After mastectomy and reconstruction
The last step of the chapter, whenever you are ready for it.
Your surgeon closed the chapter. This is the part where you feel at home in your skin again. Color, shadow and highlight, built by hand until something flat reads as three-dimensional, in one quiet room, at your pace.
Free 15-minute phone consult. You do not have to send a photo to start, and you do not have to explain anything before you are ready.
Areola restoration is a paramedical tattoo that rebuilds the areola and nipple in pigment after mastectomy and reconstruction, using custom-matched color, shadow and highlight so that a flat surface reads as three-dimensional. It is for anyone whose reconstruction has fully healed, on one side or both, whether surgery was last year or twenty years ago. Ella Rozhko does this work in Santa Barbara, California. The free 15-minute consult starts with a text or a call.
Twenty years of restorative dental precision, now on a much bigger canvas. Clients come from Santa Barbara, Goleta, Montecito, Carpinteria, Ventura, Oxnard, San Luis Obispo and Los Angeles.
Who this is for
Whenever you decide you are ready. Not before, and not too late.
Some people come a few months after reconstruction, with the date already circled. Some come two years later, when the appointments finally stop. Some come twenty years later. All three are the right time, because the right time is the one you choose.
- After a mastectomy and reconstruction, on one side or on both
- After surgery that kept the shape and took the color
- Where a rebuilt nipple needs its color, its shadow and its edge
- After top surgery
- Matching a restored side to the side you still have
- Years later, if years later is when you are ready
How it actually works
Three-dimensional, on a flat surface.
There is no shortcut in this and there is no chart to pick from. The color is mixed to you, and the dimension is drawn by hand, in layers, the way a painter builds a shadow.
Step one
The conversation first
Fifteen minutes on the phone, or in person if that is easier. We talk about where your reconstruction is, what you want this to look like, and what you are worried about. Nothing is booked in that call. Plenty of people call once and come back a year later.
Step two
Color, size and placement, decided with you
If you have a side that was not operated on, I match to it: color, size, position, the way the edge softens. If both sides are restored, we choose together. Photographs from before, if you have them and want to use them, help. They are not required and nobody will ask twice.
Step three
Pigment mixed to your skin, in the room
Your skin is not one color, it is a recipe, and areolas are their own recipe again. The mix happens in daylight, against your skin, and nothing starts until it is right.
Step four
Shadow, highlight, edge
Then the part that makes it work: layers of shading that read as roundness, a highlight where light would land, an edge that fades instead of stopping. This is where twenty years of matching color in fractions of a millimeter earns its keep.
Step five
The touch-up
After it has healed completely, you come back. Healed color is the only color that counts, and the touch-up is where the depth gets its last layer. The touch-up is part of the plan from the start.
I can create something that looks 3-D on a flat surface.
Every color on this page is mixed for one person and used once.
Areola restoration is cosmetic camouflage and restoration work. It gives back the look of what surgery took. It does not undo anything, and it does not ask you to pretend. What it can do is give you back a body that looks like yours in the mirror.
Why I do this work
A client came to me in her seventies. Her mastectomy had been twenty years earlier and she had never had the restoration done. She had no partner, and for twenty years she had thought: who am I going to show it to. Then she heard this existed, and she figured, in her own words, what the heck.
I would have never thought that this is gonna make me feel so whole. I should have done it twenty years ago. For myself.
Shared with her blessing, with every identifying detail left out.
For herself. Not for a partner, not for anybody else. That sentence is the reason this studio exists.
What the day is actually like
You are in charge of the room.
About the pain, because it is the first thing most people ask. After breast reconstruction, most clients have very little sensation in that area, and often none at all. Most people feel far less than they feared. If you do feel something, we stop and take care of it before we go on.
You are covered except for the part we are working on. You can take a break whenever you want, and I keep a stress ball in the studio for anyone who wants something to squeeze. I do not hurry, and I have never once moved someone along to stay on schedule.
