Tattoo artist Lucy Thompson – who’s also an award winner, businesswoman and mother from Cullingworth in Bradford – recently received a standing ovation for her TEDxNHS talk discussing free nipple tattoos post mastectomy. She offers an alternative option to the NHS through her charity The Nipple Innovation Project
Lucy took the stage before an audience of 400, with millions more tuning in via live stream, to share her inspiring story of how her transformative tattoo work has become a lifeline for so many. After her talk, people lined up to speak with her, leaving Lucy deeply moved by how much her work resonates with others and grateful for the opportunity to share her message.
How The Nipple Innovation Project started
Lucy has been a tattoo artist since 2013 and started offering realistic areola tattoos to support women who have undergone breast cancer surgery. Her inspiration came from her aunt, who experienced a mastectomy, breast reconstruction, a nipple graft, and a tattoo in hospital.
Although her aunt recovered well, ten years after her diagnosis, the fading tattoo needed some love. The prospect of returning to the hospital felt daunting, and the impact on her body image deeply affected her self-esteem.
“I asked her what it would mean to her to have this tattoo looking more realistic and she said it would help her feel whole again,” Lucy tells us. “After the trauma of going through cancer, I want to make the restorative period as stress-free as possible and help women feel like themselves again, drawing a line under the arduous journey they‘ve been through. Why should they have to return for future treatment when it can be done in one process?”
Driven by a strong passion for finding a better way, Lucy took matters into her own hands and created The Nipple Innovation Project.
About The Nipple Innovation Project
The Nipple Innovation Project became the first charity to collaborate with the NHS by partnering with Bradford Teaching Hospitals to offer nipple tattoo services post-surgery. This groundbreaking initiative caught the attention of TEDx, leading them to invite Lucy to speak about her work and her direct involvement with the NHS.
Lucy founded The Nipple Innovation Project in 2018 to provide education, funding, and access to skilled tattoo artists for breast cancer survivors seeking specialised nipple tattoos. After founding the project after years of doing private work, Lucy’s story went viral through a BBC article. She was soon overwhelmed with requests from women across the country seeking her help with their faded hospital tattoos.
Currently, survivors undergoing mastectomies are offered free semi-permanent tattoos through the NHS, but they often fade and can lead to physical and emotional challenges. Repeat treatments are rarely available due to funding limitations and the risk of further damaging delicate scar tissue. Determined to make a difference, Lucy launched her initiative to advocate for permanent 3D nipple tattoos.
The project aims to raise awareness of this life-changing services, ensuring people know it exists and have access to information about all available choices, encouraging them to make informed and educated decisions.
“Work was, and still is being done by practitioners who are given minimal training, and they are unintentionally causing further damage,” explains Lucy. “I wanted to make my service accessible to anyone affected by breast cancer without cost being a factor and I wanted to build a directory of artists throughout the UK to make it more accessible to more people, so the charity was born. This has been a huge labour of love, and so much harder than I anticipated, but we are making inroads to this becoming more mainstream, and it is all worth it.”
Lucy Thompson at TEDxNHS
Centered on the belief that ’ideas change everything’, TEDx fosters impactful conversations and the exchange of big ideas worldwide. Having a woman in the tattooing industry take the stage to use this platform for destigmatising a taboo topic is truly incredible.
“The work we do is still so unknown, but it can be life -changing,” says Lucy. “When people come out the other side of cancer, there’s still so much trauma to overcome and after a mastectomy, there‘s not just physical healing, but emotional, too.”
“Nipple tattoos are offered on the NHS for people who want them, but they are basic, semi permanent and they quickly fade away, negatively impacting a person’s self esteem. Our solution is here to stay and the result is much more realistic looking, as we are using our specific skills as tattoo artists.“
“We also offer our services in a beautiful private studio in a rural setting, out in the countryside, so there are no hospitals and the experience is one that encourages reflection, escapism and serenity, helping survivors to find their confidence again, and to help them love their bodies again after they have been through something so life changing.”
Watch Lucy Thompson’s full TEDxNHS talk, here.
Follow The Nipple Innovation Project
Stay connected with The Nipple Innovation project by following them on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, where you can witness their stunning creations come to life.
