Welcome to Chicago Permanent Cosmetics Center, LLC
The Beauty of Permanent Cosmetics
Permanent Cosmetics, a procedure also known as permanent makeup or tattoo makeup, has long been popular in Europe and on the East and West Coasts in US. Now it is rapidly gaining popularity in the Chicago area. Applied by a gifted practitioner, permanent cosmetics can give you the polished glamour of professionally applied makeup that will never flake, smudge or run, stay with you day and night and last for years. At a fraction of the cost of plastic surgery, permanent makeup can instantly take years off your appearance, bring out and enhance your best features and correct minor and not so minor flaws and skin imperfections. Many entertainers, actresses and models, - such as Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor, Dolly Parton, Raquel Welch, Cher and others, - have used it to maintain their polished, seemingly flawless appearance. On this page and other pages of this site, I will describe the benefits of the most popular permanent make up procedures, provide many permanent makeup pictures of people just like you, before and after they had permanent makeup done.I will also explain how to select a competent practitioner. I hope these pages will help you decide if permanent cosmetics can help you achieve the appearance that you want.
What Is Permanent Cosmetics?
Permanent Cosmetics is a non-surgical technique in which a tiny quantity of pigment is placed under the top layer of the skin, simulating the effect of makeup. This allows for a safe and long lasting method of defining the facial features. The procedures are done under topical anesthesia, the recovery time is typically minimal and the results are visible nearly instantly. Once the skin heals over the inserted pigment, it seals the makeup inside. Protected by the skin, the makeup is care free, waterproof, will not smudge or run and can last for years. Sometimes touch-ups are needed to maintain the vibrancy of the color.
Typically, permanent cosmetics procedures are done on the eyebrows, eyes and lips. Changing the shape, fullness and definition of the eyebrows emphasizes and lifts the eyes, frames the face, and adds balance and symmetry. Adding a permanent eyeliner makes lashes appear fuller and thicker. Subtle definition can be added to the eyes, making eyes appear larger and more striking. Accent colors may be used to match, contrast or deepen the color of the eyes. Lips can be made to appear fuller and more defined, adding youth and sensuality. Cheek contouring with blush can add color and emphasis to the cheekbones.
Other popular procedures include camouflage of C-section and plastic surgery scars, areola reconstruction and repigmentation, tattoo removal and stretch mark campouflage. Men and women, gay and straight, have also used permanent cosmetics to create a more masculine or a more feminine appearance.
One of the newest procedures is Skin Needling, also known as Collagen Induction Therapy (CIT), a new medical breakthrough in permanent cosmetics and skin rejuvenation. It improves a wide variety of skin conditions, such as: skin texture, large pores, sun damage, wrinkles, and scarring (acne, chick pox, surgical). Skin needling enhances skin penetration of vitamins (A & C) and effectively increases new collagen production without damaging the skin. It focuses on your natural cell regeneration, not fibrosis (scar tissue), which is common in laser treatments and microdermabrasion. This procedure works from within - not just the surface, to create your own collagen naturally and without the risks of lasers
Selecting the Right Practitioner
Popularity of permanent cosmetics procedures has attracted not only highly skilled professional make-up artists
but also many opportunistic practitioners without any background in make-up or much formal training in permanent cosmetic techniques. Armed with a cheap machine, a set of "one-size-fits-all" stencils and a limited choice of pigment shades, such hacks often crank out work that does not compliment client's face and may look totally out of place. Although their prices are frequently cheap, the correction of their embarassing results is neither cheap nor easy.
Many of my clients come for a correction of such substandard work done elsewhere. Picture on the right is one example of such "cheap" work. Additional examples are posted on the permanent makeup corrections page on this site.
How can you tell if your permanent cosmetics technician is a qualified professional or a hack?
