What Causes Sparse Brows?
When you look in the mirror, you may notice that your eyebrows are not as full as they used to be. Less hair in the eyebrow area is disappointing to women and men alike. An ironic fact is that many women spend a great deal of time plucking, waxing or threading their eyebrows when they are young, only to bemoan the fact that their eyebrows are sparse when they are older.
There are many reasons that we experience hair loss of the eyebrows. Some factors that contribute to brows that are less than full include:
- Hormonal changes
- Genetics
- Years of overplucking and removal
- Nutritional deficiencies
- Normal aging of hair follicles
Using cosmetics such as eyebrow gel, pencil, or powder is one way to correct this problem. However, this is not a foolproof method, since it can be difficult to select the right color to match and look natural.
It can also be frustrating because it often takes a lot of time to fill in the brows while making sure that both sides are even.
What Is Microblading?
Over the past few years, you may have heard about more and more people using a technique called microblading. This method is used to correct the problem of thin eyebrows. A semi-permanent solution, microblading uses a needle in a hand tool to create the appearance of eyebrow hairs that combine to give the illusion of a much fuller brow.
When you go for a microblading session, you first must decide what kind of look you are trying to achieve. Do you want just to enhance your current brow, or fill it in as much as possible? Then, you need to decide what color best matches your hair, existing eyebrows and skin tone.
Once you are ready to go, a numbing agent is applied to the skin.
This helps minimize the pain from the needle during the actual microblading. Since this is a somewhat invasive procedure, a numbing cream is indeed necessary. Your skin is also sanitized at the same time, making sure that this practice is safely done.
The next step is then the actual microblading, where small strokes mimicking eyebrow hairs are applied one by one using a handheld tool. This tool doesn?t deeply penetrate the skin; rather, it creates small scratches that transfer the semi-permanent pigment into the skin. The actual procedure generally takes between thirty and forty-five minutes.
Then, a calming cream is applied to help your face heal more quickly and more easily. After all, due to the needle, your skin is likely to experience redness, discomfort, and possibly even some scabbing. It may even be uncomfortable to sleep for a couple of days while your skin is healing from the microblading.
Now that you know what microblading is, you may be wondering how long this technique generally lasts. The answer to that is that it can range depending upon certain factors but usually lasts for a duration of between six months and two years. Certain things are known to affect the staying power of microblading, such as your skin type in terms of dry versus oily, the facial products you use, sun exposure and lifestyle.
Touch-ups are to be expected once per year. If you have oily skin, the microblading will likely fade faster than other skin types. This means that those with oily skin require more frequent touch-ups.
What Are Powdered Brows?
A different method of achieving the look of fuller eyebrows is through a technique called powdered brows. Powdered brows, sometimes known as ombre brows or microshading, utilize a somewhat similar procedure to microblading but have some additional advantages. Many people prefer this method due to its soft and natural look and less invasive nature.
With powdered brows, instead of merely using strokes to fill in eyebrow hairs, the needle is used to draw both dashes and dots on the targeted area. The pigment is deposited onto the skin, which causes it to last longer than the ?scratches? of microblading.
The methodology of ombre brows utilizes a technique of ?shaded? brows to give the appearance of fullness, thus giving excellent definition. You can build upon the initial shading to layer the look of your eyebrows. At first, the brows may seem dark, but they quickly fade to a soft, gentle look.
When given the option of microblading vs. powdered brows, many people choose the powdered brows for aesthetic purposes. Sometimes, a person may want to have a more solid look for her brow, and by getting powdered brows, you can enjoy looking in a mirror and seeing a complete brow.
Other times, a person may want more density in a certain shade. Using the technique of powdered brows, you can get exactly what you want. Other people choose this method because it is less invasive and therefore, does not cause as much pain.
And, this semi-permanent technique is the suggested and preferred method for those people who have oily skin, since this skin type does not hold the pigment of microblading very well. More mature skin types also respond better to this brow-filling method due to their loss of collagen. Less collagen means the skin is thinner, which means that the microblading technique feels more painful and invasive than when you get ombre brows.
When you get powdered brows, you should return for a touch-up procedure two months after the original procedure. After that, the brows should last between one and three years. This brow-enhancing method has been generally shown to last for a lengthier time than microblading and gives a softer, more-filled in look at the same time.
This longer-lasting duration is essential to many people, since one of the reasons people go for semi-permanent eyebrow treatments is to reclaim part of the time-consuming period they spend applying their makeup daily.
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