This Tattoo Artist Covers Stretch Marks With Skin-Colored Ink and the Results Are Amazing
The problem with stretch marks is that no matter what color they are, they’re still scars. When collagen and elastin fibers tear during puberty, weight gain, or pregnancy, your skin’s color and texture is permanently damaged. Stretch marks usually fade from red or purple to white, leaving indented streaks that don’t plump back up. Retinol creams and laser treatments like Fraxel can help by lightening scars or promoting collagen growth. Still, there’s no real consensus on how to get rid of them. Getting traumatized skin to flatten out and return to its original color is a tall order for any dermatologist.
That’s where cosmetic tattoo artist Dominique Bossavy comes in. Offering a technique she calls Nano Color Infusion from offices in Beverly Hills, New York City, and Paris, Bossavy uses a digital tattoo pen to make stretch marks disappear. Although she might be best known for upgrading Lena Dunham’s arches in Vogue, her talent for trompe-l’oeil body art has also given breast-cancer survivors realistic-looking nipples without additional surgery.
Her strategy for stretch marks is twofold. First, she fills in the grooves. The most effective resurfacing treatments for stretch marks piggyback on skin’s natural ability to heal itself. Microneedling, for example, uses teensy-weensy needles to drill little holes in the skin (in a controlled way). Bossavy uses micropuncture—a similar approach using her tool—to support the repair process and offset the tear in the skin fibers. As skin kicks into wound-healing mode, it produces new collagen that “puffs up”, as Bossavy puts it, to smooth out the grooves. Most clients require three treatments, three to four weeks apart, for best results.
Once the canvas has been smoothed out, the real magic begins. Bossavy is able to perfectly match her custom mineral-based tattoo pigments to a client’s skin tone, leaving no telltale marks behind. This process is more art than science, but Bossavy has a secret superpower—she’s a self-proclaimed tetrachromat, someone with an extra receptor in her retina allowing her to see up to 100 million colors. (That’s about 100x more than the average person can detect.) As someone who often color-corrects the work of others, it’s either a blessing or a curse. In this case, it enables her to see the skin’s full array of tones—yellows, reds, oranges, browns or grays, for example. Her custom blends cover melanin-sapped areas for any skin tone or ethnicity. “I can see right away when someone’s eyebrow color is slightly off,” she says. “Or match any Pantone chip by sight. It’s easy for me.” Nano Camouflage treatments with Bossavy don’t come cheap—they start at $3,500 per area and up (depending on the depth, size, and scale of the stretch marks) and last approximately three to five years.
Still, society’s view on stretch marks is evolving. Camouflage isn’t always the name of the game anymore. I love that models have started showing off their stripes in ads for ASOS and Target, and on magazine covers. (And I’m clearly not the only one who thinks Ashley Graham can make even stretch marks look hotter.) One Spanish artist who goes by the name Zinteta is even doing the exact opposite of Bossavy—putting the spotlight on women’s stretch marks by tracing them in rainbow colors on Instagram.
Check out these women who are celebrating their stretch marks:
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Plus-Size Model Lucija Lugomer Got Real About Her Stretch Marks on Instagram
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Curve Model Denise Bidot Proudly Shows Her Cellulite in New Target Swim Campaign
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Teyana Taylor Gets Real About Stretch Marks
Watch these centenarians explain what makes them feel most beautiful:
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