John Hashey Advanced School of Permanent Cosmetics

A Day With John Hashey by Linda Dixon, M.D.

It was April 14th, 1999. I was talking long distance to John Hashey of Arty Joe's Tattoo in Oldsmar, Florida. A Marine Veteran of 23 years and a seasoned tattoo artist of fifteen years, John was telling me, somewhat apologetically, that full lip color procedures take him a long time to complete.

Reassuringly, I told him he wasn't alone. Boy was I naive! I then asked him just how long he took to do lips. He said "Twenty minutes".

Now my jaw dropped to my chest and I sat speechless. I recovered and asked him if I could visit him when I was in Florida at Dermafest in October. He said "Sure". So I drove from Orlando to Oldsmar (near Tampa) for 2.5 hours and found John at his studio. He gave me a cold Coke and took me next door to a beauty salon. The manicurist looked up and John introduced us. She had bright, flawless lip color and it didn't wipe off! I hobbled back on my broken leg to his studio where he displayed many other photographs of his procedures. John then shared his secret of success!

John used an 11 magnum (or 6 flat) 00 needle from Unimax in his traditional coil machine. He holds the tip at an angle like you would hold a ballpoint pen before you put the pen to paper. The needles are almost, but not quite, parallel with the skin. He divides the lips in sections and works each section slowly-not lifting his needle (no circular motion such as the "obovoid"). He keeps the lip stretched tightly. He inspects his work by pinching the lip and fills in areas only as needed and goes on to the next section. His needle "stroke" length is about the thickness of a nickel or dime. While the needle rests just inside the tip when retracted, the needles extend quite far out at full power. He says that people who go at a 90-degree angle into the lips will have poor, blotchy results because they are going too deeply and inflicting too much tissue damage. Again, he does NOT like small circles (ovoid) or continuous contact with the skin. For outlining the lip, he uses a #5 round "tight" needle.

My thoughts? I only regret I didn't have more time to have my own lip color done by John. And it goes to show that one secret of success is making friends with experts in traditional tattooing methods. For all your permanent makeup and tattoo supply needs please feel free to browse John Hashey's complete online catalog.