Areola perm: time to speak openly

Alla Romazanova, founder of the Association of PM Professionals in Belarus, certified trainer, PM master (more than 16 years of experience in permanent makeup), representative of NPM in Belarus, artist, founder of the permanent makeup and female tattoo studio Alla Romazanova`studio, judge of international championships, speaker, member of Belief Association for Assistance to Women After Oncology

The areola permanent is a fairly new topic and is widely discussed in professional circles. There are so far few masters who guarantee the quality of this procedure, but there are more and more clients who are interested in it. We are sure that thanks to this article, many masters will be interested in development in this direction.

It is known that many professionals in the beauty industry prefer not to work with the areola. After all, it is very difficult to find customers, and buying the necessary pigments is quite a costly business. In 2017, I devoted a lot of time to working with the areola, and I want to share my observations and practical recommendations, as well as tell you how I managed to establish a flow of clients.

I gave a lot of time to work with areolas, as well as a permanent - about 15 years. However, over the years, the number of clients fit on the fingers of the hand. Neither my experience nor my portfolio increased. The situation changed dramatically when I launched a social project dedicated to aesthetic care for women who had cancer.

Before and after the procedure. Photos provided by the author

Delicate topic

For more than a year I have been a member of the Association for Voluntary Assistance to Women After Oncology. This organization is headed by a wonderful master of permanent make-up Victoria Tomashivska. I attended several of her master classes and began to work hard in this direction, promoting such an important, in my opinion, topic. It was a sad discovery that many of my regular permanent makeup clients needed this kind of help. Of course, information about my work spread just instantly.

Initially, I was self-promotion. It was quite difficult, as many social networks do not allow the publication of photos of bare breasts. Sometimes I was even blocked. The alternative tools Dirty.ru and Pikabu.ru came to the rescue, where my posts gained 16 million views each. After success in these networks, I received an invitation to participate in a master class in Kyiv. Then she held a master class in Kazan and Minsk as part of permanent make-up congresses. The Belarusian media also quickly drew attention to me. This year I will give master classes in Krasnodar and Helsinki. Also, in my practice, individual work on this topic has already become firmly established - such a delicate one, requiring intimacy, and not a wide audience.

Now the permanent areolas can be said to be a regular service: almost every week women turn to me for free aesthetic help. During the year of active work, I gained tremendous experience. I can definitely say that there is no specialist in Belarus who would perform more such work than me. Along with social appeals, commercial ones also began to arrive. Women come after breast reduction or breast augmentation surgery. The main request is the camouflage of the postoperative scar. Now the number of free and commercial works is almost the same.

Before the procedure, sketch, after the procedure

Practice and more practice

From a technical point of view, this is not the most time-consuming work, but it requires honed skills. Working with the areola is not drawing a “circle”, as many people think! A quality procedure involves the use of a palette of colors to create a natural volume through the play of color, light and shadow. Art education is not a prerequisite for quality work. If you master the ball and cone construction scheme well, you can learn the areola drawing technique in a few master classes.
From experience, I note that the drawing is most difficult when you need to create a copy of the preserved areola. As your skill level grows, nipples on the skin will be obtained with high quality already in one procedure. What can not be said about the camouflage of scars: some areas require re-working repeatedly. I recommend informing customers about this subtlety in advance. My clients are only those who are ready to act on the result and do not expect a miracle after the first visit.
As services become more popular, so does their variety. For example, sometimes there are requests for visual reduction of areolas. From a technical point of view, this is the most labor-intensive work. They require multiple color alignment sessions and, alas, do not guarantee the desired result. Unfortunately, I have never come across a clean job of reducing areolas with tonal color. For this reason, I try to inform the client as much as possible about the result and, if possible, do not carry out this procedure.

Tips for the master

For an areola permanent, you need at least four shades, this is the necessary minimum. As an official representative of the Israeli NPM equipment in our country and a master who actively uses it, I can absolutely sincerely recommend the NPM palette for areolas of the European color type. Olive, caramel, cream and many more - all these colors help to perfectly create a natural areola. The work looks completely natural and organic. It is much easier to achieve the desired result using this paint: a professional will cope with the task faster, and a beginner will not make mistakes. I usually use 5 rs and 3 rl needles.
Since after the operation the sensitivity of the breast is usually lower than in other parts of the body, the anesthesia is not very strong. However, we do not lose sight of the following point: often during oncological operations, the entire lymphatic system is removed. For this reason, even the slightest injury or infection can be very dangerous. Be extremely attentive to such clients and to sterility and accuracy in your workplace and during the procedure. I strongly recommend using a healing film throughout the entire healing period. And show maximum tact and attention to the increased anxiety of your special clients.
I will share, most women note that the cause of their illness lies in the experienced powerful stress. Unfortunately, we are all at risk. Alas, in our country, almost every tenth woman is sick with breast cancer. I believe that one of our main tasks is to monitor your psycho-emotional state and be examined regularly.
To be honest, people who have survived such a terrible ordeal as oncology have a lot to learn. I admire their fortitude, their calm, philosophical attitude to life is very close to me. And their inner light. Be healthy!

The material was first published in Permanent No. 1(9)/2018