Editor's note:
For many recovering from the effects of breast cancer surgery, areola tattoos can be transformational, including the two survivors Signal Akron spoke with for this article. We thought it was important to share their story of healing with you as well as show you what an example of the tattoos actually look like in the photo displayed below.
Ellen Walker studied her reflection in a way she had not in years. Not since surviving breast cancer.
Excited, Walker had to share this moment with her husband, who was in the salon’s waiting room. So she did — right there.
“I went from not realizing that nipples would make me feel like a woman again to feeling more feminine,” said Walker, a physical therapist who specializes in breast rehabilitation.
Charlie Hendershot’s confidence grew after every tattoo session. So much so that by July, eight months after his final appointment, he was shirtless during a trip to the Bahamas with his wife, showing off his lifelike areolas.
“Nobody ran out of the pool or anything,” he half-joked.
Their transformations occurred thanks to areola tattooing. This decades-old medical technique has evolved in recent years from flat, single-tone circles into hyperrealistic 3D renderings that use shading, highlights and precision color matching to mimic the natural depth and texture of areolas and nipples.
Advances in pigment science and artistic technique now allow paramedical tattoo artists such as Leia’ Love, the owner of Leia’ Love Salon in Fairlawn, to recreate areolas so convincing that many patients describe them as feeling real.
Both Hendershot, 59, and Walker, 57, are clients of Love.
“When you’re starting that healing journey,” Love said, “it’s like we’re going to transition you from being traumatized, from being a cancer patient, to being just a girl now coming into the salon.”
The service remains specialized in the Akron area, offered by a small number of tattoo artists. Unlike many medical and cosmetic procedures, there’s no comprehensive national data tracking how often areola tattooing is performed.
Watching the spark come back
After listening in on a conference panel discussion about areola tattoos, Love realized how incomplete women feel and look after invasive breast cancer surgeries like mastectomies. The most common type of mastectomy causes patients to lose their entire breast(s), including the areolas and nipples.
Love was moved by the seminar and shortly after became certified in the technique. She’s been offering the service for nearly three years.
“I love being able to watch the spark come back into somebody as they just see this little piece just give them so much life.” Love said.
“It’s one of my favorite things to do.”
How Love works her tattoo magic
A minimum of six to nine months after someone undergoes breast reconstruction, Love can begin to work her “magic.”
For clients who are still healing, Love offers prosthetic nipple-areola complexes that can be glued on. But even after healing is complete, every client’s journey to getting their tattoos can look different. Love goes through a consultation process with her clients to determine whether they are a “good candidate” for tattoos. If things look good, the tattoo process begins.
Outlines are drawn and colors are matched.
Knowing her clients have already experienced having “a lot of options and choices taken away from them,” Love said, she tries to start a process where they have “control over their body, so they get to choose the shape, they get to choose the size, they get to choose the color.”
Clients can select a range of flesh colors or bring in a photo from before their surgeries. Fear of choosing the wrong color is a major concern from clients, Love said.
The procedure takes about an hour, depending on the client, and Love walks each through after-care and the two-week healing process.
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At six weeks, the clients come back in for a retouch. If they’ve chosen a lighter-tone areola, the tattoo can last between three to five years, while darker tones last from five to seven.
The base cost of the service starts at $500 for a single breast tattoo or $600 for both. Individual insurance plans may cover the cost of the service.
Back on the beach, sans shirt
Hendershot, tattooed by Leia’ earlier this year, had already beaten cancer at the age of 14. He underwent six months of chemotherapy and one month of mantle radiation during a study that included 50 other patients.
The oncologist who “blasted” Hendershot with radiation warned him that another person had developed breast cancer due to the study. So, when Hendershot felt a lump at age 59, he was “not really that surprised.”
He learned about the tattoo service from Walker, his physical therapist. He had consulted with a plastic surgeon but opted out of breast reconstruction. After completing chemotherapy and having two extensive mastectomy surgeries, his first areola tattoo session was booked.
Walker, who had a diep flap surgery in 2018 where tissue was removed from her abdomen, thigh or back to form and reconstruct the breast, recounted her life-after-surgery emotions to Hendershot.
“She had a double mastectomy and everything, and so I am constantly bouncing things off of her. ‘What about this? What about that? How long before you felt normal again?’ This kind of thing,” Hendershot said.
Now, Hendershot plans to continue to lay out on sandy beaches in the Caribbean. He will celebrate his 39th wedding anniversary in Jamaica next year, shirtless and with nipples in full view.