Today we are chatting allll about microblading.  Is it worth it?  How much does it cost?  Does it hurt?  In all honesty I wasn’t planning on doing a full blog post about it so I’m sorry that the pictures are mostly random selfies I found on my phone.  I’ve been asked by so many of you though to dish all the details so I thought it’d be easier to just come here and share my experience.

The good the bad and the ugly!!

What is Microblading?  It’s basically a tattoo for your eyebrows.  While it falls under the permanent makeup category it’s much less invasive than getting an actual tattoo and it’s only semi-permanent.  It can last anywhere from 1-3 years depending on various factors. 

Who was your artist? Her name is Kristi Christensen (@kristi.christensen) and she’s literally the best in the biz.  I’m just gonna full on brag about her for a split second — she has people fly in to get their brows micro-bladed from all over the country and she actually teaches other professional microbladers.  Not newbie microbladers but professional microbladers.  She’s amazing.  I dare say the best.  When you’re trusting someone with your FACE, you get the best!  Plus she’s hilarious and has the cutest southern accent you’ve ever heard.  So she comes highly recommended from me.

If you can’t go to Kristi, just make sure you do your research.  I had picked out two different microbladers at one point before I found Kristi and I loved most of their work.  Most of it.  I loved certain brows but I was just so nervous committing to them because I felt like I needed to tell them the shape I wanted… like I couldn’t trust their opinion because I didn’t want them to give me those brows they gave that person or whatever.  Does that make sense?  When I was looking through Kristi’s instagram feed it was literally every. single. brow was amazing.  She had this gift to transform peoples shapes and I loved that she was an artist first.  I feel like it’s important to have some sort of creative talent to start with.  So do your homework.  You want to be full on obsessed with your artist and their work before committing to them.  Shop around!  Make sure they have experience and that they are licensed.  You also want to see how their clients brows are holding up.  I have a lot of friends who after a few months have brows that have totally greyed out, they’ve lost their strokes or the color has faded.  Ask lots of questions before committing to your artist.

Did it hurt?  LIKE HELL.  And I never swear so that’s a big deal ha ha!!!  I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I wasn’t prepared for it.  I was told by a friend that she was numbed for the whole thing and that it didn’t hurt at all.  But one of the amazing things about Kristi is her color stays brown and amazing, it doesn’t grey out like a lot of other artists color.  And it’s because of the techniques she uses and her post op care.  She doesn’t numb on the first pass… it has something to do with blood flow?  Either way haha she didn’t numb me on that first pass.  AND IT HURT!!!!  It only took about five-ten minutes though and then she was able to numb me for the second pass so it was fine.  Put on your big girl pants, you can do this!!!

How long did it take to heal? So what happens is your artist will cut strokes into your skin with a scary knife like tool haaha and you’re gonna bleed.  The strokes will scab and it’ll take up to two weeks for them to fall off and heal.  When your strokes turn into scabs your brows are CRAZY dark.  This picture below is the day after I got them microbladed and the scabs turned jet black. 

If we are being totally honest I hated the shape for a handful of weeks.  I thought I had ruined my face.  I’ll do a comparison further down but she actually shaved off my tails and lifted my brow arch so that I had more eyelid to play around with.  I have very hooded eyes and my brows came super close to my eyes.  I knew it, but I was used to seeing myself a certain way and brows can change the way a person looks dramatically!!  I felt like I didn’t look like me anymore!!!  Obviously I was being ridiculous.  More on that soon.

Anyway, it took about 5-6 days before the scabs started falling off… exhibit A

She used a shadowing technique because she’d taken off my entire tail and strokes weren’t going to be enough to make my brows look natural.  Because of that, and I’m not a microblader so I’m just assuming here, but the eyebrow turned into one huge scab.  About 8 days after I had my brows microbladed the scabs started peeling off.  Kinda gross.  Don’t plan on any photoshoots or blind dates while this is going on.  It’s honestly not that bad, you can easily fill them in.  The color lightened immensely, almost too much and I was still on the fence about my brows at this point.  Kristi warned me though.  She drummed into my head before I left her house that I wouldn’t be thrilled with my brows until the six week touchup.  So I was prepared.  Thank goodness!!!

