Embrowdery, 18-24 month brows

When I was in school it was the fashion to shave off your eyebrows and then pencil them back in. I remember the horror as a first year, looking at the 6th years with their terrifying eyebrows. I mean 6th years were scary enough, but their eyebrows wouldn’t be out of place on a Disney villain. Thank god I was far too afraid of my mother to take part in this trend, but I did still get far too carried away with a tweezers on more than one occasion.

Serious lack of brows

Due to years of over plucking I was left with little or no brow and when the trend for bigger brows appeared I was left with no choice but to pencil mine in. Last year when I got sick, my brows went from bad to worse. Sometimes with thyroid patients, your hair and brows can thin out a little. I felt the end of my brows thinned out an awful lot and it was getting to the point that it was getting to me and I decide that it was about time I did something about it.

I did a lot of research on semi permanent brows and while there are a lot of different techniques out there, Embrowdery was the one for me.

There are a lot of salons out there that are claiming to do Embrowdery, or a similar technique, but it is Up to my Eyes in Greystones that brought this particular technique over from Japan and trademarked it in Ireland. Considering these brows were going to be something that I had for a long time, I wanted to go to the best in the business and all my research pointed to Up to my Eyes.

So what is embrowdery and how does it work?

Embrowdery is a form of semi permanent makeup up, that lasts for between 18-24 months, depending on the person. It uses a new type of technology that allows for the pigment to stay on the top layer of skin, unlike eyebrow tattoos which go to a deeper layer of the skin. It takes 3 sessions, 4 weeks apart to get the brows to the point were they will last 18-24 months. The first session is the longest of each session, and takes between 90-120 minutes. When you arrive you have a consultation with your technician and discuss the type of brows you would like. They then set about the task of drawing a brow shape on, that they think you will like and also that suits your face shape. This is all done with a brow pencil so that you can alter the shape, until you get to a shape that you are happy with. It is important to take the advice of the technician on board, as I had an idea of what shape I would like my brows to be and it turns out the idea I had was not the shape that suited me the best.

small strokes mimic the brow hair

Once the shape is decided upon, the next step is making them more permanent. The technician uses a tool, that I thought looked a little like a fountain pen, to apply the pigment under the skin using teeny tiny stroke.They technician uses a serious of tiny strokes to create the appearance of a brow hair. These strokes are so fine, you really would have to be extremely close to tell that it isn’t your real brow.

I was afraid that the application of the pigment would hurt, but to be honest it was no worse than getting my brows plucked. In fact it actually hurt less. I found I was extremely relaxed as I lay there getting my brows done.

Once finished the technician explained the after care to me. I had to apply a cream, which was provided, every 2 -3 hours for the first 5 days and then once a day after that. This stops the brows scabbing over and stops the pigment coming out. It does sting a tiny bit for a few hours after application, but nothing that bothered me.

Your brows are darker when first applied, but this fades up. I was expecting to have to hide for a few days when I got my brows done, but there was no down time at all and I was good to go about my normal business. The brows do fade in-between the 1st and the 2nd session. Some people have more fade then others. My brows kept the pigment very well, but some people can have a lot of fade. Don’t panic is this happens, this is normal. It not only allows for changes to be made on the 2nd session if needed, but it also means that if you don’t want to go ahead with further sessions, the brows will fade completely after a few weeks. They are not semi permanent until the full 3 sessions are completed.

I have now finished all 3 session and I have never in my life been happier. I am over the moon with my brows. They are better than I could ever have hoped for. They take the hassle out of getting ready because I don’t have to do a tap to them. I can now get away without wearing makeup as I now have brows!

So now onto the bottom line. Cost. These beauties do not come cheap. The over all cost of these brows is €440, but this is broken down over the 3 sessions to make it a little more manageable. The first session costs €260, the second €120 and the final session is €60. While this is expensive, now that I have had the 3 sessions done, I can 100% say this was money well spent and I would spend it 5 times over to keep these brows, I love them that much. In about 18 months, I will pop back out to Up to my Eyes for a €60 top up and again they will last for another year or so. The way I see it was, HD brows cost about €40, which you get on average every 4 weeks, which works out at €480, so you are actually saving money with embrowdery.  You can read more about them here

I was nervous about getting embrowdery done, not only because of the cost, but also because of the permanency of them. Now I actually couldn’t be happier and often catch myself in the mirror and thank god I made the decision to get them done.