Women & Tatts

It all comes down to Cher. Back in 1972 when she was 27 years old and newly separated from Sonny, she got her first tattoo:

"I thought it would be something different, a statement of freedom. Good girls didn't have tattoos then, no one was doing it...It was really the first step of an experiment to state making decisions on my own....I had made so few real decisions that I was bound to be bad at it. I was right."

Now all the A-list (and A-wannabe) celebrities are inking their bodies. The tattoo has become a female fashion accessory, rather than the rite of passage. It's no longer taboo, but still a little risque– different but accepted. It's almost difficult to name an actress who hasn't got a tatt. Everybody's doing it, from girl-next-door Jennifer Aniston to Bay-babe Pamela Anderson.

The subject matter of body art has undergone a revolution of sorts. The old stereotype of sailors and marines – and who doesn't know an aging WWII veteran with a blurry rendering on his bicep – are of a generation who never dreamed of finding their own name tattooed across the flesh of their stateside sweetheart. Today that's all changed. Women are elbowing out young men to get in the door of the tattoo parlor. In a recent survey, 22% of the UMass undergraduate women sports a tatt, twice the rate of the male students.

While "Mom" and the names of sexual partners still rank high in frequency and gang symbols are widespread amongst the prison-bound populace, the upsurge is in young women. Estimates are as high as 36% of all American women ages 21-32 now sport a tattoo. They seem to be indulging in tattooing as more of a journal of sorts. And the celebrity women are no exception. According to Angelina Jolie:

"Usually all my tattoos came at good times. A tattoo is something permanent when you've made a self-discovery, or something you've come to a conclusion about."

Okay, not counting the blue-tongued dragon she got when she was drunk and dropped trou in Australia a few years back (now covered by the black cross/dagger handle). Perhaps the most prominently tattooed actress today, Jolie has 13 tatts at last count and several older ones that were converted or removed. She has stated she’s just a “punk kid with tattoos” at heart, but dressed and strutting the red carpet, she is radiating more of a regal tribal look these days.

Some stars go so far as wearing it, literally, on their wrist. Not satisfied with a cement star in the sidewalk, Eva Longoria and Ashlee Simpson both sport small black outlined stars on their left wrists. Victoria Beckham has five stars on her lower back. Perhaps it’s part of the Michelin rating system?

And then there are those who want to commemorate their childhood. Nicole Richie sports a pair of ballerina slippers, as if her father’s composing Ballerina Girl for her wasn’t enough. But the little pair of angel wings on her back? You decide. Christina Ricci decided on having Aslan, the lion god of Narnia tattooed onto her left scapula to symbolize her emancipation from a hellish childhood – and seven more to go with it.

And then there are those fans that just go in for having the star himself as the tattoo: elaborate celebrity images are getting more and more popular. Reminds one a bit of those edible photographic sheet cakes.

This young female demographic is characterized by a certain exuberance of spirit that settles down as it approaches strapless wedding gowns and steady jobs. And tattoo removal. In the good old days, you died with your tattoos. Or you traded them in for horrific scars. Before the advent of lasers, a variety of treatments were tried: dermabrasion or skin sanding, X-ray treatments, chemical peel, liquid nitrogen, dry ice or CO2 'snow,' flesh-colored over-tattooing. The most common method? Surgical excision and skin grafting of the hole left behind. It wasn’t pretty.

The advent of medical laser technology has changed all that. Tattoos are created by placing drops of ink under the skin via a needle (hopefully). A Q-switched Nd: YAG laser is the one most often used to remove tattoos and other pigmented or discolored skin. The high-intensity light beam penetrates the dermis and is absorbed by the ink, vaporizing the pigment colors. It feels like rubber bands snapping against the skin. Hard. Over and over. The lymphatic system (the body’s natural filtering system) clears the dissolved particles of ink pigment. A tattoo that cost a few hundred dollars could require several thousand dollars and many laser sessions to remove.

Bright green, yellow and red inks are most difficult to remove. A new tattoo technology is available starting this fall called Freedom-2, a type of ink encapsulated in beads and designed to break up after one treatment with a special laser. It will be interesting to see if this 'removable' tattoo changes what and how often people adorn their bodies with images.

Tattoo removal clinic chains are making their mark or erasing it, so to speak: Dr. Tattoff, Tat2BeGone and Tattoo MD sprung into being on the West coast. Many states don't regulate tattooists or tattoo parlors, but do regulate medical lasers. These tattoo removal clinic chains are most often staffed by nurses. In other locales laser removal is supervised by physicians: plastic surgeons, dermatologists, or practically any physician with a laser payment to make.

Angelina Jolie has spent time in the doctor's procedure room: ex-husband Billy Bob's moniker has been lasered and the real estate tattooed over with the longitude and latitude of each of her four children. And Cher? At 61, she now thinks tattoos are "just plain stupid" and is in the process of getting them all removed.

In the final analysis, young women getting tattooed may be all about empowerment.

And power is really sexy.

What do you think? Click on the envelope icon and send us your thoughts.


(Okay, this last tattoo is made up.)


Want This Look? A professional tattoo can be had for under $100, and one that costs a few hundred dollars could require several thousand dollars and many laser sessions to remove. Dr. Tattoff charges $39 per square inch of tattoo for each treatment. Full removal takes an average of eight treatments, spaced at least a month apart, using different Q-switched lasers for different-colored inks.

HDTV & Adult Acne

All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.

We all know what happened to Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard and we of the 21st century are definitely not ready for our HDTV close-up. Broadcasting in the hot new digital technology makes TV faces look as crisp and sharp as...the real thing and we viewers aren't used to seeing the real thing in Hollywood. Just as talkies and technicolor redefined Hollywood stardom in the past, so too will high-definition, where every feature is in IMAX and in your face.

High definition televisions can display two million pixels, nearly 10 times the resolution of a regular, old-style TV set, on a screen the size of your dining room table. If an actor is aging or if they've got any skin damage, it just pops out at you. Additionally, more colors are used in HDTV, including some new shades of red: all the blotches, zits and tiny nose-veins can be presented with the brutal clarity of a dermatology textbook!

High-def is, in essence, a medium peculiarly unsuited to dissembling.

Who do you think is scary in high-def? Various lists name Teri Hatcher (42) and Rosie O'Donnell (45), underscoring that too little fat in the face looks skeletal and too much can't camouflage coarse skin. And broadcast news may suffer ala Tim Burton's Batman: Meredith Vieira (54) of the Today Show looks her age without botox and airbrushing. On HD-tv older definitely looks older. And it's guaranteed you'll never feel the same about It's Only Rock 'n' Roll after seeing Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on high-def. Both 63-year-old men are walking morality tales for the ravages of drugs, age, and rock 'n' roll.

High-def is particularly unforgiving of bad facial plastic surgery, young or old. It would have long ago spelled the end of tv roles for Michael Douglas (63), Burt Reynolds (71), Cher (60), Joan Rivers (73), Mary Tyler Moore (70), Faye Dunaway (66) and the like.

You can just as easily get slammed in HDTV for having imperfect skin. Many accomplished screen actors have relied on heavy makeup to blend into their parts and erase a legacy of acne, yet makeup artists are ham-strung with this new technology. Bill Murray (56), Tommy Lee Jones (60), Lawrence Fishburne (45), and Cameron Diaz (34) will never again pass for scar-free on television.

It's not enough to be merely young (though it helps). Britney Spears, everyone's favorite pop tart, looks 10 years older on HDTV, her face puffy and blemished with pucker wrinkles marking her two-pack-a-day cigarette habit. To truly look great in this new technology you need smooth skin and a healthy complexion.

Acne is a condition of the sebaceous glands, the glands attached to hair follicles which produce an oily substance called sebum. A lesion forms the hair follicle becomes plugged with sebum and dead cells.

Twenty-five percent of all adult men and 50% of adult women experience acne at some point. That's 1 in 5 women between ages 25 & 40. Male acne normally starts at age 12, gets worse at 16, and is outgrown by one's early 20s. Girls often breakout earlier but not so violently and continue to have flare-ups longer (witness Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Jessica Simpson all of whom endorse an overpriced OTC acne treatment line).

In adult acne, hormones, stress, and bad habits all contribute. Less commonly, chafing pressure (sports equipment) and some medications (anabolic steroids, anti-epileptic or anti-tuberculosis drugs, lithium and iodine-containing Rxs) can be the reason.

The pathogenic (disease-causing) events in the sebaceous glands are believed to be due in large part to changes in levels of androgenic (male) hormones in the body. This is why pregnant women often experience acne on their chest and back. It also explains the mid-40s onset when a woman's female hormonal levels drop, leaving endogenous androgens unopposed.

When under stress, the adrenal glands (which are located above the kidneys) overproduce cortisol as well as androgens in both men and women. These hormones in turn stimulate the sebaceous glands to secrete more sebum, which ultimately results in the formation of zits and yet more stress! It's also been established that psychological stress can decrease the wound healing capacity of immune systems by up to 40%. This factor doubles the impact of stress on acne.

And last, but not least, are the things we do to ourselves. Picking, rubbing, and scrubbing all aggravate acne-prone skin. The biggest science breakthrough in acne care has been the development vitamin A treatments, both topical formulations and oral (Accutane). Some of the best OTC products were developed by the scientist behind Retin-A, Dr. James Fulton and are readily available on the internet.