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What is Sports Tape?
Kinesiology Tape, also known as athletic or sports tape, is used for pain relief, injury prevention, and support of muscles, joints, and ligaments in physiotherapy and sports activities like weightlifting, rock climbing, volleyball, and more.
Sports Tape and Laser Tattoo Removal
Sun exposure in the treatment area increases the risk of negative side effects in laser tattoo removal, particularly hypopigmentation or hyperpigmentation – permanent lightening or darkening of the skin.
To avoid this, we recommend protecting the area from the sun, especially in the summer months or during trips to hot or tropical locations.
The most effective method of sun protection for laser tattoo removal is the use of sports tape. Sports tape is great because:
- it can easily be cut to the size of the tattoo
- you can stick it on once and keep it on for days at a time
- you don’t need to worry about reapplying sunscreen (on the tattoo) every hour
We Did Science!
We compared popular brands so you don’t have to. We opted to test two types of KT Tape, a popular brand that we’ve had good experience with in the past, and the cheapest brand we could find on Amazon.
A few things to note for this very official study:
- All tape was applied over tattoos on one person in the same relative area.
- It was the middle of a heatwave. Extra sweaty, nice.
- The tape was exposed to:
- Hard, physical, outdoor labour
- Multiple showers
- Regular wear and tear (putting on clothing, sleeping in a bed, etc)
| Cotton KT Tape | Kinesiology Tape by MUEUSS | KT Tape PRO Extreme Kinesiology Tape | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Price | $20.75/roll | $10.99/roll | $23.99/roll |
| Number of Days it stayed on | <1 day | 10 days | <1 day |
Video Summary
Conclusion
If you’re looking to protect your tattoo from the sun while doing laser tattoo removal treatments in the summer months or when you vacation somewhere hot and tropical, we highly recommend using the Kinesiology Tape by MEUSSE! One application lasted us 10 days – and it could have lasted 2-5 days longer. It survived through 30-37°C days, physic outdoor labour, sunscreen application, and showers – while the premium KT Tape barely lasted the day. The tan line from the tape was evident, and there was plenty of tape left in the roll to use for the next application. At nearly half the cost of the KT Tape, we are glad to be able to recommend it!
We’re not sure if the KT Tape manufacturer changed the adhesive, we happened to get duds of both types, or what – we had experience using it 10 years ago and it was the superior product. After this study, we can no longer recommend that brand. At $20/roll, you’d expect it to last at least a few days.
If you’d rather take the summer months off than cover your tattoos, that works too! We’ll see you in the fall.