Rebecca "Ruby" Rasbury

Practitioner

Cosmetologist, Aesthetician & Manicurist

 

 

I'm a native North Easterner, born in New Jersey, and mostly concentrated my nesting in the American North East.

 

I started tattooing in 1992, owned and operated two studios in Maryland &  one in Massachusetts.

 

In 2013, I graduated from the advanced esthetics program at Marinello School of Beauty and went on to become a licensed nail technician. I am a skincare specialist and put my client's health, comfort, and safety above everything. It's an interesting thing; education. After over 25 years of tattooing and body piercing all over the country, this one advanced esthetics class changed my entire life.  I spent 600 hours learning to preserve the epidermis and understanding products and toxic ingredients that destroy it to continuing a career injecting unknown particulates and dispersants into people's dermal layers. This was a conflict of interest! A career change was on the horizon.

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As a teenager, I had wanted to go to tech school and become a cosmetologist. For whatever reason that I won't discuss here, I was not allowed or encouraged to do such a thing; become a beautician. Instead, I went on my own, floundering like many young people do to discover a life cooking in kitchens, waiting tables and eventually tattooing bikers under tents at swap meets. This is a very long and interesting story that I won't be detailing right now. Stay tuned. 

So, as I was faced with the conflict I had inside about tattooing, and how foolish it really is (why do pain?) I had to think fast about what to do to make a living. In a state of prayerful tears and journaling, I knew with all my heart that I had to go back to beauty school to learn hair. 

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So, as a 49 year old heavily tattooed salty spinster, I enrolled in cosmetology school up in New Hampshire. Yes, New Hampshire. And please, before you start telling me how much you hate winter please think about how much I hate brain eating amoebas in my tap water. I'm not a fan of alligators in my swimming hole either. And how can you be a good driver in this world if you never know the joy of rocking studded snow tires on Rt# 9 in Chesterfield, New Hampshire?

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In 2018 I started having health issues. Without going into details, my lymphatic system was clogged  causing  a bunch of issues. After CT scans, MRIs, countless blood work and multiple visits to many specialists, a contagious disease specialist told me it was most likely caused by the tattoo pigment in my skin. She referenced a study on cadavers and their lymphoma compared to their tattoo ink. Bingo. The short story is this; tattoo pigment is toxic. It's bad for you in so many ways. That's just the ramifications of the pigment with no mention of the societal, spiritual, mental and future concerns one should have when making a life altering permanent decision like getting tattooed. Here's an idea; how about love the skin God gave you? Need attention and a little pain therapy? Come get waxed in my treatment room. 

 

So, I'm done tattooing and advocate against it. There are other artistic mediums I enjoy that don't require adding to the pain and suffering of the human condition. 

 

Endless searching keeps us from valuing what we already have.

Love the skin you're in! 

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