Billy DeCola (00:00)
All here we go. Live streaming, we’re live with David Santiago from New York City. Welcome to the podcast. This is the roles are reversed here. Last time I spoke with you online, besides FaceTiming, I was on your podcast and you were asking me all the questions.

David Santiago (00:20)
Now

it’s my turn to be on the hot seat. Now I’m the angry artist.

Billy DeCola (00:26)
Are you an angry artist?

David Santiago (00:28)
I’m not the angry

artist. I’m the artist calling out the bullshit like you were doing eight years ago.

Billy DeCola (00:34)
I know I kind of laid off on that a little bit. was doing that a while ago and then I just decided it wasn’t worth my time or you know, wasn’t worth the energy. But you’re all into that right now. Yeah.

David Santiago (00:42)
is it’s changing now. It’s it’s changing

now. The artists are doing their research. They’re becoming wiser. The clients are doing their research. They’re asking questions. So everything that you were bringing to light eight years ago and people were kind of like, we don’t do that here. Now they’re like, hmm, wait a minute. Maybe these guys are on to something or they were on to something.

Billy DeCola (01:05)
Yeah.

How much has changed in the past eight years when we talk about the industry, not only the scalp micropigmentation industry, but the entire tattoo industry? Like think about the equipment, how it’s evolved. Think about…

the needles, the pigments, the techniques, how many people have gotten into the industry since we first started chatting about this, and definitely the amount of knowledge that’s out there that’s readily available for not only artists to access, but for the clients to know and access.

David Santiago (01:44)
Yeah, there’s so much change and just alone with the knowledge because eight years, well, I’m going on nine years that I’ve been in the industry and we’re talking about what gatekeeping was at its absolute max. And when I bring that up, when I try to have other artists or just people in general understand the level of gatekeeping that was happening, I have a photo that I’ll never forget. And it’s a client. You see the back of the head and it’s the crown area. It’s a Norwood 7.

Billy DeCola (01:56)
Ha ha ha ha.

David Santiago (02:12)
And the artist made individual lines. So he broke the scalp into like about eight lines and he wrote numbers on it. He wrote 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70. I’m like two months into it. So I go, Hey man, what does that mean? Cause for each number, he associated some impressions to it. So I’m thinking that probably means the dilution ratio. It’s gotta be that. So I go, what is that?

Billy DeCola (02:38)
yeah, definitely.

David Santiago (02:41)
tells me, that’s something you learned in my master’s class. That’s $1,000. I was like, what the hell? That’s the kind of gatekeeping that was happening, where now I wake up every day to like 15, 20 DMs at minimum of people asking me that. And I’m just like, yeah, this is what I use. I use Solid Ink by Billy De Cola. That’s the light or ultra light. Like it’s nothing. No, no, like it’s $1,000.

Billy DeCola (02:45)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah,

yeah, back in the day, even when I started doing it, remember, pardon the noise, I’m getting a delivery here. Can you hear that?

David Santiago (03:12)
That’s all right, bro. You sound like you on 149th Street, the two and the five train. you in? Do they have trains over there?

Billy DeCola (03:16)
I pretty much am. You gotta check out

this pizza place next door, man. You think you got some good pizza there? I got AJ’s Brooklyn pizza next door. This dude’s straight out of Brooklyn, man. Straight, yeah, no, he is. is. Nope. He’s from Brooklyn.

David Santiago (03:23)
Yahoo!

Is he really though? It’s not that his father was born in Brooklyn and then moved him to Vancouver.

Billy DeCola (03:36)
He’s from Brooklyn. He brought Brooklyn pizza right next door. It’s great, man. I got a fellow American right next door. I can go shoot the shit with him anytime. It feels so good, man. yeah, pardon the noise. No, I remember when I first started doing SMP, I was thinking to myself, like, I better not let all these tattooers know what I’m doing because they’re gonna catch wind of this and they’re gonna jump in the game. was gatekeeper number one. Like, I was doing it.

David Santiago (03:43)
He has a friend. That’s awesome.

Billy DeCola (04:05)
You know, was trying ⁓ to keep it little secret. wasn’t posting. I created like a new Instagram account and I wasn’t posting anything on my tattoo account because I didn’t want anybody to figure it out because I was like, man, this is a good deal right here. You know, but as time went by, I was kind of, you know, I got tired of doing that.

David Santiago (04:05)
I remember.

to know it.

Billy DeCola (04:25)
I kind of even stopped doing so much SMP. I remember I was doing like two, sometimes three people a day, ⁓ five days a week. And then I was just like, man, number one, I got burnt out of the whole thing. kind of, you know, as a tattooer.

you kind of have this need to create art. And yeah, SMP is art, but it’s the same thing over and over again. It’s just, you’re just doing dots, man. You know I’m No, so, you know, I kind of like…

David Santiago (04:47)
Totally different form, right?

It’s boring.

Billy DeCola (04:56)
It is, I mean, you do make some bank and you do help people feel better about themselves, so there’s that whole thing, but the artistic outlet just wasn’t there. So I really got back into tattooing a lot and I was kinda doing SMP on the side for a while. And then, as you know, I got into doing laser tattoo removal, which has been a whole different thing. ⁓

And that’s taken off like crazy. I opened up a couple studios here in Vancouver and then I started franchising the business. So now I have, just sold a franchise in Toronto and the goal is to kind of expand across Canada. And then once I build the brand up a little bit, I am going to hit the States and open some over there.

David Santiago (05:38)
You coming to Hudson Valley, New York? What’s up, bro?

Billy DeCola (05:40)
Hell

yeah, man. Well, I know you’ve been working with a company over there. don’t know. Those guys are good though.

David Santiago (05:44)
No, I’m not working. I’m not working with anyone.

I don’t think it’s going to happen. Yeah, I don’t think it’s going to happen. mean, there’s like opportunities to collaborate and they were looking for like investments, but I was like, I don’t want to like if I want to invest, like I want equity. Like I want to, I want to own the business. Yeah. Those days of me being like a 33 percenter and stuff like that over, cause that just…

Billy DeCola (05:57)
Mm-hmm.

