Paramedical cosmetic tattooist bringing confidence back to breast cancer victims by giving them nipple tattoos
Rachel doing what she does best!
One in eight women are diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime.
While more women are surviving from the disease, many of them are left with low confidence. The scars left after surgery can certainly leave women feeling low.
Rachel Kennedy, 36, explains how she trained to become a paramedical cosmetic tattooist after her best friend fell ill with breast cancer.
The paramedical cosmetic tattooist describes how she started out as a hairdresser, cutting and shaping wigs for her friend. However, when her friend lost her eyebrows and eye lashes, Rachel was determined to do something to help.
“I felt at a loss,” Rachel explains, and says she wanted to find a way to help women gain their confidence back.
Rocking a fiery pixie haircut, Rachel states, “I started my research, found a training course and that was it!”
Tattooing on nipples
As well as tattooing permanent eyebrows and eyelashes, the mum of four is able to help women who have lost their breasts. This is done by replicating the nipple and areola. The advertisement of treatment is not necessary. “People message me and say, ‘I was told or I saw your article’ and then I book them in for a consultation.”
“The treatment takes around three hours and then the patient comes back four to six weeks later to assess the healing,” she says.
Rachel explained that all of the treatment previously undergone to treat the cancer, has to be taken into consideration to make sure it is safe to tattoo nipples. Even though this treatment is already available through the NHS, Rachel says the 3D work, which consists of creating a nipple actually standing out of the skin, is not available: “The NHS just colour the red circles, whereas I do the 3D work.”
The process itself can be quite complicated.
“I draw on a certain amount (of the nipple and areola), you measure it (the nipple) in regard to the collar bone and the breast wall.”
But Rachel explains that each treatment is different.
“If somebody has completely no nipple, then you can start from scratch,” she says. “But if someone has an existing areola then you have to try and match up as much as you can.”
Setting a calming ambience
Just a good deed
Selflessly, Rachel says that she does not charge patients for nipple treatment.
“At the end, when it came over to them handing over the money, I just felt horrible, it was so awful” Rachel cries. She now gives up her own time each month to tattoo areolas onto women, which is all worth it when the patient gets to see the results. Helping women who have gone through so much must be extremely overwhelming as Rachel explains the feeling after treating a patient.
“I always cry,” she says, “more often than not they are totally gobsmacked by what they see and that makes it so worthwhile.”
Now, Rachel has tattooed over 50 women, with many of them writing to her after, thanking her for helping them.
Because of her training, Rachel has restored confidence back into the lives of many women suffering from breast cancer. As we continue to fight the disease, Rachel will continue to help others.
“What it costs me to use pigment and time wise is nothing compared to what you see when that woman sits up,” she says.