The concept that the professional make-up artist and architect, Beatriz Palma (41), likes to use most to define her work – throughout her life – is that of therapeutic beauty. She tells about it sitting in her chair in her laboratory in Vitacura, where she posted some photos of looks she captured on famous Chilean women: Maite Rodríguez and Sigrid Alegría are some of them. For Beatriz, makeup and beauty have always transcended the superficial: “It’s about finding what makes you feel good. Find what makes you safer and safer. “
In front of her is a coffee table with a box full of – what she calls – “small breasts” on it. They are skin-colored hemispheres that she uses as a surface for support and design the hyper-realistic nipple implants he creates. Each of these prostheses has a different shape, color, size, texture and volume.
Made of silicone and hand painted, these nipples are part of it My Nipp, the entrepreneurship that the professional makeup artist developed in May of this year -together with her husband, Cristián Clerc (45) – for women who have lost the nipple areola complex due to breast cancer.
From hobby to profession
Beatriz says that her love for the art of beauty comes from her childhood. He was born with a cleft palate and was bullied by his condition. To escape these insecurities, he used makeup as a “defense mechanism”.
When he had to decide what to study, he did not hesitate to devote himself to hairdressing and the world of cosmetics, but his family did not allow it. So he entered Architecture at the University of Chile. He graduated in 2006, but only practiced this profession for a year. “At the same time, I was fulfilling my dream of studying makeup and the hobby started to require dedication. I left architecture and dedicated myself to beauty. It was amazing what you generated in women when you put your makeup on. They felt so comfortable and beautiful with little changes, ”Beatriz recalls.
She spent ten years working as a professional makeup artist and says she knows all the media, magazines and fashion producers. She was also part of fashion shows and weddings, but gradually he took an interest in giving women a more permanent solution to their complexes. Thus, he discovered the micropigmentation – a lasting technique that introduces pigments on the most superficial layer of the skin – in the eyebrows and eyes, and to this he dedicated himself.
Even so, he still felt that something was missing. He started investigating and came into the world of paramedical micropigmentationwhich consists in “painting”, for example, burns and scars to hide them and contribute to the emotional recovery of patients. This technique is also used in oncology for nipple reconstruction, which is the area in which Beatriz became interested..
“This discipline, which reconstructs the nipple through the tattoo, has not finished closing me. It still felt like it was like a flat design and I didn’t feel that the nipple was being returned to the women, but that it was an illusion, “she details.
Hyper-realistic prostheses
To get to the product she designed, Beatriz Palma was inspired by anaplastology, a branch of medicine that deals with the construction of orthoses and external prostheses in people who have lost nose, mouth and fingers. The path to get to the final project was a continuous trial and error for months. My Nipp’s definitive prosthesis is made of silicone and is hand-pigmented by Beatriz in the most realistic way possible, with all its finishes and irrigations.
Beatriz Palma (41), with the prostheses she designed.
Each nipple is independently attached to the woman’s breast with a biocompatible glue. They are located in the place where Beatriz indicated them according to the measurements of her body. She is advised to use them for seven to 10 days in a row and, after this time, remove the prosthesis with a solvent, wash it and moisturize the skin. You can let it sit for a while and then put it back on your chest.
“My Nipp is waterproof, sweat resistant and even tear resistant. It allows women to lead normal lives, ”Beatriz explains, and she adds: “I think of this as a dignified, concrete and predictable solution. These are words I like to use because there is nothing predictable or controllable about cancer. “.
emotional healing
As a first approach, Beatriz invites patients who have undergone a mastectomy to talk about their lives, their history with cancer and their healing process. “There are people who come looking for it (the prosthesis) and there are others to whom it must be offered. They are different approaches ”, she details her.
If the customer wishes to continue with My Nipp, we take a mold of your breast – in case it was a unilateral mastectomy, that is, of a breast – and start drawing what you requested. In fact, explains Beatriz, if women know that a breast will be removed, they can make the mold before the operation and thus have their own nipple as soon as possible: “The emotional recovery because, from one minute to the next, seeing you without breasts is super aggressive. “
The makeup artist says it’s exciting for her to see how the women who come to his laboratory try out the nipples he has available and, it barely comes into contact with your skin, have the desire to cover it. They feel the modesty and the sensation of having the chest as before the return.
“This has been a journey for both them and me. We shed many tears at the situation of returning a part of the body that had been removed. Somehow, this is part of a final take and, at the same time, it is a personal equation. There are people who live happily ever after without a nipple and they won’t need it, but there are others who do, and we want to be the solution for those who need it ”, concludes the make-up artist, architect and entrepreneur.
