Summer months make vitiligo unbearable. The skin disease with unknown origin turns skin pigment whiter over time until patches form in exposed areas. Any area of the body may be affected with vitiligo, though usually the condition appears on the legs, arms and face. In addition to skin grafting, therapeutic tattoos treat the discoloration caused by vitiligo. Tattoo ink covers with new pigments but does not cure the condition. Even after you get a tattoo, if you have vitiligo you still need to wear protective clothing and sunblock, and remain in the shade
.
Instructions
Vitiligo Tattoos
1
Take medication and consult a doctor about the status of your vitiligo. Cases where vitiligo has not stopped or continues to spread may not be the best for receiving permanent tattoos.
2
Press a sheet of tracing paper against your skin where a vitiligo patch exists. Trace the outline of the affected areas. A friend may need to help you in this process for hard-to-reach areas.
3
Place another sheet of tracing paper on top of the vitiligo design and create a new tattoo. Use dark and bright ink colors to fill in light areas of the skin with larger symbols and bases to cover the bigger patches. Look at a tattoo gallery for designs.
4
Bring your design to a reputable tattoo parlor and consult an artist for ink suggestions. Tattoo artists frequently cover unwanted pigmentation and may have designs of their own that can cover severely spotted areas.
5
Choose colorful ink to bring attention away from the skin beneath. Tattoo artists have a variety of inks. Pick red, blue and green inks with dark pigments to cover severely white areas.
6
Set up a tattoo session with your artist. Make sure that the environment, including needles and equipment, is sterilized. One square inch of skin should take 30 minutes to tattoo, so plan for up to a few hours depending on the size of your tattoo and amount of color. You may need to plan repeated sessions to fill in all of the tattoo's ink.
Micropigmentation Tattoos
1
Choose an ink color closest to your skin tone. Consult your doctor on the types of ink available for micropigmentation. In general, a doctor recommends a darker color to start as tattoos fade over time.
2
Visit a micropigmentation doctor who specializes in skin-colored tattoos for the treatment of vitiligo. The treatment is primarily for those with vitiligo around the lips or smaller areas.
3
Plan to update the ink often. Over time, your tattoo ink fades due to sun damage and skin life. If you have vitiligo you must protect your skin from sun exposure. You can use thick clothing, sunscreen and stay in the shade when you spend long amounts of time outdoors.
I have been in contact with a company called Caroline South- they represent high end fragrance and beauty companies in the UK. The newest trend they are seeing is the use of Gold.
I am hoping to have a meeting with someone there who said she should be able to provide us with some marketing material, in the mean time here are some little bits of info that I have found.
"Research has revealed that gold not only has anti-bacterial properties, but actually helps to transport oxygen molecules directly into the skin, influencing cellular functions and providing a new energy level. This helps to revitalise and rejuvenate the skin.
The youth of the skin is dependent on the efficiency of the cell-renewal process, which is hamp e red by many factors. The build-up of toxins and wastes in the system, along with exposure to ultraviolet radiation and chemical air pollutants, slows down the regeneration of new regeneration of new cells.
It also hastens the aging process by causing oxidation damage to the collagen fibres, the supporting tissue of the skin and by undermining the skin's normal functions. Pure gold actually helps to reverse oxidation damage, making the skin more firm, resilient and youthful.
Gold also helps stimulate lymphatic drainage and blood circulation, thus facilitating the removal of toxins and wastes and purifying the skin. All these actions help to improve the skin's normal functions, particularly that of regeneration of healthy new cells."
It appears i've been cross posting things that Karen has also looked at- we must both be tasked with the artists and designers research. Apologies if you've all looked at things twice, I think it is mostly the skin lab info from the Wellcome trust website that is doubled up.
Judith Clarke is a costume designer, she has work on display at Tate Britain if anyone is passing by there that takes imprints of the skin, it sounds interesting but is not available on tate online;
below is an image i found
"His work is thought provoking and fun. An installation that I particularly enjoyed was Skin. With Skin, Ortega took three modernist buildings that serve as public housing and has cut out the floorplan of a single apartment unit in leather. The leather floorplan was then hung from a meat hook from the ceiling. It shows the contrast between architectural theory and the end result. Soft hanging scultpures that are based on architects’ attempts to solve the problem of overpopulated urban living. Skin as a border of the body and the wall as a border of a home. An image of the housing structure that the floorplan belongs to is cleverly tattooed on each piece. With Skin, Ortega provides further proof as to how an architect like Le Corbusier failed in his meglomaniacal attempt at public housing and how the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
The Katie Piper foundation is pushing for Make-up tattooing to be available on the NHS, by tattooing on eye liner or lip liner to give the face more definition and symetry the persons confidence and participation in society can be greatly increased. This treatment is currently classed as cosmetic, but at a relatively small cost can create huge mental improvements.
The article below refers more to adjusting pigment