1. Total Commitment to Medical Grade Sterility
I can not emphasize this enough! The most important consideration is permanent makeup technician's total commitment to maintain medical grade sterility of the operating environment. The procedures require puncturing client's skin. Infection, caused by unsanitary or non-sterile equipment, can cause disfiguring scars or worse. Hepatitis and HIV can be transmitted if needles are re-used. Unfortunately, strict compliance with the health code regulations is often missing among shadier operators, for whom permanent cosmetics is frequently just a sideline business. Lack of required license from the Illinois Department of Public Health is a good indication that the establishment does not follow the sanitary codes.
In my practice, located within the surgeon's office and licensed by the Illinois Departement of Public Health, I use only single-use disposable needles. All other equipment used during the procedures is sterile and disinfected between each client. Only MRI-safe pigments with FDA-approved components are used.
2. Professional Level Skills Both, as a Make-Up Artist and as a Micropigmentologist.
Permanent makeup is still, well.., a make-up. "Beware when cobbler bakes you pies and baker cobbles your shoes", observed once Ivan Krylov, a famous 19th century Russian poet. Unless you are the type of person who goes to a dentist for an eye exam, you probably should consider whether a nail salon is best choice for a permanent makeup. A skilled manicurist, electrologist or a tattoo artist is not necessarily a skilled make-up artist. If you would not trust her to do your conventional, temporary make-up, you definitely should not trust her to do your permanent one, which will be part of your face for a much, much longer time.
Permanent cosmetics is not just a technique, it is an art where client's face is painter's canvas. Artist's ability to draw free hand, keen eye for color and facial symmetry as well as thorough knowledge of conventional make-up and its uses in altering the overall appearance is what distinguishes the professional from a hack.
In addition to skills as a professional make-up artist, your practitioner must be thoroughly trained in the latest micropigmentation techniques, tools and procedures. A well-trained technician should be able to recreate individual hairstrokes and match natural colors and shading. To avoid unexpected shading, she must be able to anticipate interactions of pigment color with skin color and avoid such known problems as pigment migration, which can lead to "smudged" appearance. Permanent cosmetics is a rapidly evolving field. New pigments, techniques and procedures are continually developed and continuing education at the professional conferences and seminars is a must.
3. Investment in Quality Equipment and Broad Range of Pigment Shades.
To better accomodate client's preferences and in order to achieve the most natural looking results, reputable practitioners will maintain a large selection of high quality, expensive pigment colors and tints. Less reputable practitioners are often reluctant to make such investment and try to cut costs by using a few popular pigment shades for all skin and hair colors.
I hope you will find the information about permanent makeup on these pages helpful in deciding if this exciting procedure is right for you and look forward to being of service!
Elena Astor
Stuck On You
Caroline Kim heard about it from her hairstylist. A different woman was tipped off by her facialist. Cosmetic tattooing-inked-on brows, eye - and lipliner heretofore associated with sun-dried retirees and Michael Jackson - is becoming a time-saver as indispensable to young female power brokers as international roaming on their mobile phones.
Call the procedure what you will (and many do, dubbing it everything from "permanent makeup" to "micro-pigmentation"), going under the needle means not worrying about smudged eyeliner at a last-minute presentation - among other benefits.
Did You KNow That...
If you spend only half an hour a day putting on makeup, - and many women spend more, - you are spending 183 hours a year on makeup. To put that in a perspective, if your work day is standard 8 hours, you are spending 23 work days a year putting on makeup. That is a full month! If you were paid a minimum wage of $7.25/hr for that time, you would make $1,323. At a 2004 US average hourly wage of $15.54 / hr, the value of your time spent putting on cosmetics is $2,843.82.
According to the recent non-profit YWCA report women in the US spend on the average $100 per month on cosmetics. That is another $1,200 per year.
At these rates, permanent makeup is a great bargain!
Work Out hard. Look Good Doing It.
Many of our clients lead active, busy lifestyles. They do not have time to apply and reapply make-up during and after workouts. They train hard to look good and they want to look good while they train hard. Permanent makeup is the solution. Sweating hard during cardio class, swimming or simply relaxing in the jacuzzi after, they always look ready for that special meeting, business or personal. Click here for special offer from Bally's for our permanent make up Chicago customers.
