Tracie Giles London were honoured to partner with Lounge Underwear to sponsor a breast cancer survivor through their Areola Reconstruction journey as part of Lounge’s #FeelYourBreast campaign.
Early detection for breast cancer is vital and knowing your body and what normal feels like to you could quite literally save your life. Lounge’s #FeelYourBreast campaign is all about raising awareness, educating people and growing people’s confidence in knowing how to examine their breasts, pecs and chest and why it is so important.
The teams at Tracie Giles London and Lounge Underwear faced the impossible task of selecting just one incredible survivor from the hundreds of applications received for this sponsorship – but we knew we had made the right choice from our very first conversation with Helen!
Our Hyper-Realism Brow treatment uses a highly specialised, advanced tattooing technique to create super realistic, natural-looking brows.
Rather than tattooing individual hairstrokes into the skin (like with our signature 3D Hairstroke Brows), our Artists tattoo wispy, overlapping hairstokes in a unique pattern to mimic the natural movement and direction of real eyebrow hairs. This pattern builds in intensity in the middle of the eyebrow to create a hyper-realistic 3D effect.
The most realistic, natural-looking Permanent Brow treatment currently available, Hyper-Realism Brows are perfect for those undergoing chemotherapy or with no natural eyebrow hairs.
At Tracie Giles London we specialist in 3D Areola Reconstruction, which is often the final stage of recovery and the first step back to normality for many women recovering from breast cancer.
Using advanced 3-Dimensional tattooing techniques, our specialists are able to restore the natural appearance of the entire areola and nipple, camouflaging scarring with amazing results.
We have seen time and time again how this treatment helps restore women’s confidence and femininity, often totally transforming their lives!
Name: Helen
Age: 50
Occupation: Science Technician – Secondary School
Location: Hampshire
Helen lives in Hampshire with her family and works as a Science Technician at her former secondary school. Originally diagnosed with grade 3 left-sided breast cancer in 2011 at the age of 38, Helen had a wide local excision, axillary clearance, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy.
In 2014, Helen developed a local recurrence in her left breast and underwent a skin sparing mastectomy and immediate reconstruction. In 2015 Helen had a nipple reconstruction using a skin graft from excess tissue removed from elsewhere on her body. This left significant scarring to the reconstructed areola and no colour to the nipple.
Later in the same year, Helen had another local recurrence to the lower part of the reconstructed left breast and was treated with further chemotherapy.
In 2016, Helen had more surgery to remove affected tissue and then received ongoing treatment of which she had 90 cycles before being diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in her right lung. In November 2020, just days after the announcement of a second UK lockdown, Helen went into hospital for a VATS lung resection. She made a great recovery and returned to work in 2021.
Helen is now on long term ‘Kadcyla’ which is an antibody chemotherapy conjugate targeting Her two positive breast cancers that have spread or come back. She now receives treatment every four weeks, so it’s become a way of life and she continues to be under close surveillance from her Oncologist and medical team at the hospital where she’s treated.
Following her breast reconstruction in 2014, Helen had always intended to get 3D Areola Tattooing but kept putting it off as her cancer treatment took priority.
Recommended by Helen’s breast surgeon, she started to explore the possibility of 3D Areola Tattooing further. Already a client at Tracie Giles London for her brows, Helen was so excited to hear about the Tracie Giles London X Lounge 3D Areola Tattooing Sponsorship as part of the #FeelYourBreast campaign and decided to apply and take this final step in her reconstruction journey.
“This sponsorship is such an incredible opportunity and I know that having the 3D Areola Tattooing treatment will be hugely positive in terms of helping to restore my confidence, to achieve symmetry – to feel more balanced and comfortable in my own skin. I would feel so proud to be an ambassador for Tracie Giles London.” – Helen
Permanent Makeup can often be the final step back to normality after breast reconstruction or augmentation by using cosmetic tattooing to restore the areola and camouflage scarring with amazing results. An areola and/or nipple can be tattooed in a colour to closely match the patients’ own, creating 3-Dimensional, realistic, and natural looking results.
Helen commented: “The fact that I have not properly explored this 8 years post-mastectomy, highlights the need for increased awareness of these type of aesthetic treatments for people who are undergoing or have undergone breast surgery/reconstructions.”
“I lost all my hair twice whilst undergoing chemotherapy and my brows never really recovered so I wanted to get them tattooed. I chose Tracie Giles because she is the best in the industry, so I felt reassured that I was in safe hands. I am so excited about returning to Tracie Giles’s clinic for 3D areola tattooing treatment as I know its going to have such a positive and profound impact on my quality of life.”
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