Healing Touch

Photograph courtesy of Kristen Lanctot

Tattoos are often seen as mementos and forms of self-expression. The lesser-known side, however, is the practice of medical tattooing, an aesthetic procedure that camouflages an area of skin. “Sometimes patients are not aware that this is even a possibility,” says Kristen Lanctot of Lanctot Medical Tattooing. Lanctot, who worked as an operating room surgical tech for two decades, had seen many breast cancer patients with 3D nipple and areolar tattoos and scar camouflaging over the years. But it wasn’t until she received encouragement from a co-worker at Women & Infants in 2012 that she considered adopting the practice herself. Fast-forward to pandemic times, when Lanctot had more time on her hands and decided to take the leap: Robert Young, owner of Altered Images Tattoo in Cumberland, taught her the basics, and then she enrolled in an intensive course at the Sauler Institute of Tattooing near Philadelphia. “They said by the end I would be tattooing nipples like I’ve been doing it my entire life,” she recalls. “They were right. I now get emails saying, ‘I can look at myself in the mirror again.’ It’s so rewarding.” Beautiful Ink, 2364 Diamond Hill Rd., Cumberland, 764-8556, klmtattoo.com