So, after about 3 years of wanting and 1 failed attempt (made appointment with a woman who's grandfather got sick right before my appointment thus causing her to cancel and me to lose $350 in airfare), I finally got my eyebrows tattooed on.
I've been wanting permanent makeup (brows only) for a while now because I've always been aware of how much a well groomed brow can do for a face. I used to do my friend's eyebrows and get compliments on mine until recently (3 years ago) when I realized that something just wasn't right. My brows were now two different shapes. one higher than the other. One curved, the other arched. One bushy, one not as much. But, both had bald patches... which meant for maximum effectiveness, I had to ALWAYS draw something in my brows... a big pain in the ass. So, that's when I got the idea of getting permanent eye brows. What took so long is my aversion to the LOOK of tattooed eyebrows. You can do a google search and see a million pictures and only about 0.05% look acceptable to me.
I initially found permanent makeup by Mary and THAT is what convinced me that i could actually get eyebrows tattooed on.my.face (!) But then that whole situation above happened and my plans with her fell through. I'm so intent on having 'hair stroke' brows & ones I'm pleased with that I vowed to wait until I got around to flying down to Tampa to get them done before I considered seeing anyone else. But still I would do searches wherever i was in the country (in advance) to see if someone nearby had a similar track record. No luck for me.
Then, by chance I was walking downtown and saw a permanent makeup poster in a spa window (they were closed). It was SofTap and the results were not bad at all. I was surprised, intrigued and determined to find out more. I went home, did research (sofTap is not tattooed on, it's hand tapped in), and made my appointment (here is the place I got these & all touchups done at).
So, I went there and had an hour long pre-procedure question/answer/planning session. (It doesn't normally take that long, I just had a lot of concerns and specifics about how I wanted my eyebrows). The technician politely provided and took her time planning out the shape of my new brow. WE consulted TOGETHER 100% of the way about the shape before she started putting anything permanent on my skin. The procedure itself felt like hard scraping with the end of an unfolded paperclip. I got there a little after 10 and left a little after 1230 (so the permanent brows was probably around 1.5 hours).
After the fact:
OMG these babies are dark! I know to expect them to looked stamped on for about a week... I'm hoping they fade to color reaaaall quick. I have to be at work in 6 days :( That said, I can already see drastic improvement in the shape. Down point: my 'problem brow', the one she has to draw into place because it has a completely different arch & location from the other is too thick... now it's bigger than the 'right' eyebrow... she said on my follow up, she can take off some if I want to - I guess with this method, you can basically 'erase' (maybe because the needle doesn't go in as far as with a tattoo gun). Second problem, I realized when studying my new brows is that all i really wanted was 'hair stroke' brows - and that 'hair' to be placed in a location that made it look like I have two matching brows. Instead, I look like I have two tattooed brows :( Luckily this method doesn't last as long as 'regular' eyebrow tattoos. If i don't like how these turn out, I'll fly my behind down to Mary. But, this woman said she can add 'hairstrokes' if I'd like to at my touchup appointment. By the way, there is a third problem too - waaay worse than the other two. She asked which brow shape I like better and wanted the other to look like, and I told her THE WRONG ONE (!!!) I didn't realize this until I was in the car and thinking about how I looked in the mirror and the one that I always like in pictures is opposite in real life. What a dummy! Oh well, that's one I can't worry about now, besides the other one isn't so bad, just a bit more round than angular & arched.
Either way, knowing that one brow was too thick, I did what I always do when I need to erase something semi-permanent on my face... I reached for a TCA peel. So, I used a really thin brush to paint on a few layers of my 30% TCA peel on the parts of the tattoo that I knew would need to come off. (That day & the next day). Now, I'll leave them alone, continue to let them heal as 'prescribed' by the Perm MU technician.
UPDATE: Here they are, 7 months after the first try. I've had 2 touchups (to perfect the shape). I still love them. The color has lightened up a lot. Here, I've added closeups so you can see how the brows look in the area where I don't have any 'real' hair to cover it up. I could also get individual hairstrokes (in a near black color, like my real hairs), if I choose.
Please disregard the unruly strays, I just wanted to show you what they look like in REAL life. Also, in case you're wondering the mascara in the more recent pictures is Dior ICONIC (my HG Mascara).
I really like how they look. In my opinion, they look polished, without looking fake. I will prob get one more touchup on my left brow, to fix the shape on top & add some individual 'hairs' in my bald spot. If I do, I'll post pictures. Please let me know if you have any questions.
