Permanently Beautiful

People call it the “Country Club” ear scar; those pale white scars visible in front of, under and behind the ears that shout, “I’VE HAD PLASTIC SURGERY!” Ear scars are particularly noticeable at country clubs and tennis clubs where women put their hair up into ponytails before hitting the courts or laying around the pool. People who have facelifts certainly don’t want to shout it to the world, yet those telltale ear scars are a dead giveaway. Some embarrassed women stop wearing ponytails on the tennis courts or updos when they attend elegant social affairs.

Ear scarring occurs when plastic surgeons stretch facial skin toward the ears to make it taut, suturing it into place. While the fastest, most common facelift technique, it leaves obvious scarring around the ear. New plastic surgery facelift techniques repair facial muscles instead of stretching the skin. Not only does muscle repair result in a longer-lasting more effective facelift, it doesn’t leave ear scars; instead, incisions are made under the chin where they won’t be visible after recovery. 

Fortunately, there is a cure for embarrassing “Country Club” ear scars. Paramedical tattooing performed by an expert permanent makeup artist can camouflage unsightly ear scars caused by plastic surgery. Using micropigmentation techniques, permanent makeup artists can color scar tissue so that it blends perfectly with surrounding facial skin tones, effectively making scars “disappear.” With permanent makeup, women and men who have had facelifts can enjoy their new-found youthful good looks with confidence.

Actress Julia Roberts

Whoever said women lose their looks as they age obviously hasn’t seen actress Julia Roberts in the recently released film Eat Pray Love. Two years past her 40th birthday, Roberts looks radiantly beautiful on screen. If you’ve ever glanced through a fanzine, you know Roberts’ beauty doesn’t come from a makeup bag. Paparazzi photos of Julia sans makeup while playing with her twins may accent a few laugh lines, but the actress still looks as fresh and lovely off-stage as on.

Audiences have been captivated for years by Julia’s signature full-lipped, high-wattage smile. But when you catch Julia in a more pensive mood, it is her dark, well-shaped eyebrows that attract attention and draw you into her aura.

Julia has most certainly been blessed with the beauty gene, but those of us who are not quite so fortunate can use permanent makeup to trick Mother Nature. Artistically applied permanent makeup can darken and reshape your brows, allowing them to frame your face more elegantly. An expert permanent makeup artist like Melany Whitney can restructure your natural lip line, making your lips appear naturally fuller. Permanent makeup can also correct flaws in lip symmetry and add color to pale lips to make them appear more youthful. Having your eyes lined with permanent eye liner will focus attention on your eyes 24/7.

When you highlight and beautify your natural features with permanent makeup, it’s easy to slam the door on Mother Nature!

Permanent makeup isn’t just about personal beauty and convenience. The same procedures that make you look beautiful without a stitch of makeup, prove a godsend to accident victims, physically and emotionally scarred by their injuries. Referred to as cosmetic and medical tattooing or paramedical tattooing, permanent makeup can be used to camouflage scars and artistically redraw features that have been damaged by an accident or ensuing surgeries.

Nationally renowned permanent makeup artist Melany Whitney is frequently sought out by cosmetic reconstruction surgeons to assist their patients. Reconstructive surgery can repair the broad damage to the human body from serious accidents or burns, but it cannot restore the fine personal beauty lost in the aftermath of such accidents. It takes the considerable technical skills and remarkable personal artistry of a national expert in paramedical tattooing and permanent makeup to restore beauty to damaged features. Melany has derived great personal satisfaction from being able to help accident victims and surgical patients regain their sense of personal beauty and self-confidence.

Earlier this year, Melany was asked by Dr. Mehmet Oz to help restore an accident victim’s tragically scarred face. Disfigured by an accident in her teens, the now middle-aged woman had given up hope of ever looking attractive. Melany was able to use paramedical tattooing to camouflage the woman’s facial scars and redefine damaged features. To see Melany’s miraculous results, click here to watch Melany on the Dr. Oz show.

It begins with a small bald patch. In as little as 4 to 6 weeks, every hair on your body disappears. You are completely and totally bald. Your head, eyelashes, eyebrows, beard, arms, legs — yes, even there. Alopecia areata sufferers may joke about never having to wax or shave again, but nothing about this disease is funny. Alopecia drastically changes a person’s appearance, causing severe emotional pain.

