CC: When people think of tattooing they think of something along the lines of somebody having their lovers name on their arm but what about something like micropigmentation which is effectively using the same procedure but for a whole different reason.
Well i’m delighted to welcome Susan Coombe into the studio and she is going to tell us exactly what it means. Susan welcome…
SC: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
CC: This is one of those things which can make an enormous difference to a woman’s life, can’t it?
SC: Absolutely yes.
CC: What sort of people do you treat?
SC: Everybody and anyone really, all ages. I see girls in their twenties and I see ladies in their seventies and for all manner of reasons. One of the main and most exciting reasons is after they’ve had a mastectomy following breast cancer and after they’ve had this one of the cherry on the top of the procedure is to tattoo a nipple back on the front of the breast and as you can imagine this affects all ages so every age will come to me and it makes a huge difference.
CC: And in fact you actually sent me some photographs of people who did say they were more than happy to send these photographs through and it is extraordinary, Susan.
SC: It looks very good.
CC: It looks incredible. How does it actually work?
SC: Well micropigmentation is slightly different to your traditional tattoo that you would see on peoples arms or wherever for pictures. It’s slightly higher up in the skin and it uses a slightly different pigmentation or pigment and the pigments that we use are designed to fade out within 2 to 7 years.
CC: So that’s pigment meaning colour effectively?
SC: The colour, that’s right. And so it’s designed to fade within 2 to 7 years so we can reposition because as well as using the pigments for the areola we can use it for hiding the scars that are created during this surgery and also for correcting things like eyebrows if people lose their eyebrows and also different skin colours for vitiligo if people have vitiligo which is a condition where the skin turns white and is obviously a different colour from the normal healthy skin.
CC: What Michael Jackson was said to have had?
SC: So they say, yes, absolutely, yes he did actually have some micropigmentation I believe though they say. So if someone has a discolouration you can draw in freckles so instead of putting in a picture, you’re putting in a natural skin tone and you’re putting in freckles, perhaps hair follicles. If the skin has been transplanted after an operation from somewhere completely different in the body and before you had a smattering of freckles or a vein that continues you can give the illusion where the vein might continue so a slight bluing of the skin and add in a few freckles or moles. Equally people sometimes have radiotherapy markers which is a little blue tattoo given during radiotherapy procedures in the hospital and we can cover that over and put a little bit of a brown colour and make it look like a beauty mark so it’s something that looks a bit more positive and hides it away.
CC: Extraordinary. I’m looking at your book here of some of the procedures that you’ve done and you mentioned as regards working with eyebrows, for example.
SC: Yes
CC: And this is obviously a photograph that is taken very close so because i’m looking very closely at it I can see that it’s like a feathering.
SC: Yes, it’s called a hair stroke eyebrow and it’s quite a new technique, there used to be just a pencilled look which would look, the tattoo would look like a stroke almost and now we do little fine little lines and even if you are very close up to the person it would look like a natural brow. Lots of people do lose their brows due to over plucking.
CC: That’s what happened, I did them when I was 13 and they have never grown back.
SC: Yes, or following alopecia. There’s a condition called trichotillomania where people pluck their eyebrows out, they just get an urge to do this as sort of a nervous habit and they don’t have any so we put the hairs back in.
CC: That was on Doc Martin this week. We saw that where he was pulling his hair out and then eating it which was very nasty – wouldn’t be enough I don’t think on the eyebrows. But things like the underlining, because I wear eyeliner, a lot of people do to open up the eyes somewhat but you actually can do a permanent marking there.
SC: Absolutely, yes.
CC: Which if you’ve lost your eyelashes for example through procedure that presumably makes you feel a little more made up.
SC: Absolutely and lots of girls go out without, you know women coming out without their eyeliner, it just isn’t an option and, you know, particularly if you are on holiday, you want to go swimming, or you get caught in the rain and it all slides off it’s just lovely to be able to wake up. The cosmetic side of things you can put peoples eyeliner on so they’ve just got it there, it’s there all the time.
CC: Yes, and you said to me I’m completely tattooed.
SC: On my face yes.
CC: You look amazing.
SC: Thank you.
CC: And you’re lips are also done?
SC: Yes that’s right.
CC: And that’s like a line around the outside?
SC: I do a lip blush procedure which is a line around the outside of the lip which gives definition and then that fades in towards the centre and that can be done cosmetically, just to save your time putting on your lipstick, or that can be done for people who have scars within the lip area or also with cleft palette. You can sort of haze over any scars there so bring up any scarring that’s paler up to skin colour to disguise that slightly and also just define the lip area in a nice natural lip colour.
CC: You wouldn’t know that that’s what you’d done. Did you do your own?
SC: No
CC: I was going to say, can you imagine, I’ve got visions of you, one slip and…
SC: No, no, we sort of all get together and do each others.
CC: Like a Botox party type thing.
SC: Yes
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