We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelly Borders a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kelly, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

I named my business after my daughter, Grace. And I wanted something strong to go alongside it and Honor kept popping up. The definition of Honor is to have high respect; great esteem. I wanted to Honor my clients by treating them with high respect while showing them Grace with whatever their issues were. Because we all need that some times and I wanted my business to reflect that. So, Honor and Grace!

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 background and context?

I was born in Columbus, Georgia, and I have been tattooing since late 2005. After completing a traditional tattoo apprenticeship in West Georgia, I spent a short time in New Orleans, which led to spending a year in Charleston, South Carolina. Wanting to do more custom, large scale work, I made my way to The Hostess City finding myself at a few awesome shops in Savannah. I have worked at shops that have won Best Tattoo shop multiple times so I was in very good company to grow. There was a need for areola restorative tattooing in my area and I happen to fall in love with it immediately. I realized there wasn’t a space outside of a doctor’s office that was offering that type of tattooing so in late 2019, Honor & Grace was born!

We offer all types of tattooing from watercolor, to coverups, american traditional, japanese, geometry, etc and my personal favorite, paramedical tattooing with a specialty in areola restoration for breast cancer survivors.

3D Nipple & Areola Tattooing is a method that is used to create an image of a nipple on the skin with dimensional shading within the pigment of the tattoo ink. This technique adds visual realism to the coloration used to restore the nipple pigment.
When Nipple Sparing Mastectomy isn’t an option or breast reconstruction takes place at a time after mastectomy (“delayed reconstruction”), the newly reconstructed breast can be completed with the recreation of the nipple as the finishing touch. This new and innovative way is used after a mastectomy to restore feminine form.

We are very thankful that we get to offer this service for survivors at no cost. We realized that cancer is expensive and we didn’t want to add to the financial toll that was already there so we decided to offer donation based services since our inception. H&G is incredibly blessed with the best clients and community that always offer to help pay for expenses and we are truly in awe of their generosity every day. We never want cost to be a factor in someone being able to finish out their cancer journey!

Our mission statement:
The mission at Honor & Grace is to provide the most exceptional tattoo experience in the low country and to tailor that experience to the individual needs of our clients. I recognized the need for a place where people could find healing in all aspects of their lives with a focus on helping women end their cancer journey on a happy note. A place where all are welcomed into a warm, inviting, safe space where I can showcase my skill at tattooing. An environment where you feel honored and shown grace from when you walk in the door to when your experience is over.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I would say that honesty and transparency is what has helped my reputation in my career. I’m not out to make a million dollars, I want to help people feel the best they can about their bodies. I mean what I say and I say what I mean, and I think that has lent itself in having a very well respected career as a woman in a male dominated field. I have found that I can relate better to my clients and coworkers by being upfront about my own challenges so they feel comfortable telling me their insecurities in a non judgmental and supportive environment.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

This has been a definite learning thing for me and the best piece of advice I could tell someone from a leadership standpoint is to never ask your team to do something you wouldn’t do. If you want them to walk through fire for you, you have to walk with them! Realize that they are people who have their own sets of issues and baggage and treat them like a person and not as a number. When they need a day to breathe, give it to them! You would be so surprised at how well your team will lift you up when you need it when you have lifted them up in return. I like to create an environment of trust and transparency, my team never has to wonder what’s going on behind closed doors because we have those conversations out in the open.

Contact Info:

• Website: honorandgracetattoo
• Instagram: @honorandgracetattoo
• Facebook: facebook.com/honorandgracetattoo