You want to own the business. Yeah.

No.

David Santiago (06:14)
never ends well.

Billy DeCola (06:15)
And what you bring to the table, besides your knowledge of the industry, is that marketing power, man. You’re one of the best out there. You just bring a good ⁓ feeling to it. You just kind of get it out there. You’re yourself. You don’t try to sugarcoat anything. it’s just real. And I think people appreciate that, especially potential clients.

David Santiago (06:25)
Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I see that like now it’s now that, you know, I’m catching on to that where I see the brands that want to collaborate is because they know what I’m capable of and they want to leverage that. So not a part of me is kind of like, okay, I’m going to help you grow and do amazing things. But then at the end, right, once I once I get you to the yellow brick road now, you know, now what about me? Now got to start all over, look for another brand, build them. So that

Billy DeCola (07:07)
Yeah.

David Santiago (07:09)
The conversation has changed where it’s kind of like, well, I want some equity. If you’re to come to me and tell me you know what I can do for you, put me in the game, coach.

Billy DeCola (07:20)
Yeah, that’s what you need to do. ⁓ It’s nice to take it slow, though, and make sure you’re making the right moves at the right times. But ⁓ it would be great if sometime along the line we could do something together. If we open up a little laser removal studio up there in New York, that’d be awesome.

David Santiago (07:26)
Of course.

Listen, the amount of botched work that’s coming through here. Trust me. Yeah, we were I was the last time I did numbers was last year in November. And we’ll get like about six to seven a week. And that’s what just walk ins consultations that they’re not even clarifying whether they need the SMP or not. But they’re just, you know, they’re coming in as they want SMP done because they think

Billy DeCola (07:41)
A lot. A lot of it. Yeah.

David Santiago (08:05)
There’s something that can be done aside from laser and it’s like, no brother, this is botched work. You need about six sessions of laser guy.

Billy DeCola (08:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, you

Some of that won’t come out too. Like we’ve had clients come in with like deep.

blue dots on their head. Like it looks like it’s in the bone and you try to laser that out and yeah, and it doesn’t matter how many times or how hard or how deep or whatever settings you use. Some of that just will not come out and a lot of the problems we see too are the people who are ⁓ getting a botched job and then going and getting concealment. So they’re using like a flesh tone pigment and they’re trying to conceal it. That just adds to the problem so much because then you can’t remove

David Santiago (08:23)
Yeah, yeah, skull.

Billy DeCola (08:50)
flesh tone pigment. has white in it. You’re not going to be able to laser that off.

David Santiago (08:55)
Yeah, I remember sending you a video because what’s happening now is there’s so much misinformation that you’re even seeing some of the guys in the industry. And I’m talking about S &P industry, PMU industry, even some tattooers that are like, they’re taking these on and they’re like, all right, we’ll throw some flesh tones on it. I’m sending it over to you because I know you have the knowledge there. And I’m like, is this a thing? Because if it is, like I want in, because it looks great when…

Billy DeCola (09:23)
⁓ man,

David Santiago (09:24)
Then when you do the

Billy DeCola (09:25)
yeah.

David Santiago (09:25)
research and you’re like, hey man, you can’t even remove that shit if you tried.

Billy DeCola (09:31)
There’s no way we had a lady today. She called us and she was desperate. She’s like, you gotta help me. She had black bags under her eyes and somebody went and hammered in.

flesh tone pigment under her eyes and she sent a photo over and I was I mean my wife she’s she works here too she was on the phone with this lady for like a half hour I’m like just tell her we can’t help her I mean there’s nothing we can do what can you do you and you can’t even like she’s like well should I do saline removal like I’m not gonna do saline under somebody like in their eye socket under here like I am NOT doing that who is the person who put that pigment there and that’s not the first time I’ve seen that but that

David Santiago (10:03)
Yeah, that’s damaging.

No,

Billy DeCola (10:11)
happened today.

David Santiago (10:12)
it’s a thing. It’s a thing, dude. When I saw it, listen, if you don’t know any better and you look at it, you go, this is brilliant. This person is getting money. What is it? Hand over fist. Just think about it. Who the hell doesn’t have, did I say it correctly? Like who the hell doesn’t have that? You know, like who’s not sleepy nowadays? You know, what business owner doesn’t lack sleep and have brown or black eyes?

Billy DeCola (10:20)
Yeah, I guess.

Yeah. I’m like, I’m like, look at me. got the Louis Vuitton’s going on here, man. Like.

You

David Santiago (10:41)
And I see it and I was like, these people are going to be making a killing. So you’re like, I would absolutely do that. And then of course, right, just knowing what we know, right. We’ve to do the research and then you find out, dude, that’s going to look really bad in a couple of years. You might as well just keep the black, black eyes, man.

Billy DeCola (10:56)
You.

you’re ruining somebody’s life. Like there are other ways to maybe try to treat that a little bit, but the solution is not putting pigment in the skin. Not that is the last thing I would do, but we’ve seen all of that. We’ve seen, you know,

scar camouflage all over the body, even the face. We’ve seen flesh tones that are trying to conceal pigment. We see it every single day just about when it’s an eyebrow because we do lots of permanent makeup removal. And when we’re lasering it, sometimes the client doesn’t even know. But we’ll see like above the eyebrow, there’ll be like a white line above it. And it’s like flesh tone pigment. And I’m like, did you know?

David Santiago (11:38)
That’s where they went in.

Billy DeCola (11:40)
They went too far, they, whoever did the brow like went too far up and they’re like, oh, let me just correct this and just like white it out. Like that is not cool. And most of the people don’t even know that they have that. No, you’re just.

David Santiago (11:53)
They won’t even know that’s happening, right? Because they just assume like, all right, I’m just getting my

eyebrows fixed.

