From full sleeve to wash slate: Brazil's onetime most-tattooed man is erasing his previous, one laser pulse at a time.
Leandro de Souza, a 36-year-old photographer from Bagé in Brazil's southernmost state, spent twenty years turning himself right into a strolling canvas.
The Brazilian had greater than 170 inkings masking about 95% of his physique, a feat that received him the “most tattooed” title on the Santa Rosa Worldwide Tattoo Expo in 2023.
After a non secular conversion roughly two years in the past, de Souza determined to take away the artworks.
He subsequently began documenting the painstaking reversal on Instagram and in native interviews, buying and selling a shock-value aesthetic for a quieter life, regular work and household obligations.
The break along with his outdated picture was abrupt and private.
“I didn't really feel good, it didn't swimsuit me anymore,” he advised O Globo. “It was a world of extra, which not did me any good. There got here a time after I felt like a circus attraction.”
The shift coincided along with his embrace of evangelical Christianity and a pledge to remain off medication and alcohol as he pursues a proper job, pays little one help, and seeks to regain guardianship of his aged mom.
De Souza says the method is punishing — and much more durable than getting inked.
“In the event you think about that an individual goes there to take away one from their finger and already complains of ache, think about a session on your entire face, which includes three varieties of laser,” he advised G1.
He's halfway by way of a course that would take as much as eight periods, with 5 already accomplished on his face.
Asserting that milestone, he wrote on Instagram: “After the fifth session of facial tattoo elimination, @helltatto – gratitude, it's about Jesus Christ.”
The work, carried out at a studio within the São Paulo space, has been provided professional bono, in accordance with his posts and native stories.
The store behind the procedures frames the mission as greater than beauty.
“It's vital to recollect: tattoos don't outline character,” the studio stated in a caption accompanying a video of his therapy.
“What transforms a life are decisions, effort, and the dedication to maneuver ahead. On this course of, tattoo elimination is merely a mirrored image of a a lot bigger inside change that helps align the exterior picture with the brand new identification being constructed,” the studio stated.
The studio has additionally stated he “misplaced his self-confidence” throughout a interval marked by dependancy, homelessness and time in jail, which he has since labored to go away behind.
De Souza's cautionary be aware lands squarely on probably the most indelible actual property of all —the face.
“Think twice earlier than getting a face tattoo as a result of I remorse it,” he advised CNN Brazil.
He defined that entry and value as soon as nudged him additional than he might need in any other case gone.
“I used to be within the tattoo enterprise, and again then, I didn't pay for these face tattoos. I obtained paid by the tattoo artist I labored with. And I regretted it. I used to be probably the most tattooed man in Brazil, and I additionally tattooed others,” he stated.
His stance at this time is much less anti-tattoo than pro-priorities: “At this time, I don't tattoo. I don't condemn tattoos. I imagine that, after baptism and conversion, there are extra vital issues for us to do, my pricey brothers.”
Between periods, he ices and applies ointments, swears by train to help restoration, and posts side-by-side images that chart the fading outlines of once-permanent designs.
