Microblading Tattoos: What You Need to Know

Celebrity-approved tattoo shop in New York City, East Side Ink, has gained a profile for their microblading, but the trend has extended past the east coast. Microbladed brows, involves filling out your eyebrows, or reshaping them, through tiny lines that look like individual hairs. Women who spend a lot of time in the morning filling them in with a makeup pencil have rejoiced. Now, the natural look has extended to a face tattoo everyone can get behind. Freckles.

Jen Terban-Hertell, co-owner of East Side Ink, said: “It sounds terrifying, and there’s this stigma of grandma’s blue arch eyebrows, but these are completely different.”

Tattoo Time is Short

The “procedure” is incredibly short, but with a good artist, the prep work should be thorough. Drawing in your new eyebrow shape, or the placement of your cute freckles, should be thought out and with 100% certainty of how the tattoo moves with your face, with its many facial expressions. There shouldn’t be any surprises with what it would look like when you raise your eyebrows or squint your eyes.

Semi-Permanent

When microblading, the pigment put in the skin doesn’t go as deep as a normal tattoo would. This causes them to be semi-permanent, lasting brows and freckles between 1 and 3 years. Terban-Hertwell said that she usually sees people twice, once for the initial appointment, and again for a touch-up once the dot/line work has healed.

Price

The service can be anywhere between $400 to $800 dollars, and take up to only 30 minutes. While that money could get you beautiful tattooed shoulder or leg piece, the minimal inking leaves many people who are on the fence to decide that the price isn’t worth it. However, microbladed recipients are head over heels about their “face tattoos.”

Pain

For eyebrows, microblading feels similar to plucking. For freckles, the dots feel similar to dot shading on a normal tattoo. While some feel the service is painful, many feel it isn’t anything compared to the pain of a tattoo. Often, artists will apply a numbing cream to manage pain for nervous customers.

Effects

Microblading’s layering process creates a natural look, by using different: shades of brown, sizes, and patterns.

Microblading eyebrows have added confidence for women who wouldn’t ever leave the house without pencilling in their eyebrows. For those women, some might even avoid going to the beach or spending too much time in the heat, if it means their eyebrows will smudge off.

Like a normal tattoo, as it heals, your face will itch. You can’t get your eyebrows wet (five days is the recommended time), and obviously, picking scabs is a HUGE no. Washing your face will be a bit difficult during those days, but the inconvenience is a small price to pay for the effects of the microblading magic.

Also similar to a tattoo, the faux freckles or microbladed brows will look more intense than when they would after it heals. As this can be thought of as a very shallow tattoo, it only takes a couple of days before the excess color sheds.

Risks

As any body-modification procedures, there are slight risks. Especially when there is any cut in the skin. To avoid infection clean the area appropriately and follow the recommended aftercare routine. Rarely patients develop an allergic reaction to the microblading dye, but it is a possibility.

There is the other risk: faux freckles looking “drawn on.” It is hard to recreate naturally looking freckles, as their borders are irregular, they are different sizes and shades. This is where the price comes into play: if you are going to get microbladed, make sure you are going to a skilled, experienced, and excellent artist.