While micropigmentation (aka the use of tattooing to provide either permanent cosmetics or the cosmetic effect of hair on eyebrow and scalp areas) has been around for some years now, its popularity has recently exploded more than threefold owing to celebrity magazine publicity and the trend for tattooing generally.

Unfortunately this has also led to many inexperienced people setting themselves up as tattooists or even experienced tattooists thinking that it will be easy for them to cover cosmetic specialities as well as tattooing designs. This is not the case. While there may be transferable skills involved, the cosmetic tattooist is a specialist trained in the area and uses specialist cosmetic inks suitable for the more sensitive skin of the face and pigmented for more subtle effects, since normal tattoo ink is not intended to look natural, but rather to stand out.

Normal tattoo inks are not suitable for cosmetic tattooing and therein lies the reason for many of the cosmetic disasters which we are now reading about where people find themselves with spots with a blue-ish tinge, rather than the subtle regrowth promised.

There are a number of golden rules for finding the right cosmetic tattooist;

1. Do some research. Check out the reviews of various cosmetic tattooists. See if you can meet any clients they have worked on to ascertain what standard of work they do. How many have such procedures have they done before?

2. Do not let a friend loose on your scalp with aspirations to be a tattooist, or who already is a tattooist, but wants to make the transition to cosmetic work.

3. Beware the cheap deal including Groupon. Why is it cheap? Are you the guinea pig for a new trainee? And if so, how closely will that trainee be supervised by an expert, if at all?

4. Is the salon public-indemnity insured in the event of anything going wrong?

5. Will the salon do a skin test first to check you are not going to be allergic to the inks used?

Just as we are realising that botox and filler parties are a bad idea and these beauty treatments can lead to disastrous results in inexperienced hands, so it is the same for micropigmentation and cosmetic tattooing, whatever the reason for them.

If in doubt call or email us and we will happy to offer advice.