How do I Take Care of My Permanent Cosmetics Long-Term?

Skin is unpredictable, and no matter how carefully the aftercare steps are followed, many variables can produce an outcome that requires color adjustment, shape adjustment, or both.

But now that you have beautiful eyebrows, eyes and or lips, it would be nice to keep them this way as long as possible.

Products to Avoid

Today, there are many products and procedures designed to make our skin more youthful and beautiful. However, these are enemies of permanent cosmetics.

Products or procedures that claim to:

• Lighten

• Brighten

• Exfoliate

• Peel

• Slough off skin

• Remove age spots or freckles

…will also remove permanent cosmetics.

There is no difference between skin pigmentation whether it be an: age spot, tattoo, fine lines, or superficial scarring.

At times, you’re going to want to treat your forehead, but some home skin care products should never be used on your forehead if you have permanent brows. This is because no matter how hard you try and even though you avoid putting it directly on your eyebrows, it will at times get on them, and also it can migrate onto them unknowingly.

How to avoid this? Apply these products approximately where your crows feet are and below.

Permanent cosmetic brows should never be expose to the following products:

• Retinol

• Retin-A

• Hyaluronic acid

• Lytic acid

• Glycolic acid

• Hydroquinone

• Vitamin-C

What to Know When Using Professional Treatments

If you have professional facials, make sure the technician clearly understands to avoid getting product on the eyebrows and lips.

Laser treatments, professional chemical peels and microdermabrasion are procedures that the technician needs to be aware of in order to avoid your permanent eyebrows.

A typical result of not following these directions can be early fading, the pigment can be altered to a very odd color and a more extreme result would be pink scars or pink skin where the permanent eyebrows once were.

Outside Influences

Sunlight is not a friend of color and certainly not a friend to permanent cosmetics. The reason being is that ultraviolet rays cause fading.

Think about your couch that sits next to a window or the carpeting next to a sliding glass door. Over a period of time you will begin to notice the color looks faded where the sun hits it regularly. You don't notice it immediately, but at some point you realize that the sun has altered that color.

Even though color is considered permanent, it does fade and the more it can be protected from sunlight the longer you can go without having it touched up.

Protection Tips

Tips to protect your permanent cosmetics from the sun:

• Use 55+ sunscreen or above can help significantly

• Wear a visor or a wide brimmed hat

• Extra-large sunglasses can help somewhat but remember the sun shines from above so eyebrows can still be exposed

• Lips that have been treated can be protected with lipstick or lip balm with very high sunscreen value

• Wear foundation, sunscreen, or even pencil over the foundation with eyebrow pencil, this will help to protect your eyebrows

This may seem problematic but in the long run it's better for the longevity and keep in mind if your make-up does come off, you still have your permanent cosmetics. A little bit of care goes a long way.

Top Tips: Caring for Your New Permanent Makeup

Any New Procedure

Congrats! You've just finished your permanent cosmetics procedure and now there are a few things you can do to ensure it heals properly.

More importantly, you want to make sure you allow it to heal as "quietly" and undisturbed as possible.

What does that mean? Make sure when you are cleansing your face, whether it be in the shower, taking a bath or over the sink:

• It’s important to keep the amount of water on the new procedure to a minimum.

• Rather than rubbing or scrubbing, just a gentle pat to cleanse and to dry is all that's necessary.

• Apply a very light amount of Aquaphor or recommended ointment or cream with a clean q-tip and remove any excess with the dry side of the q-tip.

Eyebrows

Eyebrows may be the most difficult area to heal properly and a more conscious effort is needed to leave them alone.

As eyebrow permanent cosmetics are healing, they will itch and it's common to inadvertently scratch them without even thinking about it.

This will cause light spots as you scratch the scabs or dry flaky skin causing them to come off too soon pulling color with it.

The general rule is to encourage the scabs to stay on as long as possible for the best possible result.

Keeping them moisturized using Aquaphor or the recommended product by your technician during the healing time is very helpful.

Don’t overdo the moisturizer as you don't want your eyebrows to appear greasy, wet or shiny. You want them to be able to breathe but keeping them moisturized does keep them comfortable.

Eyeliner

Surprisingly, eyeliner permanent cosmetics heal well.

We naturally tend to be gentle with our eyes anyway, so not disturbing them is usually pretty easy.

The hardest part is going without mascara and eyeshadow for the first few days.

There may be some swelling, especially the morning after, but once you get up and move around, apply a cold compress often for a few minutes at a time, this will help with the swelling.

Some people may experience a little bit of redness, or bruising on the upper eyelids, but this also subsides after a day or so.

Eyelids produce oil and many clients use little ointment if any.

As the scabbing loosens off the skin, your eyelashes may hold onto the scabs. It's ok to very carefully remove the scabs as long as it’s not still attached to the skin. These scabs will resemble clumpy mascara.

Lips

Lips, being a dry stretchy muscle, and without any sweat or oil glands, tend to have a significant amount of chopping and peeling the first three or four days.

It's important to keep them well lubricated with a moisturizing lip balm such as Burt’s Bees, Vaseline or anything soothing that doesn't dry the lips out.

Don’t be alarmed as it’s very common to have swelling as lips are very vascular.

Clients with naturally thin lips rather enjoy this but clients with full lips begin to feel quite "lippy".

Typically with lips, at first they are too bright and/or dark, then they appear to have disappeared after the first few days, then the color blooms back.

There is usually some dryness or tightness for another month, so it’s important to keep them well moisturized, but most importantly with lips, if you have ever had a cold sore or fever blister, you must obtain a prescription from your doctor or dentist to prevent an outbreak.

Valtrex or generic Acyclovir is generally recommended, and you want to make sure it's in your system two to three days before your appointment.

In addition to having it in your systems beforehand, it’s important to have it in your system four days after your appointment.

This procedure does not cause an outbreak but it will trigger the virus in your system. As long as you're getting a prescription you may as well get it for your follow up visit as well.

If you don't get on this medication, you will have an outbreak and potentially have scarring and you will lose the color in that area.

So that was short term care, next, long term care.