New Year New Eyebrows

If you’re a regular here, you’ll know that I love eyebrows more than the average person. Have a look about some of my rantings here and here. I’ve talked a lot about how to create fuller brows, how to get the right shape, and which products to use. Now, I get to hang up my hat. My eyebrow hat. That sounds weird, but stay with me.

Because of my adoration of eyebrows, I want them to be perfect. Because of this, I decided to have some microblading done, because perfect eyebrows are time consuming to create every morning. Microblading, for those of you who don’t know, is a is a form of tattoo artistry where pigment is implanted under your skin with a manual handheld tool that has a row of several fine needles to mimic natural hairs in your brows. The blades are, well, micro and after the tiny hair-like cuts have been made in your skin, the colour is deposited by rubbing pigment into them. It sounds sore, but it isn’t. Okay, it is a little.

I had my microblading done by the insanely talented and meticulous Deiana of Posh Nail & Beauty in Illovo. First my eyebrows were cleaned and Deiana mixed the correct colour for my skin tone, and to match my eyebrow colour. Next up, she rubbed some anaesthetic cream onto my brows and covered them with cling wrap to make the experience less painful. I went to Assaggi, the restaurant next door, that serves the MOST delicious penne Bolognese in JHB, with cling wrap on my eyebrows, and did all I could to avert my eyes when strangers stared at me. All in the name of beauty I say.

Once my brows were sufficiently numb, Deiana outlined my dream eyebrows onto my face, and began making the tiniest of cuts to create more ‘hair’.

Outlining my perfect eyebrows

How amazing?

Having your skin cut is a bit weird, especially since you hear every scrape and the process is quite painful. Nothing that you can’t handle though. On my pain scale, I’d give it about a 5/10. Mid-process, the anaesthetic wore off and Deiana applied pigment containing anaesthetic to my brows, which was a lifesaving genius, and which made the pain even more tolerable than before. After a few more strokes, it was done. The whole process took around 2 hours. Once done, my eyebrows were sterilized and sealed with a solution. I went home with black geometry on my face. I’m not kidding.

I went to dinner that evening and found that I was extremely self-conscious. I even made this image and sent it to a friend.

 Black geometric eyebrows

Over the next 4 weeks the colour went from too dark, to too light, to just right. The day immediately after the microblading, the colour was even darker, as the blood had dried and the pigment was sitting on my skin and hadn’t yet settled into my skin. This is completely natural though. A week later, my brows looked the lightest, because my skin was healing. In tattoo terms, they call this ‘milk skin’. Two weeks later, my skin started to peel, with skin coming off in flakes made up of superficial colour and dry skin.

After 4 days 

After 5 days

After 6 days

Now, I’m loving life! My eyebrows take less than 30 seconds every morning. I just run L’Oreal’s Brow Artist Plumper over them and I’m good to go. If I really want to be fancy, I take a pencil to them to define them even more, but that doesn’t really happen all that often. If  I want some hold, I just use some clear eyebrow gel.

After 3 weeks

So, who should consider microblading? If you want your eyebrows to look thicker, more symmetrical and if you’d like more of a defined arch, microblading will enable all your eyebrow dreams to come true. The procedure isn’t a permanent thing, and should last for 2-3 years. I am in love with it and will continue to do it, unless something more natural and beautiful comes along.

For the best microblading and lashes in town, pop into Posh. You can find Posh online here and at Shop 19B, Post Office Centre, Rudd Road, Illovo Johannesburg. You can contact them on (011) 268-0443.