Billy DeCola (11:58)
You’re just laying there in the bed and you’re getting tattooed like you’re not looking over at the pigment seeing what’s being poured all the time and they’re just getting white pigment hammered in their brows all this. I mean we’ve seen so many of that like that happens all the time. So I’m glad that you have your podcast where you’re out there and you’re telling people like hey this is not cool. This is not something that’s going to help people out. You know thank you for doing that. Just do it more please.

David Santiago (12:23)
Yeah, I learned I

got the inspiration from you. You know, I’m going to tell you a funny story, bro. When I first reached out to you to do the podcast, I remember I have wanted to reach out to you for a while. And at the time, because I was still considered new and you were considered like an OG because of the experience you bought brought over from the tattoo world. I was like, man,

Billy DeCola (12:29)
I don’t know about all that.

Yeah.

David Santiago (12:52)
I don’t know if this guy’s gonna entertain me and this is me and I speak about this all the time and it’s like we got to bridge the gap between the tattoo industry and like PMU and S &P and it’s like you know these guys are an asshole but at the time I was like I don’t know man this guy’s a tattooer he’s probably gonna tell me go go fuck yourself or something but I was like now I have a plot like I have a reason I have an excuse so I could be like hey man I have a podcast I wanted I wanted you to talk about your experience and all and it was it worked out

Billy DeCola (13:09)
Yeah.

David Santiago (13:19)
Perfectly it was like you were like, yeah, man, let’s fucking do it. Just know I’m gonna talk a lot of shit I’m like, I want you to talk

Billy DeCola (13:27)
No, I held it

back. was I was pretty mellow at the time like I didn’t I don’t like throwing anybody under the bus or like, you know creating enemies about this it’s work and you know, it’s it’s what people do for a living and It’s not anything personal. So I I don’t like to come across like that and sorry if I did come across as unapproachable, but

David Santiago (13:45)
No, you didn’t.

This was me just being ignorant and listening to other people like, you know, tattooers, they can kind of be assholes. So I just that was my own. That was my own ignorance.

Billy DeCola (13:54)
They can. Yeah.

Yeah, but I’m glad we met. Was that eight years ago?

David Santiago (14:02)
Bro, that had to be probably about seven years ago, yeah. Because the podcast I’ve been doing it now going on five years. Yeah, I think I was like two years, three years in the industry. Yeah, I think it’s time for a recap. It’s time for a recap, bro. This is a recap. No, I’m good. As long as you allow me to repurpose this one, that’s great. We get two birds in one stone. Exactly.

Billy DeCola (14:13)
Yeah. Well, aren’t we recapping out or do I have to or do I have to go on your podcast to recap? Hey, kill two birds with one stone. Yeah. Hey,

⁓ you know what’s funny that you inspired me to get the podcast going? I am.

I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, but I never, it’s a big leap. Like it’s not easy to do. But I don’t know if you know this or not, but when I lived in Japan, I lived there for like eight years or so. And I did video production out there. Like I did lots of stuff. We shot like live stuff and yeah. So I do have sort of a background in video, but. ⁓

David Santiago (14:48)
Remember you telling me.

Billy DeCola (14:55)
I haven’t used it in a while. I’ve been tattooing and I’ve been doing my own thing. I did a lot of photography too, just kind of goofing around when I was in Japan. I’d shoot photos and stuff. But yeah, I’m glad to get back into the production side of things, because it’s fun. It’s a lot of work though.

David Santiago (15:11)
It is fun. Something different.

Billy DeCola (15:15)
a lot of work, especially when you’re doing all that editing yourself. Like I hired, I’ll tell you what, with the podcast, I hired a company and they were editing the podcast for a while and it was, it seemed okay. But then I just looked at it. like, that’s not the look I’m going for. And I realized like, I figured they weren’t putting the effort that I think that they should have done for the amount of money they were making. So I got rid of those guys and then I hired another company and pretty much the same thing happened where I was just like, dude, I know you put that into AI.

David Santiago (15:19)
Hell yeah.

Billy DeCola (15:45)
and you made these four shorts that you, yeah, you’re like, by the way, I didn’t need to ask some questions about that stuff, but yeah, same thing happened where they were like throwing it into AI and just giving me the output and I’m like, I know what you did and I just paid you thousands of dollars last month. So I ended up getting rid of those guys too and now I’m doing it myself and I’m sitting there thinking like, what have I done? What have I done to myself?

David Santiago (15:45)
Magic clips.

Yeah. And you’re invested

now, bro. So it’s like, you’re going to do it now. Now you’re like, I have to do it. You got all the cameras, you got all the high tech gadgets. remember you sending me the pictures and I was like, Whoa, this guy, this guy’s going to blow me out the water. This guy. I can’t, can’t, I’m not answering the phone anymore. I’m not answering the phone anymore. But eat.

Billy DeCola (16:17)
Yeah.

We’ll collaborate. We’ll collaborate, man. No, but

yeah, you’ve been an inspiration though, so thanks. I appreciate that.

David Santiago (16:35)
No, thank you, man. mean, when you called me to tell me to do it, the first thing I was like, bro, hell yeah. Especially when you told me the concept behind it, I was like, you got to do it, bro. And then you started showing off all your high tech tools and cameras with 93 pixels and stuff. was like, OK, easy.

Billy DeCola (16:49)
Yeah

It’s easy to buy

the cameras and it’s easy to set all this stuff up, but it’s hard. I’ll tell you what the challenge is. What I found, I think I’m like 18 episodes in and I don’t know if you know the actual topic or the subject matter, but it’s a half of it’s kind of like laser tattoo removal based where, you know, I want to educate people on tattoo removal. And then the other half I want to have guests on who are sharing their stories about laser tattoo removal, just like, you know, like the New York ink and the Miami ink show.

people would come in and they would talk about why they’re getting the tattoo. Sometimes when we’re in the laser room and we’re lasering people it’s like the stories we hear from people who are getting rid of the tattoo is they’re even better than the ones of them getting the tattoo. Like getting rid of it’s better. It’s it’s great.

David Santiago (17:37)
can’t imagine. It’s got to be great. Yeah, it’s got to be so awesome. That’s why you got to keep it

going because at some point it’s going to evolve into its own reality show because you’re going to get it into the eyes of the right person. That’s it. It’s game over. And then I’ll be I’ll be your apprentice over there. I’m shutting down shop.

