I got microblading done in 2016 when the craze was really popping off. I love jumping on every single beauty trend. I got eyelash extensions when they first started in like 2010. I had eyebrow hairs but there were some sparse spots. Microblading was kind of the only option at the time. There were no powder brows or lamination. Plus, the block brow was really in and I loved the idea of having brows I could just wake up to.
The artist I went to told me the ink went into shallow layers of the skin, so it would fade naturally. I could come in for touch-ups when that would happen or just let them fade away and go back to my natural state.
I’m Asian and envisioned that old Chinese grandma with just a straight green line through her eyebrows and the permanent red lip liner. I expressed my concern and was told the pigment had changed completely as well as the technique, so I wouldn’t be experiencing that and it would be a lot less permanent. It was very positive, like “This is great! It’ll look like natural hair strokes.”
I literally lacerated my Achilles tendon, and microblading is still one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt in my entire life. It almost feels like they’re slicing into your skull
I went in and they gave me a lidocaine numbing cream. It was a low percentage because they’re not nurses or doctors, so they can’t get the good stuff [laughs]. I was told, “It’s going to numb you and it’s going to be fine.” I have a lot of piercings. I have tattoos. I was a dancer, so I’ve endured physical pain. I literally lacerated my Achilles tendon, and microblading with that numbing cream is still one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt in my entire life. It’s different for everyone, but it’s a very sensitive area. It almost feels like they’re slicing into your skull.
The healing process takes about two to four weeks, about the same as a regular tattoo. And what you experience is the tattoo getting extremely dark at first. It’s kind of scary because you’re walking around with these really dark brows, but then it starts to flake and peel off. Once you’re done that initial healing phase, you go back in for what they call a ‘touch-up’ and that’s included in the price of everything (around $550). The touch-up is basically the same thing all over again. The same pain and the same healing process.
Around the year-and-a-half mark, my friend asked if I’d put red eyeshadow in my brows and I was like, “What do you mean?” I looked in the mirror and noticed the ink had blown out, meaning that the hair-like strokes had all blurred into each other. There’s different pigments that go into making the colour brown like red, blue and yellow, and the dominant colour will be your undertone. Mine happened to be red, and I guess the blue and the yellow had faded enough that the red was really prominent. I didn’t know this would happen because I thought it was just semi-permanent and that the strokes were just going to fade.
I decided to go get a touch-up, which is what they tell you to do every two years. It basically means the whole process all over again. I went to a different artist this time because the first time, I wanted it to look a bit fuller, but the woman said, “You’re not going to like it.” Even in the touch-up phase, when you can do little revisions to the shape, she still didn’t want to go with the thicker look I requested. But the second artist’s style was closer to what I was after. I definitely recommend checking the artist’s portfolio and making sure you like their style of brow. Everybody has a shape that they prefer.
She ended up using more green to neutralize the red. That meant it’d be darker though, because you’re adding more pigment to the skin. So my brows were darker, but you could see the strokes again and the red was colour-corrected.
That was good for about another year and a half, but by the time the strokes started to fade, the red undertone came out again. My mom was like, “Your eyebrows look terrible!”
I sent pictures to the place I’d gone to and they suggested doing another microblading session to neutralize the colour. But when I asked if the blow out could be corrected once the stokes would fade, they said, “No, you’re going to have to come in to neutralize it over and over again.” That didn’t make sense to me because it felt like it was just delaying and exacerbating the issue instead of addressing it.
I did insane rabbit-hole Google searches looking for solutions. One option I found, which from what I read is a bit risky, was dermatologists using an extremely strong AHA peel to burn off a layer of your skin, but that sounded very traumatic to me.
Laser tattoo removal seemed like the best way to go. Also, right now, the trend is more of a sparse, fluffy brow where you can see the skin between the hairs, so I wanted more of that look, which isn’t possible when you have a very solid level of pigment underneath your brows.
I didn’t know anything about laser tattoo removal when I first got microblading. That definitely would have played into my consideration of jumping on the trend. It’s about $250 a session and I’ll need between four and six. You also have to wait two months between the sessions because the laser blasts the pigment into little particles and then your lymphatic system has to drain them away. If you add it all up, it gets to be more than double the amount of the microblading, and if you end up having to do six sessions, that’s a full year.
It’s also super painful—even more so than the microblading. I’ve had laser hair removal, and that feels like an elastic band snapping against your skin, but this laser is constant and your skin continues to sting for hours after the procedure.
Afterward, it looks like a scab, and you have bruising around the entire area because it gets extremely inflamed. It also burns off your eyebrow hairs a little, which scared the daylights out of me. The last thing I wanted was to lose the remaining hair that I have. It’ll also bleach your eyebrows and make them super brittle to the point where if you just touch them, the hairs will break off.
The first time I did it, I was not feeling very sunny because, you know, it’s your face! I would wake up to these jigsaw, victim from the Saw franchise brows that looked like someone had taken a scalpel and cut them out. Plus, I was dealing with acne and it was the beginning of lockdown. As much as we aim for that inner self-confidence, it still affects you. But I think that now that I’ve done one session and know that my hairs will grow back and my skin will heal, I’m feeling better about it. You kind of have to accept it for what it is because you can’t go back and change things, but it’s frustrating.
I was not feeling very sunny because, you know, it’s your face! I would wake up to these jigsaw, victim from the Saw franchise brows that looked like someone had taken a scalpel and cut them out
I’m trying to prepare myself for not the most optimal results so I don’t get disappointed. I have ethnic skin, so I have a greater chance of developing keloids. I’m doing my best with my aftercare, applying Polysporin and staying cautiously optimistic.
At this point—and I’m so sorry to all the cosmetic tattoo artists because I know everybody’s struggling with COVID at the moment—but my opinion of microblading is that it’s a very life-changing procedure that can help a lot of people who suffer from alopecia or have gone through chemotherapy and have lost their hair. But it’s a very invasive, traumatic and painful procedure that’s a lot more permanent than seemed to be advertised at the time I did it. If you have eyebrow hair, there’s so much that you can do before microblading. I think not a lot of people know about the risk involved or what removal would look like. That’s why I wanted to share my story, not to tell people not to get it done, but just to make sure everyone knows the cons along with the pros. —as told to by Marisa Roy
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