I left teaching and now make $450,000 in revenue a year covering up scars and stretch marks with tattoos. Here's how I built my lucrative business from scratch.
Laura Lara
- Laura Lara left her teaching job to study skin camouflaging.
- She spent $30,000 to learn paramedical tattooing, and she earned $457,000 in 2022.
- Lara said the business is lucrative, but she mostly enjoys changing her clients' lives.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Laura Lara, a paramedical tattoo artist, who lives in El Paso, Texas. The revenue her business made has been verified by Insider. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
In 2022, I made $457,000 in revenue working full-time for myself in the paramedical tattoo industry. Before then, I was a teacher at Silva Magnet High School in El Paso, Texas for seven years. I got a bachelor's in marketing with a minor in education from the University of Texas at El Paso, and fell in love with teaching — but I realized I wasn't making any money.
I grew up in a low-income community in El Paso, and when I first started teaching I was only getting paid a low teacher's salary. In 2020, I got my master's in education from UTEP and was training to become a principal, but during the pandemic everything just stopped. I started to realize that maybe I wasn't as happy as I thought I was in the education profession.
I started researching other careers and found a page about skin camouflaging for stretch marks and scars
The skin camouflaging page featured work done by Lorrane Lack — a very popular paramedical tattoo artist. I thought her results were amazing. Then, I started thinking, nobody does this in my city.
Skin camouflage tattooing is less than a decade old and it was started in Brazil. In the US, it's even newer. When people think of paramedical tattooing, they only seem to think of putting ink on skin to camouflage scarring, but it's so much more than that.
When we have textured stretch marks, we can't just add pigment into them
Stretch marks are hereditary, so no matter how many times you treat them, they're always going to be there, but we can camouflage them, which typically lasts several years, although you may need touch ups.
Some stretch marks are very textured and deep. People usually get them due to rapid weight gain or weight loss. To camouflage these stretch marks, we have to resurface the skin by needling it with a tattoo machine so it can be flat.
This is an inkless stretch mark revision treatment that helps ruptured skin resurface by creating new collagen. Instead of ink, we add organic oils that help rejuvenate the skin. The oils work like an aftercare treatment to help keep the skin moist and prevent infection.
There's also pigment camouflage, which is done when the stretch marks are flat, white, and over a year old.
Learning paramedical tattooing is expensive — but the business is so lucrative
I have so much passion for paramedical tattooing, but it was hard for me to find someone to get training from. You need to take different courses to learn all the different techniques in this industry, and all of the trainings are short — about two to four days.
I did my first three-day paramedical-tattooing training under Lorrane Lack in Las Vegas. I also got a tattoo license in 2020. In Texas, studio owners must have a tattoo license.
Editor's note: Each state has its own tattoo regulations and requirements for a body art license. The FDA lists the potential risks associated with tattooing.
I did about four trainings with various instructors, who taught me different techniques, and wound up spending about $30,000 altogether. By comparison, both of my college degrees cost me around $100,000.
Clients sometimes cry to me and tell me their stories and struggles
The number-one type of client I see is women who have recently had a baby and have had a lot of rapid weight gain or weight loss, so they have flat, white stretch marks. I deal with a lot of scars as well, especially from plastic surgery procedures like tummy tucks and liposuction.
Ninety percent of my clients are women and almost all of them find me through social media. Some people think paramedical tattooing is just for women, but stretch marks don't discriminate. I wish men knew that. I'd like to tell them, "don't be embarrassed, we all have them, come get our services."
I also see a lot of cancer patients who have scars from surgical treatment or burns from radiation. And I do areola tattoos pro bono, for women who have had mastectomies. That's what I love about this industry: Helping men and women.
Many of my clients travel from out of town or even other countries to see me, and I feel like I'm making a real difference in their lives. Once they heal from the treatments, they tell me, "I feel confident enough to wear a swimsuit," or "I can take my clothes off in front of my husband."
In the beauty industry, it's so hard to build a business from the ground up
I'm a first-generation business owner. My parents came from Mexico to the US. My mom was a librarian and my dad worked for the city. I never saw wealth or what having a business was like. My family was worried for me to leave the steady income of teaching, but they didn't know how lucrative the beauty industry could be.
It's a struggle, but if you have the motivation, you can do it. When I started my business, I was still working full time at the school, waking up at 6 a.m., getting out at 5:30 p.m., then going to my studio to take clients. I would get home around 11 p.m. But, soon, I was making more money taking on two clients than I was at my full-time job.
In my first year, I only made about $25,000 doing paramedical tattooing. My second year was hard too — half of that year I was still working as a teacher — but I made $152,000.
Paramedical tattooists are changing people's lives and that's the best part of it
The paramedical tattoo industry is growing and evolving. I typically charge $950 for an initial session and any additional treatments are $500. I'll see three clients per day from Monday through Saturday, and host a four-day training course at least once a month. I can make $40,000 from one training course — depending on how many services someone wants to learn — with up to five students at a time. I love teaching and can't get away from it.
I also rent out spaces in my studio because I want to empower these women to be their own bosses and know they can make it. I worked my butt off and dedicated my entire life to my business since starting it. Now, I'm opening up my second studio, in Austin, Texas.
Right now, I'm happy with $450,000 a year, but people who get into this industry should get into it because they truly want to help other people heal. Once you have that, you're going to be successful with everything else.
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