They basically turned into this picture below.  The strokes disappeared and the color went a grey color.  You can see pretty well here where my brows were shaved off! I was filling them in like normal, which was fine, not ideal, but it was fine because at least I had a shape to draw over. And I was hopeful it’d get better at my six week touchup.

So here is a comparison on how she transformed my brow shape.  Do you see on the right how my tail angles steeper down?  It sits right on my brow bone instead of right on top of it like it does on the left. 

And a little bit closer up!! Disclaimer: I filled that selfie in on the left using photoshop.  I wanted you guys to have a good side by side to comparison and the scabs were falling off in that picture!

To me the shape was so dramatically different and it took me several weeks to finally see that it was better than my original shape.  If I had not trusted Kristi completely and valued her expert opinion, I would have been so nervous.  I knew all along though that I loved her work, I’d not seen one brow that I wasn’t obsessed with and I was confident I’d come around to loving the shape she thought was best for me.  I LOVE the shape now.  I’ve had so much fun playing with my eyeshadow palettes because I can actually fit shadow on my lids!  Before I had zero space to work with!

What is post op care like? No showers.  No exercising.  A lot of microbladers recommend putting creams on the scabs, Kristi recommends using nothing.  She also had me put bandaids on the tails at night to protect them because I’m a side sleeper.  I’m trying to think if there was anything else?  Once the scabs fall off your free to resume you’re regular routine.

Six weeks after my initial appointment I was finally ready for my 6 week touchup.  I was so excited because she told me this was where the dream brows were made!

She was totally right.  I told her how the strokes had fallen off, that the color went a little bit grey and that I felt like you could see where my natural brows ended.  She did her magic, added warmth to the color, made more strokes in the arch area to help blend the natural brow and microbladed brows and refined the shape.  “Recovery” was much better with the 6 week touch up and the appointment only lasted an hour.  I actually didn’t even notice the scabs this second time around, I kept waiting for them to fall off like they did the first time and they were just unnoticeable.  The color was darker but I actually really loved that the second time around!  I’ve had them done new for a few weeks and the color hasn’t faded to grey like they did with the first appointment and I’m just in love with them.  If things change I will definitely give you an update.

So here are a few comparisons:

Here’s what my brows looked like filled in. See how they go a tiny bit grey?  It’s always bothered me and despite using the best products I knew of I couldn’t figure out how to avoid it. 

They just look SO much better!  I finally have room to play around with eyeshadows!!!  It actually took me a couple weeks to adjust how I applied my makeup!  I finally have a brow bone to highlight!  It’s literally the best.  No, the best is waking up with my brows totally done!  I can literally get ready in five minutes now, a little bit of HACing, some lipstick and mascara.  Done.

I’m wearing Bella on the left, which we just ordered 30 of so email me at twistmeprettylips@gmail.com to pre-order it.  It’s gonna go dang fast!!!  And then on the right I’m wearing sheer berry which is still out of stock :(.  Sorry, back to the brows haha!  Do you see the shape difference?  And the color?  The microbladed brows are so warm and totally symmetrical.  The minutes in my day I’d spend trying to get my brows symmetrical guys… you don’t even wanna know!

Was it worth it? Yes.  100x yes.  It was annoying to go through the whole scabs falling off process, not being able to workout and shower (I bathed sillies) but it was totally worth it.  It’s shaved off a good five minutes of my routine every morning, which is a big deal considering I only have a few minutes to get ready as it is!  I don’t look like I’m dead when I wake up, swimming this summer will be amazing and just over all I’ve really enjoyed my new shape!!

How much does it cost?  It’s a two hour appointment and Kristi charges $399 – $499 if you need a microblading + shading combo.  And then the touch-up is an hour long appointment and it’s $150.  So it’s definitely not cheap.  But the things people will do to have the perfect brows!!

If you have any other questions, if I missed something please ask me in the comments below!!  Have you had your brows microbladed?  Did you have a different experience?  I’d love to open up the comments below for people to go through and read different peoples experiences, so please comment and share!!!