Bring somebody with you or come alone. Both are completely normal here. Some people talk the whole session. Some people say almost nothing. Sade is on quietly in the background either way.
A text is enough to start. No photo, no explanation, no commitment.
Text Ella · 805-971-0097 Call insteadAfterwards
What you see on day one is not the finished work.
Please know this before you look in the mirror at home, because everybody forgets it and everybody worries.
Fresh color looks stronger, darker and more defined than the healed result. Over the following weeks it lifts and softens into something quieter and more like skin. The first days are not the work. Give it the whole healing time before you judge it.
You go home with written aftercare and my phone number, and you can use that number for anything, at any point, including at eleven at night when something looks strange to you. The short version: keep it clean, keep it out of pools, the ocean and hot tubs while it heals, do not scrub it and do not pick at it, and keep it out of the sun.
Then the touch-up, once you have healed completely. That appointment is part of the plan and not an extra. Skin takes pigment differently from person to person, and the touch-up is where the color and the shadow get their final depth. Color softens over the years, and when it is ready for a refresh you come back.
Questions about cost, and about whether any of this can be covered, come up a lot. Those belong on the FAQ page, and we will go through them honestly on the phone.
If you are reading this for someone else
A note for partners and family.
Thank you for looking. Two things are worth knowing before you say anything to them.
The first is that this is theirs to decide, entirely. The kindest version of this conversation is short: here is the number, here is what it is, and I will drive you if you ever want to go. Then let the decision be theirs, including if the answer is not now.
The second is that they are allowed to want this only for themselves. The woman whose words are further up this page had no partner and no audience, and it still mattered enormously. Nobody needs a reason beyond their own mirror.
For surgeons and care teams
Where this sits in your patient's care.
Reconstruction gives back the shape. This gives back the color and the dimension, and it is usually the last appointment in a very long series. Patients often describe it as being ready to be done with the chapter.
Referrals are meant to be effortless: your patient texts, I take it from there, and I report back to your office if you want that. Healed-result portfolios are available to clinicians on request, and you are welcome to come see the studio.
Healed results
Healed results from real clients, shared with their blessing.
These are photographs of a chest, healed and unfiltered. Faces are never in the frame, and any of them comes down the day someone asks.
After my mastectomy I was left without an Areola on my reconstructed breast. Getting my Areola tattooed by Ella was so exciting and virtually pain free. It looks amazing. Ella is such a kind compassionate talented technician.
I was fortunate to find this amazing artist, Ella, to help my friend regain confidence after breast mastectomy. She's compassionate, professional and superbly talented. The results were uncanny.
Areola restoration questions
What people ask me first.
If your question is not here, it is not a strange question. Ask it on the phone.
How long after reconstruction can I have this done?
Your reconstruction has to be fully healed and settled first, and your surgeon is the person who tells you when that is. Ask them at your next appointment. You are welcome to call me before that day arrives, and plenty of people do, just to know what is ahead.
Does it hurt after a mastectomy?
Most clients have very little sensation in that area after breast reconstruction, and often none at all, so most people feel far less than they feared. If you do feel something, we stop and take care of it before we go on. You get breaks whenever you want them, and I never hurry.
Will it look real?
Healed and settled, it reads as dimension: color, shadow, a highlight where light would land, and an edge that fades instead of stopping. It will not feel the way your own did, and I will never tell you otherwise. What it can do is look like it belongs to you.
Can you match one side to the side I still have?
Yes, and that matching is most of the work. Color, size, position and the way the edge softens all get matched to the side you have, in daylight, before anything starts. Twenty years of matching a single front tooth to the ones beside it is exactly the same problem in a different place.
My mastectomy was years ago. Is it too late?
No. Twenty years out is not too late, and neither is two. Skin that healed a long time ago takes pigment well, and the only thing that has to be true is that you want it. Whenever you decide you are ready is the right time.
The last stop
Whatever it is, it starts with a text.
Two photos, fifteen minutes on the phone, and an honest answer. Nobody has ever regretted asking, and I have never once made someone feel silly for wondering.