A new tattooing technique is helping people who have lost their hair from cancer treatments, injuries, or alopecia get the appearance of full, natural eyebrows — without makeup.
Many people might be scared off by the idea of getting a tattoo on their face, with visions of colored-in brows that look as though a child drew them on with a sharpie. But this technique — which has many names, include 3D hair strokes, cosmetic tattooing, pigment embroidery, and microblading — deposits ink on the top layer of your skin with tiny cuts, making it semipermanent.
In other words, if you don’t love your brows, they’ll fade after a year.
The entire procedure takes between an hour and two hours to complete, and feels like having your eyebrows tweezed. The brow artist will apply a numbing cream to the skin to minimize the pain and create a brow template, either with makeup or a sharpie, so they get the ideal look.
Then they’ll go to work, making tiny cuts in the skin and depositing ink in order to tattoo each individual hair. The entire process is done by hand with an instrument that sort of looks like a pen. Here’s Praneet Kaur, the founder of Threaded Beauty, at work on a patient, as seen on her Instagram:
After the first appointment, clients are told not to get their brows wet for a week, avoid exercise, and to apply an ointment that will help with any itching as the skin heals. They’re also encouraged to wear sunscreen since the sun is the biggest cause of fading eyebrow tattoos.
The week-long recovery period is a marked difference from procedures like eyebrow transplants, which can take weeks to heal and have varied results.
The cost for this tattooing procedure ranges by salon, but typically costs anywhere from $400 to $650 or as much as $950 depending on the technician you see, plus more for the follow-up appointments. Clients are asked to come back for a touch up after a month and again after eight or nine months to help with any fading that comes with sun damage, according to Us Weekly.
And while the idea of tattooed eyebrows is not for everyone, it can be a night-and-day difference for people who are unable to achieve their desired brow shape naturally.
"My lovely client came in February 22 in NYC and said she had lost her hair due to her undergoing treatments [for cancer],” Threaded Beauty founder Kaur told Us Weekly. "She was so happy. She had her mom with her and they kept looking in the mirror, not being able to understand how realistic the hair strokes looked.”
There are lots of examples of before-and-after tattoos on Instagram from different salons — Us Weekly recommends searching your city and the word brows, i.e. #nycbrows, to find a location near you — and the before-and-after pictures are pretty incredible.
So if this sounds like the procedure for youl save up and you won’t need to worry about eyebrows pencils or powders for a full year.