Billy DeCola (17:51)
Yeah.

No, I’m just gonna

keep it. I’m just gonna keep it on YouTube, man. Just like Spotify and just having fun with it. But I found that the difficulty is the spontaneity, like trying to it’s easy to get into a conversation when you’re with a client in the room, but then actually asking them like, Hey, do you want to be on the podcast? And they look at all this equipment because I have the equipment like right out here in front of the shop, like in the front part. And they look at it. They’re like, ⁓ I’m not good on

camera or whatever and it’s like okay well see you later see you in a couple months for your next session then yeah

David Santiago (18:28)
Yeah.

Yeah, they get scared. They

see the professional setup and they go into this like deep like, ⁓ yeah, I know I told you how my wife cheated on me and all this stuff. You know how many abortions I had, blah, blah, like the deepest, darkest secret. But in front of these lights and cameras, yeah, no, they’ll shut down. I get the same thing. They see it. I let them see the setup.

Billy DeCola (18:53)
Yeah. Yeah.

David Santiago (18:58)
Cause to them they go, wow, this is where you make the videos. And I’m like, yeah. And I always ask too, like, hey man, I would love to sit you down, maybe just ask you a couple of questions on why SMP or what hair loss did for you. they like, with all of this and I’m like, yeah. And they’re like, I don’t know, man. I don’t do good. Like you think you see them already nervous. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s like.

Billy DeCola (18:58)
Mm-hmm.

You mean you mean that camera there and that light I feel so intimidated now it

does I guess it does look intimidating if you’re not like touching it and you know using it all the time but it’s it is what it is you get used to it I guess when you’re just hopping on a podcast you’re not getting used to it by the time you feel comfortable that hour or whatever it is it’s over and you’re like boy did I mess that up you know but ⁓

David Santiago (19:28)
Yeah. It’s.

Hey, I screwed that. I wait till

I see the rerun. How many times I said, said words that don’t make sense.

Billy DeCola (19:44)
Yeah.

The beauty of it though is it’s not life. So even for myself, I say some stupid stuff on camera and I’m just like, I’m cutting that out. There’s no way. There’s no way. Yeah.

David Santiago (19:56)
Yeah, I would do that a lot

because I can’t pronounce certain words. Thanks. New York City public education. You know, I tell you what, Billy, before I even said, you know what, I’m going to start a podcast. was like, I was very well aware.

Billy DeCola (20:03)
I’ve noticed. I’ve noticed.

You

You went to speech therapy?

David Santiago (20:21)
I was very well aware of my damn speech impediment and like not being able to enunciate words correctly. Cause in the Marine Corps, my Marines all would let me know. They would be like, you hear how Sergeant Santiago says this word? That’s how you know. One, he’s Puerto Rican and he’s from the Bronx. Those motherfuckers can’t sound off or sound out words for shit. But doing it to podcasting, it was one of those hurdles that I had to just tell myself, you know what? It is what it is.

Billy DeCola (20:44)
Mm-hmm.

David Santiago (20:49)
As long as I can get the message across and I don’t care who the hell makes fun of me, like I’m just going to put it out there and look now. Now I don’t care even if they do some people send me the clips of it and they’ll give me shit and I’m just like, it doesn’t matter bro. Like it did his job. It did his job.

Billy DeCola (20:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, it’s your…

It’s funny though, and it’s your flavor too. Like what do want to sound

like everybody else? My problem is I’ve been living in Canada for now for like 15 years. When I go back home to Florida, my friends are like, you sound Canadian. I’m like, I’m like, listen here, man, those are fighting words. Hey man. Hey man, those are fighting words, man.

David Santiago (21:16)
You so can eat.

⁓ He’s like, yo, the communist,

he’s a communist. ⁓ No, I don’t.

Billy DeCola (21:29)
Yeah, it’s socialism, okay? Socialism.

David Santiago (21:33)
So let me ask you though, Billy, you see that it is difficult, have you developed a system where you kind of still feel it is not as a, you don’t have the anxiety behind it the way you used to before where it’s like, fuck, that’s an hour long podcast. I’m gonna have to sit here for X, Y, Z. or have you just accepted like, man, it’s gonna take a lot of work.

Billy DeCola (21:35)
Mm-hmm.

The solo stuff I find a lot more difficult than when I’m having a conversation.

David Santiago (22:05)
Really?

Billy DeCola (22:05)
like the solo

stuff for me, find that I’m not myself and I’m trying to deliver a message. I have this thing in my head. Like I’m just like, okay, these are the points. And then I find myself speaking into the camera and I don’t sound like myself when I’m speaking with you. I feel like I’m having a conversation and my real personality kind of comes out. Like I don’t feel nervous one bit like chatting with you, but when I’m here, I’ll turn off all the lights. I’ll be here by myself and I’ll have the camera on. And that’s the time when I feel less like least

David Santiago (22:11)
Interesting.

Billy DeCola (22:35)
myself when I’m looking at the camera and it’s just me and that camera there. It’s so weird I’m trying to figure out the art like how to the how to how to do it. There has to be a way but I haven’t figured it out yet and I’m getting a little better each episode but I still feel like I have a lot of work to do.

David Santiago (22:37)
Interesting.

Get comfortable.

Yeah, I’m the opposite alone. I’m 100 % is when I’m talking to y’all. Yeah, it’s the easiest for me. So easy. Or even when I have like the videographer there, like I know someone is recording me like I can just go. It’s when I’m actually interviewing someone where I really start like, you know, asking myself the questions like, am I sounding like myself or am I trying to sound

Billy DeCola (23:00)
Really?

David Santiago (23:21)
overly educated, you know, like, do I do I do I want to sound too smart?

Billy DeCola (23:21)
That’s so odd.

You definitely don’t. I’ll tell you right now,

you don’t sound like that over here. Let me put your mind at ease with that department there.

David Santiago (23:31)
You definitely don’t see.

