I had been considering permanent make up for about a year before finally going ahead with it last week. Strictly speaking, there was nothing much wrong with my eyebrows; they had a good natural arch and looked nicely curved when plucked. But while my hair, eyes and eyelashes are a dark brown, my eyebrows have always been a fairer shade of light brown that I would always darken with eyebrow pencil, preferring the look that stronger eyebrows gave my face. Unfortunately I don't have either the time or the skill to do this well, and added to this the two small matching scars I have at either end of my eyebrows (one from falling off a climbing frame as a small child, the other from doing exactly the same a decade later) that truncate the hairline unnaturally and I decided it was time I sorted it out once and for all.
At A Glance Author Ribibe Contact Ribibe@bme.anon IAM Ribibe When A week ago Artist Amie Conte Location London, UK I started researching permanent make up and practitioners near me online and discovered that while obtaining perfect eyebrows was a simple process, it was also an expensive one – top make up artists charged around £500 to treat eyebrows and I neither had that kind of money or was willing to go to someone cheaper and less reputable. I don't skimp on paying cash for good quality tattoo work on my body, so wasn't going to do the same here especially as bad quality work would be on my face for all to see and impossible to cover up if it was poor. I resigned myself to having to save a goodly while for the work when in the course of talking to other people about their experiences I was directed to the website of Amie Conte who came highly recommended and what's more, was prepared to offer a discount in exchange for allowing before and after pictures of your procedure to be used in her portfolio. I called her and after a brief discussion about my requirements and her methods made an appointment to visit her in a fortnight.
Having shaped my eyebrows the night before to exactly the shape I wanted her to follow, I arrived at her salon with the same list of questions and requirements that I would take along to any new tattooist I was considering getting work from. Happily most of them were redundant; her work space was cleaner and better equipped than a lots of the tattoo studios I have visited and after looking through her portfolio and a more in depth discussion of what it is I wanted (a darker eyebrow shade, and lengthening slightly to cover the scars at the end) I was happy to go ahead with it. She laid out her equipment in front of me, each new piece new or from an autoclaved pouch, explaining exactly how the process worked. The object she used to insert the pigment into the skin was almost exactly like a tattoo gun in the way it worked (a electric-powered vibrating group of three fine needles) but packaged in a plastic, disposable 'pen' like outer casing. She laid out the small bottles of pigments in various shades of brown and after looking at my hair and eyes in natural light mixed up samples of six shades of brown from a dark black-brown to a rich chocolately colour. We both decided on darker shade that matched my hair perfectly.
Amie explained that most practitioners try to distance what they do from actual tattooing, preferring to call it 'micropigmentation' or 'permanent make up' or at a push 'cosmetic' tattooing, perhaps to avoid scaring away customers that would never consider themselves people to get tattooed. Nonetheless, while permanent make up such as this does not penetrate the skin as deeply as tattooing and is designed not to last as long as normal tattooing (two to four years), a tattoo is most certainly is. Micropigmentation will fade with time (and exposure to UV light, creams with Retin-A in them and abrasive cosmetic treatments such as microdermabraison ) – however it cannot be guaranteed that all pigment will be lost from the skin after a certain amount of time and so even if it is billed – as it often is – as 'semi-permanent make up', for that reason it should always be considered a potentially permanent modification. Just like traditional tattooing, do not go ahead with it unless you are sure you want to live with the results.
She asked me if I'd like some local anaesthetic cream to numb the area as the soft parts around the eye could be quite sensitive. I handle tattoo pain fairly well but didn't want to flinch and mess up a line in such on obvious area so I said yes and some Emla was applied and after 30 minutes, wiped off and I hopped up on the reclining couch to begin. Changing gloves once again she dipped the 'pen' into the mixed pigment and applied it to my eyebrow. Despite the Emla I felt a little sensation, but it certainly wasn't pain – at the worst it was like a safety pin being dragged lightly across my skin and mostly it was just a strange buzzing against my brow bone. She worked quickly, and in two or three minutes the first eyebrow had been done. Wiping an extra layer of pigment over the skin with a cotton bud to sink into the incisions in the skin, she started on the other eyebrow. Within ten minutes both eyebrows had been done and I relaxed for a few minutes until the whole thing was repeated again. All in all my eyebrows were gone over three times plus a final touch up once I had seen for myself in natural light.
Once it was done she explained that they would seem very dark at first, but that the area would probably scab over and once the scabs flaked away I would be left with the colour that was intended which would be much lighter. The cost of a top up should they be too light for my liking or any bits have been missed was included in the price. They certainly were very black at first and looked as though they'd been drawn on with a thick dark crayon – not natural at all, and despite her telling me that this wasn't the final version I still had to quell a little panic at the thought of being left with these huge scary opera singer brows. Aftercare was exactly the same as for any other tattoo – wash gently in the shower, apply your emollient of choice (I love Benpanthen) and absolutely do not pick at it!
My eyebrows only scabbed very lightly, however, and after four or five days they began to come away to reveal the final colour and shape underneath which was perfect. She'd chosen the shade beautifully and applied the pigment with a very light, feathery touch, so even close up you wouldn't be able to tell that the colour wasn't 'natural'. They frame and add definition to my face in a way that I'd always been trying to achieve with the eyebrow pencil but never managed t, and I've had numerous comments in the past few days telling me I'm looking good but not being able to put their finger on why – the very definition of well applied make up, I think!