Reader Mail: Tattooing Over Stretch Marks
Question: “I'm a 25 year old male and I lost about 70 lbs, four years ago… I've maintained the same weight (+/- 10 lbs) for the last 3 years. With that said, my arms are covered with terrible white stretch marks. It is so awful, I cannot even wear a short sleeve t-shirt in the summer. Many are thin and white and have little to no depth and then there are a few that are about 1/4 to 1/2 inch wide and cause a slight dip in the skin. I'm wondering if tattooing over them is a solution. I don't know what I would put over them, but my mind frequently goes to tree branches and such, since they kind of go in all different directions and have some texture that may help blend into the stretch marks. Do you think that's doable? I'm getting desperate.”
Answer: I think that's entirely doable, but it will be up to the artist to make the final decision once they actually see your arm. I have tons of small white, thin stretch marks on the undersides of my arms and the part that I had tattooed over completely camouflaged the lines. It was, admittedly, more painful and tender to be tattooed in that area but it was absolutely worth it.
Just make sure you choose a talented artist who doesn't have a really heavy hand, since thin skin has to be inked very carefully to avoid causing further damage. You can't always tell how heavy-handed an artist is just by photos of finished work, so you may want to watch him/her work on other clients and even interview a few of their customers to see what they thought of the artist's touch.
Thin skin and striae (stretch marks) can cause tattooed designs to spread more, so something that doesn't have a lot of fine detail will be your best option. Color and texture, however, will be your friend – multiple levels of colors and shadowing/highlights will help to camouflage the striae best.
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