The consumer watchdog Choice has sounded a warning over the lack of regulation in the tattoo removal industry, pointing out that no medical training is required for those using lasers to remove unwanted ink from flesh.

According to Choice, about a quarter of Australians under age 30 now have a tattoo, making them the most-tattooed generation to date.

More than a quarter of that group is looking to have a tattoo removed, the consumer rights group adds.

The tool of choice is a laser, however Choice points out that despite the potential for burns and permanent scars a removalist is not required to undergo medical training to use one.

Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey told the ABC's PM program that with one in three people now regretting their decision to get a tattoo, more people were choosing to have them removed.

"There's no doubt that tattoos are increasing in popularity," he said.

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"We're seeing them adorning sport stars, models. You just look now at the AFL players, all the cricketers - Michael Clarke, you name it, pretty much everyone these days has a tattoo in popular culture, and that's translating to younger generations seeking to get tattoos."

Mr Godfrey says as tattoos grow in popularity, there is a need to make sure consumers are safe.

"And if they want to have them removed, then they need to know that the person removing the tattoo has been trained appropriately and is ensuring that the technology being used to remove the tattoo is not going to cause more damage than actually having the tattoo there in the first place," he said.

He says horror stories are emerging of removal jobs gone wrong.

"Things like burning to scarring right through to some of the emerging technologies where various cancer concerns have been raised with some of the newer lasers that tend to break up the ink that then enters the bloodstream," he said.

Not all tattoo removalists equal

PM spoke to Venessa, who says she regrets getting tattoos and is now having one removed.

"I just got a really bad job done. It was supposed to be like a mountain with like, a sheep and Yogi Bear riding a sheep, and then like, all this stuff was coming out of his head, like tentacles, but it just turned out mostly like a black blob," she said.

"So I just decided to get rid of it. I've been wanting to do it for a while now."

Jason Potter, who owns the laser tattoo removal shop in Sydney where Venessa is undergoing her removal sessions, said more people than ever were coming in for removals.

"Probably 80 per cent of my work is just people wanting cover-ups or people with misspelling and ex-girlfriends' names or ex-boyfriends' names or just people that even have unfinished work from falling out with different tattoo artists," he said, adding that some tattooed people simply decide they disliked tattoos and didn't want them anymore.

Mr Potter says not all tattoo removal places are the same.

"I've heard stories of beauty clinics and stuff buying a machine that's the size of a laptop bag and burning people's skin," he said.

"Or another clinic, that I obviously won't say the name of - a girl came in here to see if I could actually make it fade down more, but the actual tribal piece along her lower back was completely scarred, left to right. So it really depends on what a person's doing with the machine."

Danger of a rogue operator

Dr Philip Bekhor, the director of the Laser Unit at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital, says he cannot believe how little oversight the laser removal industry has.

"It's almost 100 per cent unregulated. There needs to be some regulation," he said.

"They need to be operating under supervision. If people are having complications or scars, it needs to be reported.

"If they're being treated more often than is going to benefit them, then there needs to be some control of this.

"If anything goes wrong when it's completely unregulated, there's nobody checking on complications, nobody checking the correct procedures are done, and nobody's collecting complication results so if there's a rogue operator, we're not going to find out about it."

The ABC contacted the NSW Ministry of Health to ask why more regulations were not in place.

In an emailed response, it said: