Case-4863 Gallery

Before and after bilateral areola tattoo in a 37 year old woman.  She had a previous breast augmentation through a trans-areolar incision.  Her areolas had significantly stretched out over time due to the large size of her implants and pregnancy related changes.

She didn’t want to have additional scars on her breasts.  The traditional way to reduce the diameter of an areola is to do a skin-only mastopexy, where the large areola circle is converted to a smaller circle by making a lollipop scar.  The vertical incision below the areola takes tension off the circle.

She wanted to minimize surgery and to create the appearance of smaller areolas.  Therefore, we performed in-office tattoo of her areolas under local anesthesia.  The slightly brighter color of the areola took away focus from the paler large areola circle underneath.

Sometimes, a trick like this (think about how darkening the eyebrows can make your eye color pop!) is all that is needed to achieve your goals.  She is thrilled with the new appearance of her areolas and doesn’t mind the thought of touching up the color as needed every ten years or so.