Melissa Sloan stopped having bare skin years ago.
Every inch of her body and face is covered in ink: more than 800 tattoos accumulated over time, including her eyelids, cheeks, and lips. The British woman says she started out of personal preference and ended up trapped in a transformation that has no turning back.
What she did not anticipate was the social cost. According to her own account, she has gone to dozens of job interviews, even for cleaning positions, and in all of them she has encountered the same response: no. No one asks about her skills or experience, she says; they all just stare at her face.
Melissa insists that she is willing to work at anything. The problem, she says, is not her willingness but other people’s judgment: people decide who she is before listening to her, just based on what they see on her skin.