You gotta think about the level of the artist that I’m talking to in order for me to think that I’m sounding educated, right? Like poor bastard, like, guy, what do you do? I do SMP, do dots. that’s so funny.

Billy DeCola (23:52)
Yeah.

I guess, know, with like the guests that you have on, you’re

having people from all walks. Like, you know, you might speak with somebody from Arizona, then you’re talking to somebody from Europe and like, so you’re dealing with kind of like different people. And I think it’s important. And I don’t know if you do this or not, but it’s important to just kind of stay yourself and not try to like be a chameleon where you’re acting like whoever that person is that you’re speaking with. I think that, I mean, but that’s like when you go out and you’re on the street and you talk to people, you’re not changing who you are.

based on what person you’re speaking with. So I think it should, I I don’t see, I don’t understand why it would be difficult for you, but I, you know.

David Santiago (24:35)
So I

think for me what it was, it’s a habit that I picked up being a barber because as a barber, they say we have to be chameleons because depending on the the client that we’re dealing with in that industry, you do have you come across, you know, business owners or car salesmen that they do have those kind. They do bring with them those kind of ignorances where it’s like, this kid just sounds like a street kid. I don’t want him cutting my hair. So you got to kind of like it’s unfortunate. But I think that’s where I bring it.

Billy DeCola (24:45)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I understand.

David Santiago (25:05)
I bring it over. then last year at the time when I was talking with, you know, I kind of had like a manager that was helping me out and she was like, what you have to do is you just kind of really just dummy it down because you’re talking to these people from all different countries and they don’t really even understand English like that. And you’re talking too fast. You got to talk slow. You got to talk slow. So I was like, ⁓ yeah, I can do that. I can do that perfectly.

Billy DeCola (25:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

David Santiago (25:34)
So I think me, the challenging part when I’m interviewing others is that because I try hard to not, I don’t want to be a chameleon, but I end up doing that. I guess I feel like it makes them feel more comfortable. I don’t know. I mean, it’s been working. Got 131 episodes in, so.

Billy DeCola (25:50)
Yeah.

That ain’t bad, man. How many, you said five years? Are you doing one a week or what’s it up to now?

David Santiago (25:58)
Now

I’m doing for the last year and a half or two years, I’ve been doing ⁓ every two weeks I drop one and then.

Billy DeCola (26:05)
Yeah,

I think that’s what I’m gonna do, because I was trying to do one every week, and the pressure, the pressure, man, like, you shoot it, and then how, what’s your turnaround time for editing? So, I think I would rather put out quality stuff, and take my time and edit it and make sure it looks good, rather than just like pumping stuff out. So, that’s, think I’m gonna move it to every two weeks and then put some shorts out. Yeah.

David Santiago (26:08)
Yeah, that’s hard. Yeah.

Yeah, that’s definitely going to take away some stress from you when I did that. And I was

doing one a month when I started, but I originally started with like eight of them in the back end. So I wasn’t chasing. But this year, I kind of changed the format. I want to do a lot more solo podcasts because a lot of the artists that I want to I mean, I do want to still interview ⁓ other artists. But a lot of the artists, you know, sometimes the topics that I want to talk about, they’re very like, yeah, you know.

Billy DeCola (26:37)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

David Santiago (26:57)
I don’t really want to tap in with that. Yeah.

Billy DeCola (26:59)
What topic could there be that

somebody doesn’t want to talk about as an artist? Like pigment?

David Santiago (27:07)
You know what it is, Billy, some of these guys, some of

these guys, they’re so focused on clout and they think that this is how you actually retain clients is with like this kind of clout that they’ll go, listen, I’ll come on the podcast with you. I don’t want to talk about my technique. I don’t want to talk about ink. I don’t want to talk about what needles I use. And I’m like, guy, what do you, what do you think you, what’s so special about it? Like what’s so special about your technique, bro? Like, what are you doing?

Billy DeCola (27:14)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that’s not as…

David Santiago (27:35)
that the rest of us around the world are not doing. So I just leave them. go, I go, all right, cool. Hey, I appreciate you, know, much success to you. So I was getting a lot of that. And then a lot of a lot of times I just wasn’t able to publish some of the podcast because I don’t like putting it out there like that. But you know, you’ve been talking with people. Some people just really don’t know how to talk well about what it is that they’re doing or they feel very uncomfortable.

Billy DeCola (27:44)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

David Santiago (28:02)
even when it’s virtual, like they shut down and then after they’re like, I didn’t feel good about that. And I’ll review it and I’ll go, yeah, this looks really bad. And I don’t want to embarrass the artist by, you know, putting that out because they’re to go, damn, Billy fucking shit the whole time and stuttering. I don’t want to do that. Yeah. Right.

Billy DeCola (28:15)
Yeah. That ain’t…

It’s not cool. It’s not cool to put somebody out there if they don’t feel comfortable about it.

I actually did. ⁓ I did a podcast with my lawyer. He’s in Jersey and he’s my franchise lawyer and he has this cool little podcast. Did you hear it? So I shot that podcast and I swear it was like it was probably two or three months. I didn’t see anything posted. I didn’t get any feedback whatsoever and I was thinking myself like man I just totally tanked that like I must because I thought I sounded like

David Santiago (28:29)
I heard that one. Yeah.

Billy DeCola (28:48)
an idiot when I was talking like afterwards I’m like oh I sound it’s so stupid well thank you hey they did a great job editing I’ll tell you that much but it took him a while then all of a sudden they sent me this link they’re like it’s been uploaded I was like oh no they did it they put it out there and it looked fine

David Santiago (28:51)
No, I thought it was a great podcast.

⁓ you thought

he, I understand now. I understand. He hadn’t published it. So you thought he kabashed it.

Billy DeCola (29:09)
I thought he just, I thought he,

I thought that was the case. I thought he was just like, that guy was horrible. He was not interesting whatsoever. He stuttered. He sounded very uneducated. Like I had all these thoughts going through my head and I was just like, yeah, I wouldn’t publish it either probably. And I was fine with that. And then months later it was posted and I was like, my God, that’s so crazy.

