Permanent makeup, the trend of the moment

The pandemic, through successive confinements and the wearing of masks, has upset the beauty routine of many women around the world. Exit lipstick, contouring, and other techniques to display a perfect complexion, the emphasis has been placed on skincare which has – slowly but surely – replaced cosmetics intended, not to improve skin texture, but to camouflage all sorts of imperfections. A phenomenon that continues beyond the health crisis, even if wearing a mask is no longer compulsory in the majority of countries around the world.

These changes, however, have revived a trend that was thought to have fallen into disuse: permanent makeup. Very popular in the 1990s, permanent make-up techniques are once again appealing to women – like men – in search of natural beauty. Paradoxical? Not so much, since it is a question of no longer spending hours in your bathroom multiplying the layers of foundation, concealer, and other correctors, and of betting everything on the look and the mouth through perfectly shaped eyebrows and lips – and subtly colored.

What is permanent makeup?

If its name seems to evoke yet another make-up technique, permanent make-up is in fact closer to tattooing than make-up, with one exception (and not the least): it is most often dermopigmentation. In other words, it is a question of introducing a colored substance, pigment, via micro-needles into the superficial layer of the dermis – much shallower than the tattoo, and therefore less definitive since the pigments decompose over the years. It most often allows you to add color to a specific area, whether to give consistency to sparse eyebrows, redraw the outline of the lips, color pale lips, or even enlarge the eyes.

If permanent make-up undoubtedly traumatized many in the nineties, the techniques have greatly evolved in recent years to offer a more natural – and discreet – result. It is no longer a question of leaving an institute with frozen eyebrows, or worse, with an ultra-contrast lip contour. The objective today is to save time with a natural beauty treatment, made up of pale shades, to afford the luxury of skipping a few steps in your daily routine, but without excess. A watchword well understood by the professionals who now offer all of these services.

Various techniques

Permanent makeup techniques are as diverse as they are varied, with an emphasis on the eyebrows. Microblading (1.8 billion views on TikTok) is undoubtedly one of the most common, since it makes it possible to reproduce a hair effect via pigments, and therefore to redefine the line of the eyebrows and thicken them according to of the desired result, while microshading offers a powdery finish as if you had used a simple eyebrow pencil. More recent, micrograyling works on the same principle except that it is aimed at those who have a more complex natural line and simply wish to limit the sparse appearance.

But permanent makeup is also a great ally for women whose lip contour has faded over time. Candy lips are among the most popular techniques, and allow you to redraw this contour via a micro-pigmentation process while adding color, and therefore a more voluminous effect. Some also use it to correct any asymmetry. And if you want to go even further, it is now possible to draw a line of eyeliner, or even the effect of an eye shadow, permanently, in just a few sessions, and even to add here and there a few freckles, the big trend of the moment.

Be careful, however, if permanent makeup fades over time – the duration depends on many factors including age or exposure to the sun – it is better to think carefully before taking action. This is all the more true for eyebrows, the trends of which are changing very rapidly today. Thick eyebrows, for example, have been unanimously accepted for several years, but in recent months we have seen several attempts to bring thin eyebrows back into fashion. Let’s not forget that in beauty, as in fashion, trends follow each other but are never alike.