Permanent makeup isn’t just for more beautiful brows and lips.
PMU is quickly becoming an integral part of medical treatments that camouflage, reconstruct, and enhance clients’ appearances. Whether from injury, illness, surgery, or irregular pigmentation, changes in physical appearance can radically alter a patient’s sense of self or even their recovery from illness and trauma. This is where paramedical tattooing can help.
Related: Innovating Medical Tattooing for Transgender ClientsOpens a new window
More and more doctors and medical facilities are recognizing the importance of bringing in qualified permanent makeup and tattoo pros to perform these services at the highest level of artistry and accuracy for clients. As plastic surgeon and founding partner of the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery at St. Charles Surgical Hospital in New Orleans, Frank Dellacroce, recently told AllureOpens a new window magazine, “Our philosophy is this: I would probably never allow a tattoo artist to do surgery on me, so I probably shouldn't allow a surgeon to do a tattoo on me. [It’s like] a painter and a [sculptor], working in the same studio.”
Insurance companies are also starting to recognize the key part of recovery that medical tattooing provides by reimbursing clients for these procedures, particularly breast cancer survivors requiring areola reconstruction and areola scar camouflage.
Vicki Hansen, based in Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, is an industry expert in paramedical tattooing. Photo by: Vicki Hansen | www.vickismakingfaces.com
So, what is paramedical tattooing?
A newer term to describe what is basically an advanced form of a permanent makeup procedure, paramedical tattooing refers to treatments that reconstruct or restore someone’s appearance following injury, surgery, or any other damage or illness. From scar camouflage to 3D scalp micropigmentation, paramedical tattooing can break up scar tissue, restore skin color where pigment has been lost, mimic hair growth, and create the appearance of body parts like navels, nipples, or even fingernails.
How does it work?
Paramedical tattooing is a lot like traditional tattooing, using different pigment shades and advanced techniques. Medical tattooing often aims to blend into the client’s skin tone and uses small dots, 3D shading, and highlights rather than solid lines or blocks of color.
What does it treat or restore?
Light and raised scars from surgeries or injury that are at least a year old; nipple and areola reconstruction; stretch marks; balding and other types of hair loss; webbed toes; the appearance of missing fingernails or toenails; vitiligo; cleft lip reconstruction; birthmarks, and more. Because of its powerful positive impact on the mental health of the client, paramedical tattooing often speeds overall recovery after devastating injuries, illnesses, and surgeries too.
Permanent makeup pigments like Perma Blend’s collaborations with pioneering medical artist Mandy Sauler for scarsOpens a new window and areolasOpens a new window offer shades that serve a broad range of ethnicities, skin tones, ages, and skin types. Scalp pigments like Perma Blend’s specially blended set for scalpOpens a new window range from grey to black and include shades of brown, all formulated to need minimal touch-up and last for years.
For more information about Perma Blend’s Select Team members bringing their remarkable artistry to the field of paramedical tattooing, read our recent features on Vicky MartinOpens a new window and Mandy SaulerOpens a new window.