Seeing your body change is sometimes difficult to accept. Welcoming a newborn is not without consequences for the skin of women, who, at times, see furrows deepen on a belly that has dried up due to pregnancy. According to an OpinionWay study for the Daily published in January 2024, 47% of women surveyed experienced physical difficulties after their childbirth.
According to the results, “17% have difficulty accepting physical changes, and 16% have problems related to the appearance of their abdomen.” But all is not (completely) lost. On the occasion of the Mondial du Tattoo in Paris this Friday, let’s explore the benefits of tattooing to reclaim a damaged area.
“When you can’t look in the mirror anymore, it’s problematic. With a tattoo, the idea is that something should look beautiful,” explains tattoo artist Florence Saez, who specializes in decoration for Fleur Mechanics Workshop in Grenoble. She recently posted on Instagram a published a floral tattoo on a woman who wanted to reclaim her pregnancy stigma.Aesthetic Tattoos -or Cover– Includes covering old tattoos or scars. Stretch marks are one of them.
A therapeutic tattoo
Even if there are no contraindications, “some tattooists refuse to prick damaged skin,” notes Florence Saez. For fear of disappointing the customer. The skin is thinner, more fragile. The pigment may “bleed” as it heals. “You have to adapt to patterns with solid lines. If the pattern is small and detailed, it may become less readable after a few years. Pigments move a bit over time,” she continues. In recent years, the world of tattoos has evolved quite a bit. Tattoo artists are more willing to participate in the exercise and work differently. Get rid of pretty tattoos in favor of therapeutic tattoos.
“The scars are there, the stretch marks are there, we’re not going to make them disappear like magic. But the tattoo will take over,” points out Florence Saez. To get rid of cracked skin, there is no miracle recipe. “A few years ago, a Brazilian tattoo artist (Rodolfo Torres) suggested covering stretch marks with skin-colored tattoos,” recalls Alexandra Bay, tattoo expert and author of the blog History of Tattoos.
“Dermopigmentation” – filling in stretch marks with colored pigment – offers hope that by “coloring” the lines with ink, the stretch marks will disappear. But that is an illusion. “It seemed complicated to me, given that the ink moves and isn’t necessarily the same color once under the skin,” asserts the tattoo expert.
Banded belly
Worse, after a few years, the pigment is likely to turn green. Instead of showing perfectly smooth skin, we end up with a stretchy stomach. The complete opposite of what we wanted. “As soon as the tattoo consists of beige or white, it contains titanium oxide and it is a real difficulty to remove the tattoo,” says dermatologist Dr. Severin Lafaye confirms. There’s a risk that it will take on a brown or greenish color.” Even after 15 laser sessions, it’s often difficult to get rid of, she explains.
“It’s better to give patients partial laser sessions to fade abdominal stretch marks rather than a discolored tattoo,” suggests the expert. Especially since, according to him, this technique works very well depending on the skin types. The result: going under the needle to harmonize with postpartum scars, why not. You still have to make sure you don’t have another pregnancy in the future so that it doesn’t get deformed. But imagining getting rid of stretch marks forever by getting a tattoo is a fantasy. No miracles… but there is hope!
