not more unsatisfactory is called dermabrasion. In layman’s terms, you can think of it as going at your skin with sandpaper. Even when this method is performed by a licensed physician, you will likely decide that the resulting scar is worse than the original tattoo. The reason for the scarring is that removing a tattoo by this method means going through the tattoo and the underlying skin. The scarring left by this method will leave that portion of your skin a much lighter color and a different texture than the surrounding skin. Of all tattoo removal methods currently in practice, dermabrasion is the method which will leave the most noticeable scarring.

Please be advised that you should always consult a doctor before taking any medical advice.

I asked my daughter to tell about her experience with poodle skirts, but not an adult poodle skirt. Here is what she typed (with a bit of editing on my part):

My name is Clara and I am nine years old. I visited my friends’ house a few months ago to play a dancing game. One of my friends was named Becky and was nine years old. The other friend was named Lily and was almost 11. When we played the dancing game I wore a red poodle skirt for my costume–but not an adult poodle skirt. There was a black poodle on the red skirt. When we were playing the gameenlisted in a dancing performance. We each wore a costume and danced with some classical music on. They had two poodle skirts both the color red. But only I wore a poodle skirt.

Lily wore a dress and my other friend Becky didn’t really like to dress up so she didn’t.
Under my poodle skirt I wore a ballet outfit under it–the kind of ballet outfit without the skirt. I was exited to wear it because I had seen the poodle skirts before when I went over.

I don’t think their mom has an adult poodle skirt. Her mom was just interested in getting poodle skirts for her daughters. Lily loves dress up games so she must have been exited to get a poodle skirt. Becky and Lily’s little sister likes to wear their poodle skirts because the little sister loves to goof off and play all the time. Whenever I go over there I usually see her wearing it.

Before I went over to their house I never knew about poodle skirts! When I went home after we played the game I saw my dad on the computer researching on adult poodle skirt and I said “Hey! I wore one of those skirts at my friend’s house!” He told me they were called poodle skirts. I would love to get a poodle skirt of my own because they are so much fun to play with! I would want a pink poodle skirt that comes with a pink scarf.

If I had my own poodle skirt I would wear it to a dance party. If I were just playing with it at home I would turn on some hip-hop music and dance with some cool shades on and some sandals. I would let my sister play too. I would ask my mom and dad to come watch us dance. I would make some paper signs and put them on the walls in my house. I would also make pretend tickets to get in. That’s what I would do with a non adult poodle skirt.

Buy Poodle Skirt

Today I’m going to have a look at one of the “4 C’s” of how diamonds are graded.  In case you don’t know, diamonds are ranked in 4 main categories – cut, color, carat and clarity.  Let’s take a close look at one of the biggies – clarity.

The clarity grading scale goes from IF (the best) down to I3 (the worst).  In total, there are ten grades that a diamond can fall into.

Clarity looks at the number of “inclusions” that are found in the diamond.  In a nut-shell, inclusions are small blemishes or imperfections.  These occur naturally when the rock is forming in the earth and inclusions are found in almost all diamonds.

In order to place a grade on the diamond, a gemologist inspects the diamond under intense magnification to look at the inclusions that are present.  The grading is then decided on the number of inclusions, and also how apparent or large they are.

Just to illustrate, a diamond that has an IF grading has no inclusions at all.  This is incredibly rare, and as you can imagine, this type of diamond will have a huge price premium attached to it.

A stone with a grading of VS2 will have “very slight” inclusions – these are only noticeable when viewed under a microscope and aren’t typically noticeable with your naked eye.  These diamonds are priced for a lot less that an IF graded diamond.

Make sure to understand the different ways diamonds are graded.  Grab a diamond buying guide - this will make a huge difference in the end as you can save a lot of money on your purchase.  Just a little education will be the difference in finding an affordable engagement ring instead of shelling out big bucks and making your jeweler richer.