Tattoos to fix baldness? This Burnsville business does that

Most people get tattoos to stand out; some get them to fit in. Good Look Ink's clients probably don't want their tattoos to get noticed at all — at least not as tattoos.

The Burnsville-based company's technicians ink permanent hairlike impressions onto their clients' largely bald heads — a process called scalp micropigmentation — to create the appearance of a buzz cut for clients who have lost their hair or the appearance of fuller hair for clients who have thinning strands. The company also treats clients who cannot regrow their hair after chemotherapy, who have the hair-loss condition known as alopecia or who have scars from earlier hair transplant surgeries.

Hair loss "is kind of a scary thing," said Johnathon Hastin, a customer from Cottage Grove who acts as a kind of unpaid brand ambassador for the company. "It kind of just went away in six months when I was 22."

Hastin first heard of Good Look Ink when he was applying to work for them, though he now works as a project manager for a commercial moving company. "I didn't know they did hair restoration. I thought it was a tattoo parlor," he said. Hastin had the procedure done in May and now meets with prospective clients so they can see what the results look like in person.

Expansion to Los Angeles

Good Look Ink opened its first location in Los Angeles last month because the bulk of their clientele comes from outside the state, Good Look Ink CEO Roxanne Chihos said. "Our No. 1 demand was from California," she told the Pioneer Press.

Good Look Ink has over 100 monthly clients, but only 15 percent of them come from areas within driving distance of Burnsville, including from Iowa and the Dakotas, Chihos said. Because of this, the company's two locations are intentionally near airports. Burnsville is 14 miles away from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Los Angeles location is 2 miles away from Los Angeles International Airport.

The company's standard procedure costs about $3,400, though they offer more expensive packages that include transportation, meals and lodging. Good Look Ink also offers "guaranteed" financing, in-house or through California-based United Medical Credit, for the procedure at an additional cost, Chihos said.

Chihos plans to expand the business to major national and international cities in the next three to five years.

The first canvas

Good Look Ink's technique was first developed by Leah Matsch of Hastings. Matsch, a former tattoo artist who is now the company's technical director, began developing the process in 2007, after meeting a man who was dissatisfied with the results of a similar procedure he underwent elsewhere.

Matsch had been looking into applying tattoo art toward permanent cosmetics and breast reconstruction because breast cancer runs in her family. She saw a Craigslist ad the man had placed and the two met at a coffee shop. Shortly after, they began developing the technique using his head as a canvas. After two years of fine tuning, Matsch and Good Look Ink went into business in 2009.

Before joining Good Look Ink in 2015, Chihos worked seven years with the Hair Club for Men and Women as a regional director until 2004. "I was thrilled to go back into the hair loss industry," Chihos said. She added that she did so because she knew she had a "right solution" to hair loss.

According to Matsch, her technique is set apart by the pigments, machines and needles it uses, the depth of the impressions it makes, and its one-day completion.

The procedure starts with color. "We blend a custom pigment for each client," Matsch said. "We have to match skin tones and hair tones." Matsch explained that she does not use black tattoo ink because it is generally carbon-based, and impressions made with that ink tend to turn blue. Matsch also explained that if the impressions are made too deeply into the skin, they expand over time.

"A lot of it is feel," she said. "It's the feel you get when putting in the impression. Hairline skin is tighter, so you have to eye and feel." Matsch said that the company's machines use less power than standard tattoo machines, so the impressions don't go in as far. "Barely through the dermal layer," Chihos, the CEO, said. "Too shallow and the skin ejects the pigment; too deep and it expands."

Not all scalp micropigmentation providers complete the procedure in one day, Chihos said. Matsch said the six- to seven-hour procedure at Good Look Ink begins with a small area in the back of the head, and the technician tattoos from there to the front. Before completing the hairline, they draw a temporary one on the client's head using a makeup pencil "to make sure it's where it should be," Matsch said.

In Minnesota, tattoo artists are required to have 200 hours of training before they receive their license to practice from the Minnesota Department of Health. Good Look Ink technicians are required to have an additional 200 hours of training in its method of scalp micropigmentation before they can practice there, Chihos said. "We train everyone in-house. We look for people with artistic ability, and we look for people who understand that this is a permanent procedure."

A woman's touch

"(This) industry is a little bit strange, because everyone is embarrassed about it," Chihos said. Good Look Ink, primarily operated by women, has a predominantly male clientele. "A lot of our (male) clients like a woman's opinion for this," Chihos said.

However, Chihos highlighted that it's not simply men who suffer hair loss. "There's a lot of alopecia in women," Chihos said. "In the female market, there are not really options for women. They haven't perfected transplants for (them)." Women are generally limited to cutting their hair short, wearing wigs that could be "found out: or attaching hair that does not go to the scalp, Chihos added.

Hastin said he knows what it's like to feel insecurity after having hair loss. "It's almost like we have our own cause," he said. "When you're a bald guy and you see another bald guy in a restaurant, you can probably have a conversation with them. It's kind of a club."

This is an AP Exchange feature by Gabriel Sanchez of the Pioneer Press.