David Santiago (29:35)
Yeah, he’s probably he probably records. So what I used to do was I would take like two weeks or three weeks in the month. And every day I’d probably do like three or four podcasts. So that’ll give me anywhere from 26 to 30 for the whole year. So I knew I at least had some on the back end just in case. And I will only do that for three weeks. I would start recording like in February or March and get it already. So he probably did that. He probably bulk recorded and then

Billy DeCola (29:50)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

David Santiago (30:05)
I had you anticipating like, shit, my podcast wasn’t good and dropped three months later. Probably what happened. It is.

Billy DeCola (30:11)
That’s the smart way to do it, because then you’re not pressured

into, and he probably has an editing team too, so they’re working on it ahead of time. And they can take a couple weeks off and still publish stuff regularly.

David Santiago (30:23)
Yeah. Have you

had anybody in the industry tell you that you think is easy? can put your lights on. You’re getting kicked out of. He’s getting kicked out of his own spot.

Billy DeCola (30:30)
Who just turned my lights on? You

know what, I’m in my studio right now and we were originally supposed to shoot later, but I felt bad to ask you to come so late. I didn’t even, like we’re open right now. I’m in the middle of, I wish you could see what’s going on. It is, but like my client just walked in. have to do him like he’s early. He’s like, have, yeah, he’s sitting up there watching me shoot this thing. But yeah, he’s supposed to be here at 430. So I’m not, I’m not late. He’s early, but.

David Santiago (30:43)
That’s awesome, even better.

You got a client right now? That’s awesome.

Billy DeCola (31:00)
It’s three hours difference, so.

David Santiago (31:02)
Right, your

Pacific time, I’m on East Coast time.

Billy DeCola (31:04)
Yeah, I’m in Vancouver. Yeah. So yeah, people are walking around my I hope it’s not too noisy for you. So I may turn the lights on like.

David Santiago (31:10)
No, I’m fine. I’m good. I don’t know about the about the

I thought they I thought they were kicking you out. Like it’s time to go turn lights. You’re getting kicked out of your own spot. Have you had any artists reach out to you and kind of like try to undermine what you’re doing and tell you, I could do a podcast, you know, about.

Billy DeCola (31:19)
Yeah, it’s the club.

Not under, I’ve had some people reach out wanting to be on it so they could put themselves out there ⁓ and not everyone seems interesting enough to have on the show or the podcast,

David Santiago (31:35)
not undermine you.

Gotcha.

Billy DeCola (31:49)
I’ve seen, you know what’s funny? In the past year or so, I’ve seen a bunch of podcasts pop out. Like don’t know if that’s like the new trend where everybody’s doing it, but I’ve seen a ton of them come out and that’s cool. Like I guess the more the merrier, it’s not easy. So I know, you know, the people who aren’t putting in the work aren’t going to last. Cause I know I’ve had some thoughts about just like. ⁓

David Santiago (31:55)
Yeah.

I throw it in.

Billy DeCola (32:10)
stopping completely.

But yeah, I know it’s gonna be in the long run, it’s it’s gonna be great for my industry, which is the tattoo removal thing. Because there’s so much if you think like tattooing or scalp micropigmentation is hard to learn about online, you should try looking for getting tattoo removal, like figuring out. Have you had tattoo removal?

David Santiago (32:32)
I’ve done that. have

no, I, no. So I got 10 zaps on my head just so I could knowledgably talk about to the client and let them know like this shit hurts. That’s it. I haven’t gotten any.

Billy DeCola (32:39)
Did you? Okay.

Yeah, well,

people go searching for laser tattoo removal and you’re seeing videos from like 1980, 1990 where they’re using like old equipment, they’re burning people, people are blistering. The stigma around tattoo removal is crazy.

if I were looking online and I was believing what I was seeing, I wouldn’t get it done. So I figured, you know, it would be nice to educate people. And, know, it also brings I’m telling you, it brings in so many people who have seen the podcast and they’re like, yeah, I watched that. And I kind of understand it’s almost like doing a consultation before the consultation because people are learning about what they’re getting themselves into before they come here.

David Santiago (33:28)
Yeah, and establishes you as the authority to I remember what it was either your first one or your second one. I was telling everyone like you have to listen to this. You have to understand what laser. Yeah, I was was tagging you wanted when I was putting in my stories because a lot of these guys, they’re quick to like, ⁓ you got the SMP. You need laser removal. And it’s like you can’t just send them to anyone that does laser removal. Like there’s also a technique to understand on how to remove SMP. You can’t hit it with the same way you would.

Billy DeCola (33:37)
Really?

David Santiago (33:58)
you know, these heavily saturated tattoos, even though some of these SMP, ⁓ some of these SMP work is just as freaking saturated. If you, if you live in, if you live in Florida.

Billy DeCola (34:08)
Yeah.

There’s a bunch, well man, we’ve had people from here, we have people fly in to get SMP removal. And you know, there’s lots of laser tattoo removal places all over, but we have people flying in. We had a dude fly from Korea a couple weeks ago to get SMP removal. Like dude, they have lasers there. They have the same exact laser there. A lot of them, yeah.

David Santiago (34:25)
That’s nuts.

That’s crazy. And their

SMP, like their technique is super saturated. Like that is what, that is the technique. Saturated, yeah, saturated work. It’s crazy, it’s madness.

Billy DeCola (34:38)
yeah. It’s like tribal.

Yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, there is an art form to removing it just like there is applying it. I mean, you don’t have to. It’s not like a tattoo where you have to stay up late at night drawing stuff out. But when you see something, you have to know what settings to use. You have to know, you know, the skin.

how the skin is going to react, what type of, it’s nice to know like what type of pigment was used. You don’t have to know the exact brand, but by looking at the pigment, ⁓ you can tell, like I can tell if ⁓ it’s a wash where it’s like black pigment mixed with water, or if there’s some white in there where it’s like an opaque gray, or if there’s undertones in there like reds or yellows or that fluorescent orange that some people use. ⁓

All of these things you should know about before you laser somebody’s head. Because if you don’t, then that person’s going to be surprised when they get the laser done. They’re going to walk out with orange or yellow on their head. They’re going to be like, what the hell’s going on here? So you got to, I feel like it’s our responsibility doing laser to give the client all of the possible outcomes, like tell them about all of them. And then once they know all the possible outcomes, then they can decide if they want to take the risk or not. But I don’t want it to fall into my

David Santiago (35:42)
Yeah, they’re gonna be pissed.

