Cathy Montie is the owner of Absolute Tattoo, Piercing, Permanent Cosmetic and Henna in San Diego, California. “Absolute” is the eighth body art business she has opened in her 30-year career in the field of body art.
During her long career, Ms. Montie has witnessed many changes in body art safety practices. In 1975 when she first started in the tattooing business with her husband Gill, she mixed pigments in her kitchen, and helped her artist husband, in making needles that were wrapped with thread to help dispense the ink. Her first sterilizer was a steam (no pressure) sterilizer that she inherited from her grandfather when he retired from his medical practice.
As her knowledge of the dangers of bloodborne diseases increased, she became concerned with unsafe practices in the body art industry, and decided to become more knowledgeable and active in safety practices for the cosmetics and body art industries.
She received her Cosmetic License in the State of California, in 1994, and has held a license to perform tattooing in Hawaii since 1996.
Since 1997, she has been an active body art industry representative to the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health, and has participated in several Industry Outreach activities.
Ms. Montie is a member of the National Tattoo Association, the Society of Permanent Cosmetics Professionals, and is one of the founding members of the California Alliance for the Promotion of Safe Body Art (CAPSBA), where she is the current President.
In 2003, Ms. Montie became an OSHA Authorized Community Outreach Instructor in preparation for offering Bloodborne Pathogen training to the body art practitioner community as a CAPSBA Trainer. She is also a Society of Permanent Cosmetics Professionals Trainer Member.
Ms. Montie co-chaired the first “Creating a Safe and Compliant Body Art Business” seminar that was sponsored by CAPSBA, the Southwest Chapter of CEHA and the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health, and is actively working on the organization of the next CAPSBA Body Art Conference to be held in San Diego next November.
Most recently, Ms. Montie was a pre-conference seminar trainer in the “Creating a Safe and Compliant Body Art Business” at the 2005 California Environmental Health Association Annual Educational Symposium.