I've been wanting permanent makeup (brows only) for a while now because I've always been aware of how much a well groomed brow can do for a face. I used to do my friend's eyebrows and get compliments on mine until recently (3 years ago) when I realized that something just wasn't right. My brows were now two different shapes. one higher than the other. One curved, the other arched. One bushy, one not as much. But, both had bald patches... which meant for maximum effectiveness, I had to ALWAYS draw something in my brows... a big pain in the ass. So, that's when I got the idea of getting permanent eye brows. What took so long is my aversion to the LOOK of tattooed eyebrows. You can do a google search and see a million pictures and only about 0.05% look acceptable to me.
I initially found permanent makeup by Mary and THAT is what convinced me that i could actually get eyebrows tattooed on.my.face (!) But then that whole situation above happened and my plans with her fell through. I'm so intent on having 'hair stroke' brows & ones I'm pleased with that I vowed to wait until I got around to flying down to Tampa to get them done before I considered seeing anyone else. But still I would do searches wherever i was in the country (in advance) to see if someone nearby had a similar track record. No luck for me.
Then, by chance I was walking downtown and saw a permanent makeup poster in a spa window (they were closed). It was SofTap and the results were not bad at all. I was surprised, intrigued and determined to find out more. I went home, did research (sofTap is not tattooed on, it's hand tapped in), and made my appointment (here is the place I got these & all touchups done at).
So, I went there and had an hour long pre-procedure question/answer/planning session. (It doesn't normally take that long, I just had a lot of concerns and specifics about how I wanted my eyebrows). The technician politely provided and took her time planning out the shape of my new brow. WE consulted TOGETHER 100% of the way about the shape before she started putting anything permanent on my skin. The procedure itself felt like hard scraping with the end of an unfolded paperclip. I got there a little after 10 and left a little after 1230 (so the permanent brows was probably around 1.5 hours).
After the fact:
OMG these babies are dark! I know to expect them to looked stamped on for about a week... I'm hoping they fade to color reaaaall quick. I have to be at work in 6 days :( That said, I can already see drastic improvement in the shape. Down point: my 'problem brow', the one she has to draw into place because it has a completely different arch & location from the other is too thick... now it's bigger than the 'right' eyebrow... she said on my follow up, she can take off some if I want to - I guess with this method, you can basically 'erase' (maybe because the needle doesn't go in as far as with a tattoo gun). Second problem, I realized when studying my new brows is that all i really wanted was 'hair stroke' brows - and that 'hair' to be placed in a location that made it look like I have two matching brows. Instead, I look like I have two tattooed brows :( Luckily this method doesn't last as long as 'regular' eyebrow tattoos. If i don't like how these turn out, I'll fly my behind down to Mary. But, this woman said she can add 'hairstrokes' if I'd like to at my touchup appointment. By the way, there is a third problem too - waaay worse than the other two. She asked which brow shape I like better and wanted the other to look like, and I told her THE WRONG ONE (!!!) I didn't realize this until I was in the car and thinking about how I looked in the mirror and the one that I always like in pictures is opposite in real life. What a dummy! Oh well, that's one I can't worry about now, besides the other one isn't so bad, just a bit more round than angular & arched.
Either way, knowing that one brow was too thick, I did what I always do when I need to erase something semi-permanent on my face... I reached for a TCA peel. So, I used a really thin brush to paint on a few layers of my 30% TCA peel on the parts of the tattoo that I knew would need to come off. (That day & the next day). Now, I'll leave them alone, continue to let them heal as 'prescribed' by the Perm MU technician.
UPDATE: Here they are, 7 months after the first try. I've had 2 touchups (to perfect the shape). I still love them. The color has lightened up a lot. Here, I've added closeups so you can see how the brows look in the area where I don't have any 'real' hair to cover it up. I could also get individual hairstrokes (in a near black color, like my real hairs), if I choose.
Please disregard the unruly strays, I just wanted to show you what they look like in REAL life. Also, in case you're wondering the mascara in the more recent pictures is Dior ICONIC (my HG Mascara).
I really like how they look. In my opinion, they look polished, without looking fake. I will prob get one more touchup on my left brow, to fix the shape on top & add some individual 'hairs' in my bald spot. If I do, I'll post pictures. Please let me know if you have any questions.
