Getting Inked

Semi-permanent makeup is the latest buzzword. But what is it really? BHG gives you the lowdown.

- Jhelum Biswas Bose

In the late 90s, permanent makeup was fairly popular. My mother was among the first few in Kolkata to introduce it in her salon, Saajo, and my sister and I were the first guinea pigs. She had of course got her training from Singapore and had practiced on enough pieces of leather before trying it on us. Permanent makeup was just another word for tattooing. The technique and machinery was the same, only in permanent makeup, the intent was to either fill in brows, draw eyeliner, correct the lip line or perhaps get a ‘beauty spot’. So with the help of needles, pigments were embedded into the dermal layer of the skin. These were long-lasting pigments, and since it was implanted at a deep skin layer, it stayed long enough. Therefore, technically it didn’t last a lifetime, and so the term semipermanent was coined.

According to Delhi-based dermatologist Dr Kiran Lohia, semi-permanent makeup is superficial tattooing that lasts for 1-3 years. The pigments are better, the machinery is improved and the effect is more subtle.