The Finishing Touch

Sophia Smith chats to Maria Rigby, the areola tattoo artist changing the lives of women by helping them regain confidence in their own skin.

Mastectomy tattoos have become a beautiful way to honour a difficult journey, breast cancer survivors, thrivers, and previvors can reimagine their chests as a beautiful canvas to frame their life altering scars with beautiful flowers, landscapes, or 3D nipples. For many people, this helps their confidence flourish in new ways as they reclaim their bodies. Maria Rigby is a 3D nipple tattoo artist from Blackburn who spent most of her time in lockdown training in the most up to date areola tattooing techniques. 3D nipples are a less invasive option to nipple reconstruction to help restore their appearance, they also assist in recreating a person’s breasts after mastectomies to look realistic, which can be important for women and men to regain a sense of normality.

“I’ve been working in beauty now for 27 years, it’s been a long time and I’ve been doing permanent cosmetics for around 23 years now. I own Split N Polish, a nail and beauty salon based in Cherry Tree in Blackburn. Throughout the years I really get to know my clients, I worked with clients who spoke about having breast cancer. I had started semi-permanent tattooing in 2002, and during that time, I met a lady who was being treated for breast cancer. I remember saying, if only we could tattoo your nipples back on! I knew I wanted to help people like her, so in lockdown I made the best decision ever, to complete training on areola tattooing!” smiled Maria. Maria tattoos nipples free of charge, but asks people for a donation towards the cost of products used, with no set fee! “It’s the final part of someone’s breast journey, so I don’t charge for doing it. It’s completely up to the client if they want to. I just do this in my own time because I really want to help people.

“It’s a way of making people aware that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I remember the day I was going to tattoo my first nipples on someone! I felt really nervous because I just wanted everything to be just perfect for her. She cried, I cried, it was really overwhelming for us both. It was so nice to be able to give somebody their confidence back and making them feel feminine again. I’m yet to tattoo any men yet but it’s important to know men can get breast cancer too!”

The process involves using tattoo pigments that have been matched to the individual and shading to mimic a three-dimensional effect. “If I was tattooing one areola we would match it with the other nipple. Colours are always checked against the skin, I advise what would be best, but I would always listen to what somebody wanted, it’s a joint effort deciding how it looks. With the tattooing, I tell them to come back whenever they feel ready to see if they need it topping up. It doesn’t last forever and it does start to fade.” Often many folk can feel apprehensive about nipple tattooing procedures, this is because of the lack of publicised work. On various social media websites, men can typically let a nip slip, but for other people, it’s not so easy, even if it’s promoting breast tattoos. This can be incredibly frustrating as women and men deserve to feel confident again.

The banning of these images means that the work of medical tattooists has been thwarted. Last September, Maria and fellow artists travelled down to London for a peaceful protest organised by fellow areola tattoo artist, Vicky Martin, at the Facebook headquarters. The protest was to raise awareness and prompt social media to change their policy and allow medical artists to post freely! “I feel so strongly about it, when I post these images on social media, it’s a way of making people aware that these procedures can be done at the end of the surgery. I’m not on social media to sell the procedure or to make any money from it, it’s just a way of making people aware that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.” Maria sighed, “You need to be able to see artist’s work, it is such an important treatment, of course they want to see if you’re good at tattooing nipples! Online is the first place they will look to see if your work is right for them.”

“If I could make a living out of doing it, it would be my full time job.”

From everything Maria has accomplished in her job over the last 27 years, she says she would finish everything in and instant and tattoo nipples all day everyday. “If I could make a living out of doing it, it would be my full time job, it just makes me feel so good.” Nipple tattoos are absolutely vital to the wellbeing of people who have been afflicted by breast cancer, Maria’s job is the final piece of the boob jigsaw, it’s simply the breast and beautiful way to honour this difficult journey.

To contact Maria visit splitnpolish.co.uk

NorthernLife Sept/Oct 22