Are you one of those people who overplucked your eyebrows in high school? I am, but maybe it happened in college. All I know is that when thicker eyebrows came back into style, mine refused to grow back in; it was a hopeless process. After that, I gave up and accepted my thin, almost non-existent brows.
Next thing you know, microblading came along. It’s supposedly much more realistic than the old way of tattooing eyebrows. Upon looking into it, the price shocked me. None of my “regular” tattoos cost that much! Since I was about to embark on another trip to SE Asia, I decided to check prices there. My nail salon in Bangkok sent me a price list of their microblading styles, but no photos. On a Facebook group dealing with shopping in Bali, several women recommended a certain person for microblading. Both they and she provided photos. The price was at least 1/3 of the average price charged in the United States. After messaging her, she explained the process to me, I set up an appointment and paid a deposit.
The day of the microblading, she sent a Grab taxi to pick me up at my hotel. She was an Indonesian woman, married to an Aussie, who’d studied in Kuala Lumpur. She explained the different styles of microblading – the feathered look, the powdered look and the combo look. I wanted the feathered look, as it purportedly looks more natural. Based on her past experience with clients, she thought the combo look would be better for me. Since she’s the expert, I agreed. She took plenty of time drawing my eyebrows on, then measuring them to make sure that they were balanced. Once I approved them, I laid down on her tattooing table, she applied anesthetic and began. As nervous as I initially was, there was no pain and I eventually fell asleep on the table. After awhile, though, she informed me that it didn’t seem to be taking, so she’d recommend more of the powdered style. She also thought the color should be darker, which would require her to go over them a few times. Once again, her being the expert, I agreed. That process was a bit more painful, but she also applied a little more anesthetic. The entire procedure took more than two hours from start to finish. She gave me after care cream, explained what would happen over the coming weeks and called a Grab ojek to take me back to my hotel. (She’d asked if I was ok to take an ojek rather than a taxi, as the taxis take much longer to arrive and she was running a tad late for plans with a friend that was in town.)
Over the next few days, my eyebrows looked fine, though a little dark to me. There were a few days that I said to myself “My eyebrows hurt!” Now those are words that you never expect to say in your lifetime! On about the fifth day, my eyebrows began to scab a little. The day after that, they began to scab a lot. I wouldn’t normally mind, but I’d unexpectedly been invited to a wedding in Bangkok. I didn’t really want to show up with bits and pieces of eyebrows, causing everyone to stare at me. I sent her a message asking if it was ok to take the remainder of the scabs off. She told me not to; merely to fill them in with eyebrow pencil. I did as best I could, though they still looked funny to me. I also wore my sunglasses as much as possible. No one seemed to stare at me (i.e. my eyebrows), but maybe they were just being polite!
Now that I’m back in the States and it’s been 12 days, the scabs completely fell off yesterday. Unfortunately, the microblading didn’t seem to take. It’s somewhat visible on my right eyebrow, but even less visible on my left eyebrow. I’m not sure if they lighten up for a bit, then get darker. I could ask her, but don’t even care at this point. She said that it’s happened before that it didn’t take, either due to too much sun or because her client’s skin was too oily. In my case, it could have been both. I couldn’t exactly avoid the sun in SE Asia, though there was no sunbathing or deliberate long-term time spent in the sun. In addition, my skin, though usually combination, was a little oilier than usual in that humidity. She said to let her know the next time I’m back in town and she’ll try different ink on me.
My thinking is that I wasn’t meant to have microbladed eyebrows – or even eyebrows at all! With luck, this will fade sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I’ll be “camoflauging” my brows with eyebrow pencil, which I generally only use when going out for a special evening. The things women do in the name of beauty! Oh well, lesson learned.
