Microblading

2017 might have been the Year of the Eyebrow, but that doesn’t mean eyebrow trends are no longer fashion forward. On the contrary, eyebrows are in – whether big and bushy, thin and manicured, arched, curved, rounded, angled, sloped or even unibrow. Depending on the style of the decade (or even the month), brows have been tweezed, plucked, waxed, dyed and even shaved. But eyebrows can be fickle fashionistas, refusing to grow in the direction you dictate, or sometimes not growing at all. What to do, what to do?

One fashion trend that had been gaining popularity is microblading, a unique eyebrow tattooing process that uses small handheld tool comprised of several tiny needles to apply permanent pigment to the skin. Unlike traditional eyebrow tattooing which produces thick, unnatural lines that tend to expand over time, microblading creates thin, natural-looking individual hair strokes by hand. Each line blends into the existing eyebrow hairs to give the illusion of thicker, more aesthetically pleasing eyebrows. The technique, which gained popularity in the U.S. in 2015, is often used to cover gaps of lost hair, to improve eyebrow definition, to extend the eyebrows, or to reconstruct brows which have little to no hair.

All that fashion perfection comes at a price, however. The average cost in the U.S. is around $450, but prices range from $250 to more than $1,000 so it pays to shop around. Licensing regulations vary significantly from state to state, but according to the Society of Permanent Cosmetic Professionals your aesthetician should be certified as a body art practitioner and hold a microblading certification, which typically requires a minimum of 100 hours of training.