Alopecia areata is an autoimmune disease that induces the body to attack its own hair follicles. Progression of the disease, which attacks men and women equally, is individual and unpredictable for the 2% of the population affected. Some alopecia sufferers lose every hair on their body (alopecia universalis); others experience a few bald patches.

Genetic research at Columbia University shines the first rays of hope on this emotionally devastating disease. Researchers have discovered a genetic trigger that focuses immune cells on hair follicles, killing them. Previously, scientists believed alopecia was an autoimmune skin disease like psoriasis. New research indicates that alopecia behaves more like rheumatoid arthritis and celiac disease. Heralded as a major breakthrough, researchers hope new findings will lead to a cure for alopecia.

For now, paramedical tattooing offers the only solution for alopecia sufferers. A skilled permanent makeup artist can tattoo natural-looking hairs to fill in patchy beards or eyebrows for those suffering mild cases of alopecia. While there is little relief for alopecia universalis sufferers, tattooed permanent eyebrows can give the face a normal appearance.

The nice weather has brought out waves of pink-shirted walkers and runners bobbing their way through American towns. They wind through city streets in their pink shirts to support women who are fighting breast cancer and to raise money for local cancer hospitals and the American Cancer Society. Nearly everyone in America has shared a family member’s battle with cancer or has supported a friend who is fighting against this insidious disease. Every year, breast cancer strikes 1in 8 women and a number of men. An estimated 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer were reported among American women in 2009, in addition to 62,280 new cases of non-invasive breast cancer. Among U.S. men, 1,990 new cases of invasive breast cancer were reported.

When breast cancer necessitates the removal of a breast, the decision can be traumatic, affecting a woman’s core view of herself. Our breasts are part of what define us as women. Losing a breast to mastectomy makes many breast cancer survivors feel less feminine and less confident about their appearance. Long experience working with breast cancer survivors led paramedical cosmetic tattoo expert Melany Whitney to develop a realistic three-dimensional nipple and areola restoration technique that helps women regain their feeling of femininity after a mastectomy. Click here to find out more.

Dr. Mehmet Oz

In a moving segment on the Dr. Oz Show (click the link to watch), Melany Whitney was able to change the life of a woman whose badly scarred face had haunted her for 27 years. At the age of 15, Suzanne’s face was shattered in a devastating car accident. It took doctors 10 hours and 500 stitches to reconstruct her face, leaving massive, ugly scars. Five plastic surgeries were able to repair most of the facial damage but not the hideous scars. Even makeup was not able to hide all of the scarring that slashed across Suzanne’s face. At the age of 42, Suzanne felt doomed to a life where people quickly turned away on meeting her and children found her frightening. Every time she passed a mirror or caught her reflection in a shop window, she was reminded afresh of the horror of that moment long ago when her life changed forever.

Moved by Suzanne’s plight, Dr. Oz sent her to Melany. Melany carefully mixed permanent cosmetic color pigments to precisely match Suzanne’s facial skin tone. She then injected and blended the pigment into the skin layers along the white scars on her face, completely hiding the scars. When Suzanne joined Dr. Oz and Melany on stage to show off her new face, she was ecstatic. For the first time, she said, her daughter had told her, “Mommy, you’re so beautiful.”

Watch the video on our website to see how Melany and permanent cosmetics changed Suzanne’s life.

Christina Applegate

With advances in breast reconstruction surgery, more women are choosing to fight cancer by having their entire breast removed instead of just the immediately affected tissue. They feel that when cancer is diagnosed, removal of the entire breast gives them the best chance of long-term health. By removing the entire breast, women feel they are removing the opportunity for cancer to recur or spread. In fact, the emotional, physical and financial cost of fighting breast cancer and the constant worry of recurrence or spread has a growing number of women pressuring surgeons to remove healthy breasts as a preventive measure.

Many women were shocked by Christina Applegate’s decision to have both healthy breasts removed two years ago when she discovered she carried a known genetic risk marker for breast cancer. But since then more than 9,000 women have followed her lead and had a healthy breast removed, according to a new study in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Expert permanent makeup artist Melany Whitney works closely with many breast cancer patients and their surgeons to help create real-looking breasts after mastectomy. Through her work with breast cancer patients, Melany has developed a unique paramedical tattooing technique that can create a real-looking three-dimensional nipple and areola on a reconstructed breast. Melany’s technique and artistry allow breast cancer survivors to feel confident and proud about their breasts after mastectomy.

