A BRIDE-TO-BE spent six hours and hundreds of pounds having layers of her skin
cut off to leave behind a flower ‘tattoo’ on her chest.
KimberLea Spencer, 24, went through the torturous procedure, known as
scarification, last year and paid $450 (£300) for the privilege.
She admitted washing afterwards was like being “doused in acid” and for months
afterwards she felt “electric shocks” as the tissue healed.
Despite this KimberLea, who will marry her fork-tongued fiancé Alan Hull, 32,
this October, is keen to have more skin cut out.
She explained: “People ask if it hurt to have my skin removed and of course it
did.
“But I tried to focus on other things while it was being done. I listened
to music and chatted to the other people in the room.
“Most of the pain came after, while my skin was healing.
“I had to keep it clean and wash it every four hours for ten days.
“It wept and scabbed over and felt itchy.
“Each time I took a shower, it was like being doused in acid.
“My scars really stung.
“Now, when the weather’s overcast or cloudy my scars dry out.
“My skin feels like it is being zapped, like I’m suffering lots of little
electric shocks.”
Petrol station assistant KimberLea, from Kansas in North America, said the
radical tattoo provoked mixed reactions from friends and family but she
“loves it” and thinks it’s “pretty”.
As well as flowers, KimberLea’s detailed scar design also features 72 circles
and 27 triangles cut in to her skin.
She admitted: “Some strangers are horrified by it.
“However, some people are so intrigued by it.
“I’ve had parents encouraging their children to ask about it.
“One girl, who was only around seven, said it was beautiful.
“Other people, particularly older people, seem quite negative.
“Though they don’t say anything they give me horrified looks.”
KimberLea told how her family, including her mum and grandmother, were “not
huge fans of it”.
She explained: “They didn’t want to see photos of it shortly after it was
done and my gran thought it wasn’t aesthetically pleasing.
“They couldn’t believe I had it done.
“But I like it and I think it’s important to express yourself.
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“I like creating the image of how I think I should look.
“I’m not worried about how my scars will look when I’m older either.
“You only have one life and when I’m in my 80s I won’t care what my skin
looks like.
“My goal is to cover my body with tattoos, piercings and more scar
designs.
“I’d like a wolf cut in to my left knee next, in memory of my puppy,
Syyras Black, I lost in October.”
She said she was not nervous of how she would look in a wedding dress, adding: “I’m
not going to have any confidence issues on my day.”
The bride-to-be, who has also spent around $2,000 (£1,355) on ten tattoos and
25 piercings including in her face, is keen to decorate her body further.
She said: “I’d also like to point my ears and split my tongue, like Alan.
“Alan doesn’t mind.
“Fifty per cent of his body is covered with tattoos and 25 piercings.”
KimberLea’s passion for body art and modification was sparked when she got her
ears pierced at the age of 15.
Since then she has added more than a dozen to her ears as well as eight facial
piercings and several in her genitals.
At 18 she got her first tattoo – the words ‘to write love’ on her left wrist.
Now, after spending thousands on tattoos and 25 hours in the chair, she has
ten designs covering her right foot, right thigh, right hip, left shoulder,
back, right ribcage, wrist and even in her left arm pit.
These include a poem down her spine, a shipwreck on her ribs, a feather on her
foot and the character Chuckie from the cartoon Rugrats in her arm pit.
KimberLea said she’s like to have the Northern Lights tattooed on her knee
next.
She admitted she regrets some of her earlier designs, including the poem on
her back and the feather on her foot, and intends to get them covered with a
forest scene and a windmill.
She added: “I think that it’s important that there are age restrictions
for processes like tattooing and scarring because people could get them done
too early and regret it.
“But I’d say to people considering these, don’t let anything stop you
expressing yourself. You only live once.
“Whatever family or society say, live true to yourself, don’t be ashamed
of who you are. I’m not.
“My scarification is a mark of who I am, my body made it, and I think
it’s pretty cool.”
KimberLea described scarification as safe and told how her artist used
certified instruments and a clotting agent to stem her bleeding during the
agonizing process.
She added: “As I scarred heavily and my skin has raised, I have lost some
detail of my design.
“But I like it otherwise.”
Author and body language expert Judi James reckons KimberLea’s scar tattoo
reflects a desire to “scare people away”.
She explained: “The way we look is a major part of our identity.
“The normal route is to enhance with surgery that will get rid of
imperfections in a bid to be more ‘beautiful’ and therefore successful and
even more popular with other people but this surgery seems to be aimed in
the opposite direction.
“It is alienating and in some cases presumably aimed at scaring people away.
“It suggests a deep fear of other people as though they are a threat to
ward off rather than support and company.
“To want to look this different suggests the person is themselves scared.
“They could be very cynical of other people and their desire to shock is a way
of avoiding the ‘threat’ of acceptance.”