A cozy Key Largo skin care studio was the ideal setting for an unfiltered talk about regaining a sense of self, after breast cancer.
“I lost my hair from chemotherapy. I had loss of hair everywhere and then I lost my breasts,” said cancer survivor and permanent makeup artist Paula Farr. “I can empathize with the client.”
Inside Paula’s Skin Care at Cirque Salon, Farr and two other women recounted their breast cancer ordeals. All three women share similar stories. All were diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age, all underwent chemotherapy and double mastectomies, and all wanted to feel complete post reconstruction, without having to go under the knife again.
“It was my plastic surgeon that brought it up to me. He said ‘it will make such a difference in your life’ and I said ‘why?’” said Key Largo resident and breast cancer survivor Paula Friedman.
“And he said, ‘All I can tell you is when women come in to see me after they’ve got the tattoos, they carry themselves different, they feel like women again. It’s all because they have nipples,’” recalled Friedman.
“They got their guns back,” chimed in Farr with a laugh.
For this story, I am not only the author; I am one of the participants sharing my own breast cancer experience. I was 44 years old when I heard four words that just gutted me: you have breast cancer.
Chemotherapy, a bilateral mastectomy and breast reconstruction followed.
I met Farr three years ago when a friend referred me to her for eyebrow microblading; my eyebrows never came back post-chemo. Through conversation, I learned Farr was a two-time breast cancer survivor. First diagnosed at age 42. After reconstruction, areola tattoos were a life-changer for Farr, not just in how they made her feel about her body, but the tattoos inspired a radical career change.
“I said to myself, wow, I’m just in awe of the whole procedure and how it looks, that I want to do this as a career,” she recalled.
Farr went to night school and a few years later quit her job in the dental field and opened her permanent makeup salon in Key Largo near the Publix.
Thousands of eyebrows and over a hundred sets of 3D areolas later, Farr has found her calling. Her nipple tattoos are works of art.
“It is very realistic, it is a 3D effect,” said Farr.
“It’s a lot of layering of the tattoo. There are shadows. And all kinds of different points and layers; it gives that effect that the nipple is actually protruding out,” she added.
Paula Friedman, Farr’s client on the day of this interview, was only 38 years old when a routine mammogram detected breast cancer; it had spread to one of her lymph nodes.
“I was floored. I was floored,” recalled Friedman.
“That was back in 1987. If you got breast cancer back then, and you were young, you were going to die,” said Friedman. “That was the preconception.” Friedman had a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and radiation, but her battle with breast cancer was not over.
She was diagnosed with the disease for a second time 21 years later. After that second diagnosis, Friedman opted for a double mastectomy.
“I just said, ‘I’ve gone through this twice, I’m not going to go through it a third time.’”
Friedman’s daughter-in-law heard about Farr and her 3D areola permanent makeup; she decided to give it a go. Friedman is an artist and says the natural-looking tattoos deliver a sense of closure.
“It just felt like, ‘Okay, this has all come to an end now, I’m back the way I should be,’” she said.
Farr charges $450 per breast for the 3D areola tattoos and that includes the touch up; it’s a tiny fraction of what surgery would cost. She has also donated tattoos to breast cancer survivors who could not afford them.
“It’s nice to get the word out, not only to cancer patients, but to all women and men in case there’s a family member, a friend, their own wife or their daughter, or their husband because men have breast cancer too,” said Farr.
For more on Paula Farr and her work in 3D areola reconstruction, check her out on Facebook and Instagram at Paula’s Skin Care. She can also be reached by calling or texting 386-527-2075.
