00:01I'm nervous.
00:03I'm not too scared of needles.
00:05Because I'm on testosterone, I have to take a shot every week.
00:07But I am still scared of the feeling and the sensation
00:12because it's going to be right on my nipple.
00:21I'm Joe, and I'm getting my areolas tattooed today.
00:25I recently got top surgery, maybe about last year.
00:29I feel like pre-surgery, my dysphoria really stemmed specifically from my nipples.
00:36I had a pretty small chest, so that wasn't ever too big of an issue.
00:41But just how feminine mine were before, it made me embarrassed to take off my shirt.
00:45It would make me not want to get up in the morning, not want to go to work,
00:49hang out with friends, go on dates for fears of just having to show myself and my body.
00:57Surgery really did help me with that.
00:59My results are great, but I do wish that my pigmentation came back fully.
01:07I'm Nora Grace, and I am a cosmetic tattoo artist at Fiction Cosmetic Tattooing in Echo Park, Los Angeles.
01:15I have been tattooing for about five years.
01:19And before that, I was a special effects makeup artist in the film industry.
01:24And that's what really helped me get into kind of the realism side of things
01:28and making things look really natural and organic.
01:32When I first started learning how to do areola tattooing and restorative tattooing,
01:37I was trained mostly on the focus being breast cancer survivors.
01:41And it wasn't until I started kind of tattooing more and getting these services out there
01:46that a friend of mine actually brought up to me,
01:49hey, this would also be really, really great for trans folks after top surgery or any kind of surgery.
01:55And I've kind of been expanding on that ever since that.
01:58I know we talked about everything when I saw you a few days ago at our consultation,
02:03but I would love to just kind of touch base again on exactly your goals for today,
02:08what you'd really like to get out of your areola tattoos.
02:11Mainly to get them like one color also, but then I don't have much of a tip at all.
02:18So to maybe give them more of the illusion that I do have one.
02:21Okay, so a little bit of that kind of 3D effect to make the nipple protrusion appear a little bit
02:26more in there.
02:27Perfect. Love it.
02:28We'll go ahead and have you take off your shirt and then we'll start taking some before photos
02:33and then we'll start drawing on you.
02:34Sound good?
02:35Great, yeah.
02:37Areola tattoos are tattoos that are made to look like realistic 3D areolas.
02:45A lot of times after a surgery, a client might lose their nipple completely
02:50or just lose some of the pigmentation, some of the depth in the nipple itself.
02:55So I kind of think of the areola tattoo as almost like a portrait of the nipple.
03:02I use a few different colors of markers during the drawing process
03:06so that I can first sketch in the shape and then finalize the shape with a stencil marker.
03:13When I'm drawing the shape, I always try to keep in mind that nipples are not perfect circles.
03:18A lot of times they're ovals or, you know, have some lumpy bumpy edges.
03:23They're irregular so I always keep that in mind when drawing.
03:28I always mix a few different pigments together and I also dilute them down to make sure they will be
03:34a subtle wash of color.
03:36After I've diluted them, I will then test them on Joe's skin.
03:41The first step will be to use my darker pigment tone to start to shade the nipple protrusion itself.
03:49I will loosely outline this shape and then shade it in to kind of become a spherical effect,
03:56which is really going to help to create that 3D effect.
04:00I will tattoo in all of the different pigments that we have used until we reach the desired effect.
04:12It was really hard for me to like feel confident in myself because I didn't see a natural male chest
04:20or what like society would see as that.
04:23I definitely think it will help my dysphoria.
04:27It's definitely gotten better since surgery, but I feel like it's just going to make me love my chest even
04:34more.
04:35One of my main things that I'm like really excited about is once it heals to go to the beach
04:40and just jump in the water and feel comfortable around everybody else.
04:44The very last step of the tattoo itself will be to add the white highlights.
04:50The white highlights are what really helps that 3D effect come to life.
04:54It helps the nipple to look like it's protruding and that there's some height and some depth to it.
05:02Wow.
05:05Pretty cool, right?
05:06Yeah, they look great.
05:07The results are just like phenomenal. I can't believe it.
05:10To me, like they look perfect right now.
05:12I was just like, whoa, like am I going to cry?
05:15Like it just felt really great.
05:16So I was pretty excited to show my girlfriend.
05:18Wow, babe, looks really good.
05:20I love them.
05:21Yeah, right?
05:22Yeah, the nipples look amazing.
05:24And it's like super like color matched.
05:27For the areola tattoos, I always like to do it in two sessions.
05:31Joe will come back in two months for a touch-up session.
05:34And at that point, I'll be able to assess how his first session healed.
05:38And we'll really start to detail and fine tune the areola.
05:43Thank you for your try, seriously.
05:45Yeah.
05:45This is crazy.
05:46Kind of wild, right?
05:47Yeah, I'm like this is really crazy.
05:49I feel like everybody wants to fit in.
05:52It's kind of human nature and things like this that make you feel a little bit more comfortable for you
05:58to feel like yourself.
05:59You know, you should do it.
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