Poor Retention With Hairstroke Brows
I've been wanting to write this blog post for a good 6 months now.
I truly think it is very important to educate my past and future clients about cosmetic tattooing and also how their skin, aftercare and my technique can affect the final result.
In order to have EXTREMELY good results with hairstroke brows, you would need:
Very good skin: normal or normal to dry, small pores, no scar tissue, no previous permanent makeup, no medications/antibiotics
Very good aftercare: products that are going to maximize retention and also respecting each and every instruction given after the treatment
Very good technician: great color choices, correct depth, consistent work.
It takes only one thing to go bad and the healed result might not have enough retention of color.
*Please note all of the above pictures were taken less than 7 days after the treatment. The healed result can be seen only 4-6 weeks after the treatment.
All of the above pictures were sent by my clients: yep! you got it.. all of those beautiful pictures of strokes I'm posting DO NOT always heal that beautiful.
Now let me get this straight. What usually happens and what I expect is for
5% of the clients
I work on to send me such pictures. That means if I worked these past 2 weeks on 20 new clients, one of them will probably send me a picture similar to what you see on the top, worrying about what's going to happen to their brows.
There are various reasons why the retention might be poor and I'll go over some of them in the following list.
The technician implanted the pigment too shallow - aka Alexandra was too light-handed. Does it happen? Of course! It is very rare, but it had to be mentioned. The difficulty I face is with very fair women that have dark colored brow hair. In order for me to achieve natural strokes that are quite dark (without a hint of grey or blue), I HAVE to be light-handed. Depending on the thickness of the epidermis however, if most of the pigment was in the first layer of the skin, it'll all peel off during the healing process. That being said, I'd much rather take the risk of a peeled-off tattoo, rather than give my client beautiful strokes with a bad ashy cast because the pigment went too deep.
Something that I've discovered over the years is that more than 50% of pmu technicians in the US and Europe implant the pigment too deep. Strokes that are literally carved into the skin, lots of trauma in the brow area, lots of bleeding which is not normal during such a superficial procedure.
Skin that is not that good for hairstrokes. I now send an email to all my clients before booking an appointment. The email clearly states that oily skin and someone with large pores might heal very powdered looking and have less retention. Scars act almost like "dead skin" for the ink and often times do not hold pigment. If you've had your brows done in the past and the technician was very heavy handed, now your skin is scarred, the strokes will heal spotty and you'll be upset with me instead of being upset with the previous technician.
Scarred skin is uneven skin. If I work consistently ALL over the brow, but the skin is not of the same quality, of course the healed result will heal different in various spots. I do adjust my technique by doing more passes over scars and trying to push in a bit more pigment, knowing that it'll lose more color than the rest of the skin, but.. still, we never know.
Clients that pick at their tattoo. It is normal for the top layer to flake off, but if you pick at it, you will rip off deeper layers of pigment with it. Let it heal by itself!
Sitting in humidity/working out/ sweating after the treatment. All of these during the first days after the treatment are going to make the strokes spread and your skin will refuse some of those pigment molecules. I have clients that send me 3 days later pictures from their steamy bathroom with their brows exfoliating off.. clients that I follow on Instagram that go straight to the beach after getting their brows done. So nope, I will not always blame myself for the 5% that comes back with poor retention
Sensitive skin.
This client had very thin, sensitive skin along the tail of the brow, which caused it to flake quicker and lose more color. (please note flaking happened in the front as well, but only after this picture was sent.) That's why all treatments require a follow-up. If I feel like the skin is becoming very red and flared up, I can add more color on your touch-up and don't feel pressured and end up overworking the skin on the initial procedure.
Clients using other aftercare products. I have people who start using Neosporin on their freshly done brows: Antibiotic Ointments can pull out pigment instead of helping it remain inside the skin.
Antibiotics. There are not many studies made about antibiotics affecting the retention of tattoos, but lots of times our immune system becomes very active from them which can break down the freshly implanted pigment
..and lots of other reasons. Permanent makeup is both science and art.
What to expect right after you've had your brows done:
Day 1:
brows have a white rim around them from the numbing cream. They appear slightly thicker than we drew them and the color looks warmer due to the redness caused in the skin.
Day 2-4
:
brows are darker than when you've left the salon, and 2 shades darker than they're actually going to heal. Color still looks a tad reddish with most clients, even though there might not have been any red in the color.
Day 6-10:
most brows that go through healing normally should not start flaking sooner than day 6. Some clients can't even see the flaking, while some exfoliate off a bit more. Brows look very light.
Day 28-40:
Depending on the client this is the time when you'll actually start seeing the final result. People that heal quickly and young clients can see their final color by the 4-5 week mark, while adult women and people that heal slower will have to wait until week 6-7 to see the color fully bloomed back.
As months go by the strokes become lighter and softer. Depending on the skin/age of the client and quantity of pigment implanted, the brows will last 1-3 years until they need a color boost. Color boosts are not recommended sooner than minimum a year after the follow-up appointment. Not all clients need a follow-up. Some clients might need even 2. The only thing that can help them from fading is constant use of sunscreen and cutting down on products like retinol. Vitamin C, glycolic acid and others in the brow area.
We tend to work a tad bit more superficially than body artists and in order to achieve a very natural, feathered result, I cannot pack in as much pigment as a body artist.
All I need you is to trust me. To trust me when in case I think that your skin might not be good for this technique.. or to trust me when I say that after the touch-up you'll have better retention.
I will surely do my best on my part. That being said I am not perfect. I have given numerous free touch-ups in my career when I felt that the fault was on my side.. that I was way too light-handed.
..but when you're told from the very beginning that your scar might not take pigment, or that the brows might not heal very crisp due to the severely oily skin you have and you're still upset with me, well that I don't understand.
Please note ALL technicians have clients with poor retention: some more, some less.. I just don't want my clients to expect perfection on my side, and I truly want them to know everything there is to know about this treatment before they decide to have it done.
Wish everyone a very happy 4th of July!
-Alexandra