Cover-up tattoos are common – people often get a design, but then change their minds and want it covered with another image. Similarly, it’s becoming more and more common for people to choose branding and scarification to cover up old self-harm scars.


A girl called Suz wrote to me with some pretty pictures of a series of stripes that Blair (one of the world’s most celebrated branders, see Bizarre 126) branded around her scarred left arm. I’ve seen other self-harm reclamation pieces by Blair, where he’s used scarification techniques to hide scars that the wearer had mixed feelings about. So I asked Suz to tell me more…

PEELS vs BRANDING
“I met Blair two years ago,” Suz told me.