Think “Permanent Makeup” Is Freaky? Think Again.
Posted by: Leonora Epstein
Filed in:
style
12:50PM, Wednesday November 11th 2009
A few years ago, permanent makeup—tattooing on rouged lips or inking on eyebrows, for example—may have been laughed off as one of those crazy beauty fads that a handful of rich, desperate woman bought into. For most, the thought of eyeliner or lipliner tattoos probably conjures images of aged drag queen beauty. Shudder.
Apparently, however, there have been both some gross misunderstandings about the field, as well as advances. MyFashionLife talked with Sarah Jagger, a semi-permanent makeup artist to stars, whose approach to the procedure sounds much more rational, and quite honestly, awesome in principle. Yes, Jagger uses a needle and describes her work as “similar to tattooing,” but she doesn’t poke your skin with drastic ink.
Explains Jagger on her website, the substance used isn’t as harsh and fades over time: “Hypoallergenic mineral pigments are implanted into the shallow dermal layers of the skin. This means that the results only last around twelve months. Shades are blended to compliment every individual’s coloring and every effort is made to create natural looking results.”
And what about human error? Lord knows each time we apply liquid eyeliner it ends up all over the place. She explains to MyFashionLife, “There is some very good equipment available now. Most semi-permanent makeup artists have swapped their hand held, manual tattoo pens for high- tech digital systems that ensure a safer way of working with more predictable results.”
You have to admit, the idea of going to the gym and looking done-up is pretty appealing. As for the price ... there are no real specifics which, sigh, indicates that getting inked (or pigmented, or whatever), is probably expensive. The only clue on Jagger’s site: “Prices are comparable to wrinkle injections and dermal fillers such as Botox and Restylane.” That’s pretty vague considering Botox shots can vary from $250 to $500 per injection, and that the process is ongoing, so people often spend much more than that.
Thoughts? [MyFashionLife.com]
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bumbler
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 12:52 pm: [report]
Aside from the price and issues of having it turn out bad and living with it for 12 months, the thought of having needles that close to my eyes is giving me the heebie jeebies.
PinkRanger
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 12:56 pm: [report]
Permanent makeup can be very useful. One of my clients that I do eyelash and eyebrow tinting on is a former cosmetologist who just adores makeup! But for the last ten years she has had m.s. and can’t steady her hand enough for eyeliner, so her husband paid for her to have permanent eyeliner *also why she comes to me for tinting*. It looks wonderful, and it gives her back a part of her past that she thought she could never have again. That little inkling of normalcy and getting back to things she enjoyed before her condition has definitely changed her outlook in some ways.
DancerNinja
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 12:59 pm: [report]
As a ginger who has to brush on eye brows everyday, the thought of having only semi-permanent eyebrows put on sounds pretty appealing. I put them on the same way everyday anyway.
PinkRanger
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 01:04 pm: [report]
@dancerninja: you should look into tinting. It only lasts around 4-6 weeks, but it looks a bit more natural than the tattooed brows. You could even get it for dirt cheap if there is a beauty school in your area, and it’s a simple enough procedure that you don’t have to worry about students messing it up!
lostrun
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 01:58 pm: [report]
I worked w/ a girl who did have her eyebrows tattooed on. It looked bad b/c it looked like she had shaved her eyebrow, and drawn them in. No matter how good the tattoo is, it will always look drawn in, and that is not a good look.
Anniushka
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 03:02 pm: [report]
My great-aunt has permanent inked-on eyebrows. She’s always had very thin and fair eyebrows, so she always darkened them by hand, but then her hands got too shaky so she went with a tattoo. I’m not sure if it looks better than having no visible eyebrows at all…
secretstevie
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 06:08 pm: [report]
@lostrun, @anniuska the process described in the article above produces very different results than tattooing on eyebrows. i’ve seen women with the newer process and it looks beautiful. the ones i’ve seen haven’t been a ‘solid’ tattoo, more like light lines to just fill in sparse areas. the only way you’d be able to tell it is ‘fake’ is if she shaved off all of her eyebrow hair.
meredith806
wrote on November 12 2009 @ 06:59 pm: [report]
the only thing I would ever even consider doing this with would be my lips. Needles near my eye freaks me the hell out. Plus I’m way to fair to look like I have eyeliner on all the time. However never having to redo my lip color..sweet haha