Tattoos to cover stretch marks

I read an article (one of many, of course. There comes a point where one is no longer surprised to find them) about a new system to cover stretch marks: filler tattoos.

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On the one hand I think about the positive use of that practice. I think we've all seen the typical "35 Wonderful Tattoos That Cover Mastectomy Scars" link in a Facebook post.

I understand that many women have found in ink a beautiful way out of something horrible they have experienced. I can understand the therapeutic effect of the needle since many times we tattoo ourselves with that intention.

I myself wear a design that is both a tribute and mourning. Tribute for taking with me two of the people I have loved the most, mourning for having been able to shed, while they were doing it, in equal parts, tears of physical pain and that emotional, even more lacerating, of missing someone who will not return.

It may even be a way of coping with those experiences by thinking about the drawing on canvas that we have turned our body into. And for this reason, as a believer in tattooing that goes beyond aesthetics, I cannot look favorably on filler tattoos.

Don't get me wrong, I don't criticize those who want to. I criticize the fact that something that happens, at one time or another, to the skin we have is not seen normally.

If from a young age we were taught (both men and women) that the skin changes, deforms, grows and shrinks because in the end it is just another organ, we would see those lines that draw us differently.

Like a river on a topographic map, the lines that cross us (wherever and however they are) make us unique and special. If a stretch mark can be so traumatic for someone who wants to get it tattooed, wouldn't it be better if they had learned to appreciate it?

It's not that we don't know about tattoos, it's that we don't know about beauty.

Tags: self-esteem, beauty, aesthetics, stretch marks, stretch marks, mastectomy, tattoos, tattoos to cover | Filed in: 2017, self-esteem, beauty, bodyshaming, body