Top Permanent Makeup Trends & How they’ve Changed Over The Years
From green eyeshadow to purple lips, and from barely-there makeup to glamorous made-up looks, makeup constantly changes to suit the latest fashions and trends. One thing that is consistent though is using makeup to subtly enhance your natural beauty, and Permanent Makeup is the perfect solution – creating a flawless base for any transient makeup look to be applied on top of!
Permanent Makeup and tattooing practices have been around for centuries (with the first instance of Permanent Makeup thought to have originated in the UK with a man called Sutherland Macdonald who injected vegetable dyes under the top layers of skin to give women a permanently blushed complexion), but we have seen a drastic increase in demand in recent years and with that (thankfully) has come huge leaps in our abilities, techniques and tools as Permanent Makeup artists.
Eyebrow Tattooing & Microblading
The 90’s saw the birth of some of the best and worst trends in the beauty and fashion industry – some of which we are still suffering the consequences of today. The worst of all? The pencil-thin brow, sported by likes of Christina Aguilera and Gwen Stefani, which unfortunately trickled down to influence the masses. Skinny eyebrows ruled the 90’s and sadly left many women with over-plucked brows that they haven’t been able to recover from.
With sparse, brows caused by years of plucking and waxing, many women then spent the early 2000’s desperately pencilling their eyebrows in trying to achieve the bushy brow favoured by the likes of Chrissy Turlington and Cindy Crawford in the early 90’s and brought back by supermodel icons such as Cara Delevingne. Cue the rise of Permanent Makeup and Microblading – helping everyone achieve a fuller, natural-looking brow, whether you have lots of eyebrow hair or none at all.
Women flocked to Microblading to subtly enhance their eyebrows and restore shape and definition with realistic hairstrokes. This treatment, which uses a small blade to insert pigment into the skin to mimic natural hairstrokes, became an absolutely must-have for celebrities and subsequently for the masses as it increased in popularity and affordability. Digital eyebrow tattooing (a different method for implanting pigment in the skin – using a machine and needle, more like traditional tattooing but much less aggressive) also started to increase in popularity with techniques and equipment developing quickly to be able to achieve the same realistic results as Microblading.
Both techniques can now achieve stunning results, but they aren’t suitable for every skin type or preference in eyebrow style. Microblading is not suitable for oiler skins as the pigment is implanted at a higher level and results don’t last as long. There has also been an increase in demand for a more ‘filled-in’ brow…
The birth of Combination & Powder Brows
This technique relies on elements of shading technique to give definition and structure, and fine hairstrokes to keep the look natural and realistic. This procedure is often done using a manual shading tool, which is ideal for combination, ombre, shading and block work. To this day, this is one of the most popular techniques for permanent makeup, as customers love the structure it gives their facial features, whilst still staying authentic to the ever sought-after natural look.
Lip Blushing Treatment
With permanent brows firmly established as a beauty must-have, other Permanent Makeup treatments are now increasing in popularity. With beautifully defined, full lips firmly in fashion, many people have opted for lip fillers and overlining their lips using makeup to achieve a fuller looking pout – but these aren’t the only options! Permanent Makeup can be used for a Lip Blushing treatment – which uses cosmetic tattooing to add shape, definition, volume and a full blush of colour to the lips. Lip blushing has taken the beauty industry by storm and now rivals brows as our most requested treatment at Tracie Giles London. With more and more Permanent Makeup Artists performing this treatment and more and more clients requesting it, we seriously advise skilling up and adding this tool to your belt! We have designed our totally unique (and trademarked) Gloss & Go Lip Blushing technique which you can learn at our training academy.
Areola & Medical Tattooing
One of the best and most rewarding advancements in Permanent Makeup has got to be its use for medical and correctional purposes. In our opinion the most impressive is 3D areola tattooing, which is a highly skilled and rewarding treatment providing a natural looking areola and nipple after cosmetic surgery or breast reconstruction for cancer survivors.
The scars left after any breast operation can negatively impact a woman’s confidence, mental well-being and sense of femininity. Permanent Makeup can be used to design an areola and/or nipple that is incredibly realistic, closely matching the clients own colouring and reducing the appearance of scarring.
It is amazing to see how advanced the technology and skill set of Permanent Makeup artists has become – mimicking even the most detailed areas of the body, creating results that no one will know have been tattooed!
We love looking back at the history of Permanent Makeup and seeing how far the industry has come. It is such an exciting time for Permanent Makeup – its increasing popularity shows no sign of slowing, the techniques are becoming more advanced each year, and we cannot wait to see what the next trends and treatments will be.
If you want to learn the latest techniques from the very best then train with us at the ID Liner Permanent Makeup & Microblading Training Academy. One of the best things about a career in Permanent Makeup is there is always more to learn and an unlimited capacity for creativity! Click here for more information about training with us at the ID Liner Training Academy.