Billy DeCola (36:03)
where I didn’t inform them and then they’re pissed at me, you know.

David Santiago (36:08)
I have two

things for you. One, are you able to tell the difference between SMP ink and tattoo ink? Your laser. Then the next thing is, have you ever thought about putting a module on your SMP training where it talks about ⁓ the laser removal?

Billy DeCola (36:15)
Is this a trick question?

David Santiago (36:30)
as it pertains to SMP and you know how they’re always promoting using the modifiers like the orange and all that thinking about it long term, especially if you knew when you use a modifier and you botch them and now they want to go get laser, what really happens? think that’d be sweet.

Billy DeCola (36:36)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, I don’t know if I’m going to modify

it like add a module to the old one, but I’m actually coming out with something new ⁓ in the near future here. Should I tell you what it is? No, I’m not going to. I’m not teaching laser or anything like that, but we’ve been actually doing a lot of saline removal lately and I’m not.

David Santiago (37:02)
Interesting.

Billy DeCola (37:05)
I am not an advocate for saline removal. don’t like the treatment. I think that there’s a lot of trauma caused when you do saline, but in some cases there’s no other option and saline is the only option left. and I’ll tell you what those cases are. It’s when the laser is not breaking down the pigment anymore. And there are certain colors that are really difficult. Like white’s impossible. You’re not getting white out. I don’t care who tells you,

David Santiago (37:22)
Yeah, I’m interested in all.

Billy DeCola (37:35)
anywhere

on the planet. If you have white pigment in your skin and you hit it with a laser, it’s not coming out. The only thing that’s going to happen is it’s going to oxidize and it’s going to turn dark. So that’s number one. Number two in I would say 99 % of permanent makeup pigment these days and a lot of SMP pigment too. Now they put undertones in these pigments so they heal warm and they’re mixing them right in the bottle now. So not only do you have black or brown or you have reds, you have yellows,

Sometimes they’re putting whites in there to lighten them up.

David Santiago (38:06)
Yeah, they even put in green too.

Billy DeCola (38:08)
all types of stuff. So when those undertones are there and they’re present and we’re removing those dark layers first, what happens is it’s not changing, like it’s not changing to red or yellow or whatever. It’s revealing what’s underneath. So there’s, if you’re removing an eyebrow, for example, or even SMP with modifier, if you hit it with the wavelength that targets the dark, because that’s what we’ll see when they first come in, it will remove that dark pigment. And what’s going to happen

is it’s going to reveal what’s underneath and that’s the undertone. And when we get to certain undertones like yellows, well yellow is the main one, but some reds that have maybe some whites in there, the iron oxide, the titanium dioxide, those pigments don’t react to the laser in a way that’s going to break the pigment up and…

let it fade. So when we reach a point where it plateaus, we tell clients like, Hey, you’re the only option now is saline removal. And I’ve been doing a ton of it. I don’t like doing it. But we do it a lot. I do it a lot. I’ve done lip blush, like I’ve been hammering lips with saline. I’ve been doing eyebrows. It

David Santiago (39:21)
So what are you doing? What are

you using when you’re doing that? Is that like a mag or something and just dipping the saline and

Billy DeCola (39:28)
you like to know.

David Santiago (39:34)
I’ll FaceTime you later. ⁓

Billy DeCola (39:37)
that in my my video no I use a mag I use a mag I just it’s like tattoo I laser mm-hmm

David Santiago (39:38)
That’s interesting.

So you laser first, give them some healing time, right? A couple of weeks,

then they come back and then you do the saline.

Billy DeCola (39:51)
not a couple of weeks, couple months, even three, four months. I’ll wait until the maximum fading has taken place from the laser.

David Santiago (39:55)
Jesus, that’s gotta be

such a brutal process to go through. Just not wanting it there and then getting the laser and you still gotta wait. That’s why I saw.

Billy DeCola (40:02)
Yeah.

But I’ll tell you this,

we tell them before we start the laser that that is a possibility.

During the initial consultation, we speak with the client and we tell them all of the potential outcomes, including, hey, you might reach a point where this pigment can’t come out and your only other option at that time will be saline removal. I’m not saying I like it. I’m not trying to sell you on that service because I don’t even put it on our website. I don’t want to line of people down the street trying to get saline because that’s not what I’m trying to do. That’s to me. It’s like not anything I feel like doing all day, but I let them know ahead of time. So when they come to that

David Santiago (40:33)
Yeah.

Billy DeCola (40:42)
point when they’re like, hey, it’s yellow, this yellow is not coming out. What do I do? Well, we’ve already discussed this. And you know, sometimes you have to remind people because they’re all emotional about it. And they’re looking in the mirror, we have people crying and having hissy fits and all kinds.

David Santiago (40:57)
Yeah, I’m sure. Are kidding me? Because it ends up looking

worse than what they originally wanted removed.

Billy DeCola (41:02)
Yeah.

David Santiago (41:06)
And so now how many sessions does it, is there like an average, like how many sessions you can do with the, the saline removal to actually get it all out?

Billy DeCola (41:17)
Yeah, I usually it’s usually like two sessions and then after that if it doesn’t work, I’m not going to keep hammering it like we’ll do it. Yeah, sometimes it works in one and it’s like a one and done type of thing. But in most cases, it’s you know, one or two and then after that if it doesn’t work, I’m not just going to keep doing it. I’ve been doing ⁓ one of our clients she had ⁓ scar camouflage on her areola.

David Santiago (41:24)
It’s just too much trauma, right?

