We were lucky to catch up with Candice Falcon recently and have shared our conversation below.

Candice, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you share an anecdote or story from your schooling/training that you feel illustrates what the overall experience was like?

I did my initial permanent makeup training in Vancouver Canada, where I’m originally from. Unfortunately, tattooing isn’t regulated there, and the course I took reflected that. It lasted about a week, with theory in the mornings and live models in the afternoons. It was intense, stressful, and by the end, I realized I hadn’t gained the level of skill or confidence I was hoping for. As someone with a strong background in art, I was frustrated — I wanted real technical depth, not just surface-level exposure.

That experience was a turning point. It showed me what was missing in a lot of permanent makeup education: structure, clear communication, and practical business guidance. It also made me determined that if I ever trained others, my courses would be completely different. I took the time to refine every part of my own process — not just the technique, but how to interact with clients, how to structure appointments, and how to actually implement skills into a real business.

When I eventually started designing my own training programs, I did so with all of that in mind. I wanted artists to feel truly prepared — not just creatively, but professionally. My goal was to break down the learning process into clear, actionable steps, so students didn’t leave feeling lost like I did. That motivation came directly from my own negative experience, and it continues to shape how I teach today. So, my initial training was not good, and unfortunately that’s common, but it also shows that there’s a lot of room in the industry to elevate the industry as a whole, where the artist has better education to build off of, and they can only add on and build from there. And then they are also providing a better service to clients, and we need to help them as well. And, it’s unfortunate that we’re starting at that stage, but it also means that there’s so much more we can build off of, and we have so much progress that we can make.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’ve always been an artist and painter and when I opened Falcon Artistry Tattoo in 2016, everyone that knew me assumed I was going to be doing traditional tattoos. Permanent makeup was where I started tattooing, with my goal always being to specialize in medical tattooing. Specifically nipple tattoos for post-mastectomy patients, as that was the most commonly known application of that niche. I knew I needed to understand skin, technique, and the nuances of healing before moving into that space and permanent makeup has unique challenges in its skill set that help prepare for that. Last year I opened a second location to my original Vancouver space, in Las Vegas and I moved my training academy there as well.

I began receiving more complex inquiries. A pivotal client moment was when someone reached out asking if I could camouflage her stretch marks by blending a custom skin-tone ink. It wasn’t something I had attempted and I had seen how this could go wrong, but I believed with my artistic background, strong colour theory and knowledge of skin, it was possible. After thinking about it, I called her back and explained that she would have to sign a crazy form saying it would be experimental and that we’d take it step by step. That single experience opened up an entire niche of tattooing for me: creating “tattoos for people who don’t want to look like they have tattoos.” I created my own methodology and now specialize in restorative tattooing or paramedical tattooing. I do scar & stretch mark camouflage, adding in colour to where there wasn’t previously— highly customized work where I mix inks to match each client’s unique skin tone. This is a service that helps people who didn’t have any options previously.

Since starting in PMU, I’ve been excited by the challenges I have been trusted with and am proud that what I have become known for, in addition to my camouflaged work and training in my unique methodology, is my transgender and gender-affirming services. including phalloplasty Tattooing, and hyper-realism, where I have clients find me from all over the world, my furthest client is from South Africa! I’m honoured to work with plastic surgeons across Canada and the USA on trauma recovery cases, and into the deeply personal space of gender-affirming services.

I’ve spoken at multiple conventions about the niche of medical and gender-affirming tattoos and shared my methods during live on-stage demos. I have now developed an academy with multiple courses and training curriculum that reflects everything I wish I’d had when I first started — structured, thoughtful, and rooted in both artistry and real-world application. Recently, I expanded into education and product development by launching an advanced training program for tattoo artists.

What I want people to know the most about what I do, is that most things are customizable, and if you view and observe the body, you can make things look realistic for that person. And now, I’ve branched into another aspect of my business to try and make this type of art more accessible to other tattoo artists wanting to provide these services by doing advanced training.

I recently created my own ink line — the first diverse skintone set designed specifically to simplify the process of skin-tone matching. It takes the guesswork out of blending and provides artists with a professional-grade solution for realism. This takes away a lot of the prep and guesswork and extra mixing to get a really good, natural skin and undertone match.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I think in tattoo training, there is a bit of “unlearning” that needs to happen. This can be if you were doing your services a certain way and there’s a new way that is better, if not uncomfortable the first few times you attempt it. I think that all of our experiences can be considered educational, even if it’s in the sense that you know not to make that decision again or take a client like that again, etc. My initial training was not valuable other than meeting a couple other artists and making some connections, which is never a waste. But the biggest thing it taught me was to be more careful when researching training programs and using it as a tool on how to build my own courses to create value and actual skills over high turnover students.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

The hardest part of running a service-based business is usually finding clients. With the quick cheap education available and oversaturation in the market for people wanting to start their PMU business, even if you are a talented artist, it’s hard to stand out.

Niching is the best way to target but it can be challenging to educate people that your services even exist or how they can help people. I believe in word-of-mouth and building a strong portfolio, because if you do good work, know what you’re talking about and have passion to serve, you are getting clients beyond just your city.

I ended up talking about how I ran my business and spread the word to the point that I ended up working in surgeon’s offices and being a major referral partner across countries during my courses, but wanted to give it the time and detail it needed, so I developed a referral partners course (called BECOME THE ‘GO TO’) that covers how to share your work in the most effective way to help the most people. That way you aren’t personally selling and trying to find each individual client yourself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.falconartistry.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/falconartistry
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/falconartistry
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/42441118/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7Wn-k9hilDbjnIqILudxAg/
• Other: https://www.falconartistryacademy.com