I was born in Milano, Italy, educated in Munich, Germany and Zurich, Switzerland.

To my advantage, as far as skin, I developed the love, fascination, and care for skin, due to the fact, that I was raised by a mother who took extreme care of her skin, though she did not wear any makeup. Instead she said that, "as a woman you have to take care of your skin, so that you can let the world see the natural beauty of your skin, instead of covering imperfections." And take care she did, as a result she had a standing appointment with her aesthetician, twice a month.

When I turned 3 years of age, my mother started taking me with her, to those appointments, and I would be given a chair, to sit in one corner of the room, and observe what was being done, in order to learn what I should do when I grow up. After those “sit still appointments” however, the next trip was to a special bath and massage house for women, where I would get the same treatments as my mother, whatever it was my mother was getting at that time, right by her side, wonderful different Mineral Baths, and then natures most fragrant oils for the massage.

At home my mother had her vanity table, where she would sit every evening, massaging in her night cream, and only on special occasions, did I see her sit at that table and apply a very small amount of lipstick only, never anything else, and then she would take that same lipstick and put a small dot on each cheek, then rub it out well, in order to bring a small amount of color to her face. My mother did also have beautiful thick lashes, and thick beautiful brows, beside her great skin, so she did not need to do anything else, as far as makeup.

I on the other hand however, did not inherit her lashes, or her brows, only her skin, so I started watching my mother's friends, eye and brow makeup. Starting at the age of 4, I would lock myself in the bathroom, with my mother's lipstick, and since I did not have an eyebrow pencil, I would take a soft writing pencil, and try to draw eyeliner, eyebrows, and lipcolor on myself. Until my mother caught me, so she took me to the store, and bought me a regular eyebrow pencil to use, with my father's great objection, but she said that she would rather have me experimenting with that, instead of harming my eyes with a lead writing pencil. Voilà, my fascination with eye and brow makeup was born, with that pencil!

Then however, I very quickly discovered that the pencil smears and rubs off. At that time, as a very young girl, I was already very involved in sports of all sorts, including water sports. Therefore after playing with an eyebrow pencil once, and then diving in the pool, I very quickly discovered, that eyebrow pencils could not be used, while participating in sports, because they smeared and vanished. That was when I started asking older girls, who used eyeliner, if they knew of how to keep the pencil from coming of so easy, but all I got were comments like, "when you figure this out let me know". I was only 5 years old then, but fascinated with makeup. At one time, one day, while experimenting, I applied eyeliner and eyebrows with a pencil, and then put clear nail polish over it, and waited for it to dry and harden. That night my mother took me to the Hospital Emergency Room, while they scraped the hard nail polish with a surgical instrument of, from around my eyes and of eyebrows. The same night I went to bed with no eyebrows or lashes, and a whipping from my parents. As you can imagine I never tried that trick again.

At the age of 14 I met a young man in school, who was an exchange student from Japan, and I could not help but notice his tattoos, since I had at that time, never even seen a tattoo before. After bombarding him with questions, he told me that his father had a good friend, who was a Great Tattoo Master in Japan, and this is where he had his tattoos from. After seeing this elaborate design, in many colors, and on skin, I immediately realized that, I had found the way to make makeup stay on permanently.
 

From that day on, I could not get the tattoo out of my mind, and made my mother's life, completely miserable. To begin with my mother did not believe in makeup, and as a physician herself, started telling me that I should put my mind into medicine, since that was what I am was going to study, instead of makeup. I however did not agree with that, because I felt that what I was going to study, or do later on in life, had nothing to do with the fact that I was a woman, and as such, I was going to use makeup on myself, and wanted to be able to have makeup, which would stay on, no matter what I did, and without taking up all my time.

Since my mother never could say no to me forever, and due to the fact, that I was still too young to travel on my own, my mother and I went to Japan to find this master. What I did not count on, was the difference in culture, from Western Europe to Japan, and therefore did not anticipate, the problems we were going to encounter, for the master to as I put it, "teach me please". In the first place these masters do not teach, instead you have to be invited to become, the masters apprentice. Also, especially in those years, it was almost impossible to find a woman, in the business, and on top of it all, I said right away, that I did not want any, Body Tattoos; instead all I wanted to do was to learn Cosmetic Tattooing.

The year then was 1969, and that was when my education started, in working on the biggest and most important organ of all, the human canvas, "Our Skin". That experience, also taught me respect, and love for what became for me, the most fascinating topic of all "Skin". After that first education, I later, took many other seminars in Permanent Makeup, Camouflaging, and other Reconstructive Procedures, in France, in Switzerland, etc. I learned to work by hand, with every machine, ever made, every needle grouping imaginable, and finally started teaching, in 1979. I taught all the way thru Medical School, where I studied, what else, but Dermatology, and never stopped, since I developed a passion for all the different ways we can help beautify skin.

I have worked and taught from Europe, to Africa, to Asia, to the Middle East, to the United States, and South America, and still do, furthermore I loved every minute of it, and still do. I cannot, and do not claim to have invented the Tattoo, or any method thereof, Cosmetic or otherwise, but neither can anyone else in this world today, because the truth is that Tattooing, has been with us, since the beginning of time, and it is here to stay. Therefore, what I would like to say is, "Let us work together, to continue making this industry better, and more rewarding, than what it already is".