In good news for breast cancer survivors, a new survey of women who underwent paramedical tattooing to create nipple-areolas as part of breast reconstruction surgery after mastectomy found a high rate of long-term patient satisfaction. Published in the Annals of Plastic Surgery, the report demonstrates acceptance by both the medical community and breast cancer patients of nipple-areola tattooing as a viable alternative to additional surgery in breast reconstruction.

Six years following paramedical tattooing, fully 84% of the women surveyed continued to rate their nipple-areola tattoo as satisfactorily pleasing in appearance; and 86% of patients agreed they would again choose a nipple-areola tattoo over other possible breast reconstruction options. Two to six years post surgery, more than half of the women (57%) surveyed reported that their nipple-areola tattoo still looked like a normal areola. Fewer than 3% reported problems with rash or infection post-procedure.

While 60% of tattoos in the study were marginally lighter in coloration than the natural areola, only 10% required any touching up to correct for excessive fading. Expert paramedical tattoo artist Melany Whitney has developed a procedure that minimizes potential fading of nipple-areola tattoos. By implanting a second layer of pigments six weeks after the initial implantation of permanent cosmetics, Melany is able to increase color retention and tattoo longevity. She has received no complaints about premature fading from her nipple-areola patients. In fact, Melany’s clients have been amazed by the realism and illusion of nipple protrusion achieved by Melany’s unique artistry and expert tattooing technique.

Childhood accidents happen. A fall off a bike, a collision with a wildly thrown baseball, a skateboard trick gone wrong — as your mom will tell you, kids are an accident waiting to happen. Some accidents leave scars, little white lines or puckers on knees and chins, badges of a youth well spent. A defining scar on the chin of a handsome movie star may add to his on-screen allure, but many people consider those childhood scars unsightly blemishes that mar their appearance.

You may have to live with the memories of the accident that created a scar, but you no longer have to live with the scar. Permanent cosmetic micropigmentation can permanently camouflage scars and restore your confidence in your appearance. Scars and skin imperfections resulting from childhood (or adult) accidents, injuries, burns and surgery can be camouflaged using paramedical cosmetic tattooing. Artfully applied micropigmentation can break up scar tissue and color it to more perfectly match and blend with your natural skin tone, making the scar disappear from sight.

Nationally renowned permanent makeup artist and paramedical tattoo expert Melany Whitney regularly receives referrals from prominent plastic surgeons and physicians to assist their patients. Melany has perfected scar camouflage micropigmentation and paramedical tattooing techniques that allow patients to reclaim their natural beauty.

A nationally recognized expert in the field of permanent makeup and paramedical tattooing, Melany Whitney’s expertise and knowledge are frequently solicited by national television, print and radio media. A featured guest on Sirius Satellite Radio’s Doctor Radio, Melany has been interviewed about the advantages of permanent makeup by ET, Inside Edition, CNN and NBC’s Today Show, among others. Her renowned artistry and well-deserved reputation as “the Voice of Permanent Makeup” have made Melany a much-quoted source on the subject of permanent cosmetics. Melany’s comments on permanent cosmetics have been featured in national beauty and fashion magazines including Elle and New Beauty.

Melany’s ground-breaking paramedical tattoo work with breast cancer survivors undergoing breast reconstruction surgery led her to develop a unique three-dimensional tattooing technique that creates a realistic-looking nipple and areola. An achievement that has provided tremendous personal satisfaction, Melany’s new reconstructive tattooing technique had given breast cancer survivors renewed self-confidence in their appearance after breast removal and reconstruction.

A pioneer in the field of permanent makeup for men, Melany was recently asked by Flash News to discuss the sensitive issue of malformed male nipples and whether the use of corrective paramedical tattooing could correct the problem. New Moon star Robert Pattinson is just one of many men who suffer from uneven, malformed or too small male nipples. The same permanent makeup techniques Melany developed to assist breast cancer survivors can be applied to the sensitive issue of malformed male nipples.

To find out more about Melany Whitney, founder of the Whitney Center for Permanent Cosmetics, visit our media center.