27-year-old tattooist Lucy Thompson based mostly in at Skinflicted in Keighley, Yorkshire, has travelled to the US to learn to create lifelike three-dimensional tattooed nipples for girls who’ve had a mastectomy…
Final yr Lucy travelled to Texas to be the primary UK artist to obtain specialist coaching within the artwork of tattooing lifelike areolas on breast most cancers sufferers. It was her purpose to shake up the trade and illustrate to breast most cancers survivors that “they deserve higher” with regards to publish op beauty reconstruction.
My Auntie had a mastectomy and bought a tattoo accomplished in hospital which has now light to nearly nothing so it wants re-doing – why is a surgeon even making an attempt to tattoo?- the specialists ought to persist with what they know. This simply isn’t adequate for a most cancers surviver.
Lucy skilled with The House of A.R.T (Areola Restorative Tattooing) in Texas, who’ve pioneered a novel solution to give the phantasm of a everlasting and three-dimensional nipple against different strategies. Having learnt this talent Lucy is now providing this restorative service to mastectomy purchasers domestically, the primary being her auntie.
Lucy, who’s been a tattoo artist for the final 4 years explains what influenced her to assist most cancers survivors:
After the trauma of going by way of most cancers, I need to make the restorative interval as stress free as attainable and assist girls really feel entire once more. Why ought to they need to return for future remedy when it may be accomplished in a single course of? Girls are accepting second finest as there has by no means been another choice, however not many beauty tattooers have expertise or have handled scarred tissue, particularly tissue that has been by way of chemotherapy or has radiation burns or stretch marks from pores and skin grafts – this can be a big concern. A tattoo artist understands the pores and skin otherwise. We need to obtain painterly outcomes and have the strategies to work with the pores and skin and its delicacies to get the absolute best outcomes – the standard is of utmost significance.
Lucy can be providing tattoos to any trans/non-binary purchasers who’ve had surgical procedure and unsuccessful nipple grafts. Her long-term plan is to open a clinic particularly for publish medical remedy. She additionally plans to run drop in clinics all through the nation by travelling the UK visiting different studios, to allow others additional afield than Yorkshire to profit from the talents she has learnt.