Billy DeCola (41:44)
because she had a surgery and it was like, kind of flesh tone pigment with, you know, you’ve probably seen an areola before, haven’t you? Your little pepperonis. Yeah, that’s the thing nowadays. But we tried laser and it didn’t work.

David Santiago (41:52)
Yeah, I had it done on mine. have a heart. I have two heart areo. You know, I got two heart areolas. Custom.

Billy DeCola (42:06)
So then the only other option is saline. But I don’t want to keep doing it like every month or something. You got to let that skin settle down and relax a little bit. So just continuing to hammer that tissue is not a good thing either. So it takes patience. I’m going to do a course, like an online course on that.

David Santiago (42:25)
Yeah, that’ll be dope.

So are you telling me to so you’re saying, all right, aside on top of, you know, the the the camouflaging of the bags or the black and brown under the eyes, the scar camouflage that they’re doing, that’s something that shouldn’t be done because of the type of inks. Or is that only if it’s not done correctly and the person has to get laser?

Billy DeCola (42:47)
I don’t, yeah.

David Santiago (42:54)
If the scar camouflage is done correctly, there an issue?

Billy DeCola (42:58)
If it makes the client happy, there’s not an issue. It’s all about the client.

David Santiago (43:04)
Right, so it’s only an issue

if they need to, if they’re looking to get it ⁓ laser removed.

Billy DeCola (43:11)
my problem with doing scar camouflage, whether it’s, an aerial is not flesh tone. It’s a different pigment that you would use. It’s not, it’s not like a light tan or something like that. It’s a little bit darker. So there’s a lot less white in there. the thing is like some people feel uncomfortable in their skin and they need some help to feel better about themselves. That’s great. But if you’re doing something that’s going to make the problem worse down the road, then I feel like that’s irresponsible.

and using a pigment that cannot be removed with a laser, in my opinion, is irresponsible.

David Santiago (43:40)
Gotcha.

Billy DeCola (43:49)
So if you’re using whites or any type of light brown, like tan color has white in it. You’re never going to laser that off. So how are you going to get that off? Suppose you want to get it off. Suppose something happened. You go in the sun and now your skin’s real tan and that pigment turned yellow instead. It’s not tanning with your skin, and you decide you want to get it off or this lady with the bags under her eyes. She doesn’t like it anymore. It doesn’t match. Like she sent a photo. It does not match her skin.

David Santiago (43:50)
Okay.

Billy DeCola (44:18)
You can tell.

David Santiago (44:18)
So,

so, so this is like if you’re just using a solid brown, right? Like I’m going to give you an SMP example now. So let’s say I have a ginger, right? And I got a ginger. I fill my cab pretty much all the way with whatever color I’m going to use. I’m going to go with the medium.

Billy DeCola (44:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Hold that thought here. Let me.

David Santiago (44:40)
Got to get your client ready or you’re to grab some.

Billy DeCola (44:46)
can see here in this I don’t know if that thing’s gonna focus on here

David Santiago (44:53)
Put your hand behind it and then hold it. It’s like a.

Billy DeCola (44:55)
See how that pigment is not settled?

Like there’s the red underneath, but then there’s the dark on top. Like there’s two tones in there.

David Santiago (45:02)
Yeah.

Billy DeCola (45:08)
like flesh tones like this you know like that all of this has there’s white in there that’s what do you think is making that that color it’s so any these pigments that are mixed

They have white in it.

David Santiago (45:27)
light. And this is, we’re now talking about your SMP pigment with solid ink and I’m using the light bottle. And I drop four drops of the brown modifier that you have on there. And I botched the client and he wants to get laser now.

Billy DeCola (45:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

David Santiago (45:49)
With that consistency, the brown doesn’t really have the effect as to what you’re talking, right? Because you’re talking about using it solid.

Billy DeCola (45:54)
That brown is fine.

Yeah, that brown is fine. When you’re using a pigment that has a lot of white in it, where it’s, if it was like a light brown, then you’re in trouble. Or if there’s yellow.

David Santiago (46:05)
Right, because the lighter

is white, right? The white is what’s making it that light. Okay. Got

Billy DeCola (46:10)
It’s an opaque. So there’s two

ways to lighten a pigment. You can have that solid pigment and mix it with water and you get a diluted pigment. That’s how we do the SMP. You’re not mixing black with white to lighten it up. That would be an opaque gray. You’re making a gray that’s called a wash. So it’s a wash because you’re using the black pigment and you’re mixing it with water. So there’s two ways to lighten the pigments. ⁓ These flesh tone pigments, they’re all using white pigment to lighten that pigment up.

So all of that flesh tone is not coming out. So all of these permanent makeup artists who are doing scar camouflage and all that kind of stuff, they’re doing it. looks, it might look great in the little Instagram photo that they took, but years down the road, if that client decides they want to reverse that treatment or get rid of that pigment, it’s not coming out. It’s not coming out. Yeah.

David Santiago (47:01)
Interesting. So

now the brown that we use with solid ink, you saying that has the, I guess the amount of white in it is very little or is that mixed with water?

Billy DeCola (47:08)
Mm-hmm.

It is, there might be a very little bit of it in there, but not enough to make it so it can’t be removed. There’s more red and yellow in there. Yeah.

David Santiago (47:25)
Got you, I understand. Got it.

And now red, excuse me, reds and yellows is not difficult to remove.

Billy DeCola (47:33)
Some most yellow I would say red is easy. No problem at all on most skin tones like anybody lighter than like East Indian or African anything lighter than that and some Asian is tough to remove the red but It comes out like the laser can remove that easily The yellow is the one that we have a difficult time with yellow is about 50 50

David Santiago (47:57)
Gotcha.

Billy DeCola (48:00)
let’s wrap this one up. It was a pleasure chatting with you and…

David Santiago (48:00)
yeah for sure.

Likewise, my brother,

good seeing you, good talking, happy new years, and we’ll talk soon, brother.

Billy DeCola (48:07)
Yeah, for you too. All right, man, take care.