Permanent Makeup: Enhancing Beauty and Addressing Challenges

Immediate Results

Permanent makeup enhances the features of the face by defining eyebrows, eyes, and lips using colors. The results can mimic topically applied cosmetics or can be quite subtle, depending on the design, color value, and amount of pigment used. Initially, the results of permanent makeup may appear darker. This is due to the color remaining in the outermost epidermal layers of the skin at the start. The color softens within a few days during the healing process as the upper layers of the epidermis slough off and are replaced by new epidermal cells.

Long-term Results

The best possible color results can last for many years but may begin to fade over time. The duration depends on the individual. While the permanent makeup pigment remains in the dermis, its appearance may be influenced by several factors, including environmental, procedural, and individual factors. Sun exposure can fade the color. The amount and color of pigment deposited at the dermal level can affect how long the permanent makeup maintains its optimal appearance. Very natural-looking applications are likely to require a touch-up before more dramatic ones for this reason. Factors such as lifestyle, which might involve regular sun exposure like gardening or swimming, and skin tones, also affect how the color changes over time.

Imperfections

Permanent makeup is generally a welcome enhancement for most recipients. However, there are cases of undesired results. The four most common complaints are "too dark," "wrong color," "uneven," and "too big." A skilled, experienced permanent makeup professional can usually adjust the color and evenness of permanent makeup results in most cases. A design that is too large presents a more serious challenge. Costly pigment lightening techniques and/or removal may be the only solutions.

However, before embarking on the aforementioned removal or correction procedures, it should also be noted that one still has the option of applying conventional makeup to correct any imperfections or to further enhance the overall effect.

Permanent Makeup History

Permanent makeup is a cosmetic technique that employs tattoos (permanent pigmentation of the dermis) as a means of producing designs that resemble makeup, such as eyelining and other permanent enhancing colors to the skin of the face, lips, and eyelids. It is also used to create artificial eyebrows, particularly for people who have lost them due to old age, disease (such as alopecia totalis), chemotherapy, or genetic disturbances, and to disguise scars and white spots in the skin such as in vitiligo. Additionally, it is used to restore or enhance the breast's areola after breast surgery.

Permanent makeup dates back at least to the early 20th century, though its practices were often concealed in its early days. George Burchett, a major developer of the technique when it became fashionable in the 1930s, described in his memoirs how beauty salons tattooed many women without their knowledge, offering it as a "complexion treatment ... of injecting vegetable dyes under the top layer of the skin."

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