If you’re ever asked to perform permanent eyeliner while someone is wearing lash extensions, please don’t do it! Even if your client begs you — claiming she just paid a fortune to have them put on — have her reschedule. In the future include that in your pre-procedure form – no lash extension or removal of lash extension prior to an eyeliner procedure. It will save you time and aggravation for both parties.

Dr. Chrissie Cockinos presents some alarming statistics about bacteria and parasites in this article HERE.

If women are getting parasitic mites without lash extensions, imagine what is collecting in those extensions — and the increased risk the extensions will create. Sometimes, I see women with lash extensions that come in to get their brows done, and when I see the base of their extensions, I wonder if I should even be taking them for brows. I plan on consulting an ophthalmic surgeon to get a definitive answer for this question and addressing in a future blog.

Let’s face it: Anyone paying $100 to $300 for a full set of lash extensions is not going to wash their face and eyes the same way they would if they didn’t have them. I wouldn’t. I wore lashes in the 80’s and would steam them with a hot washcloth to straighten them, but I certainly didn’t wash them as I do now.

I will follow up with the answer from the surgeon regarding the brows, but please, never perform lash tattooing or eyeliner on anyone wearing lash extensions.

Demodex parasite

I have now lost my appetite and cannot look this critter in the eye, yet alone wonder if I am promoting its growth!

Warmly,

Rose Marie Beauchemin-Verzella

Thinking of hiring a receptionist for your Permanent Cosmetics practice? If you haven’t hired a receptionist, I am urging you to not wait. I will put it simply. You are in a procedure, and your phone rings and it’s a client for later that day whose child just got sent home, ill. You may have online scheduling but it’s not the same. You would miss that notification. 

Many practitioners are utilizing online booking/scheduling system to schedule appointment, and this is very beneficial to growing your client base and creating ease for clients to book appointments. But having a receptionist can benefit you in so many ways that include properly screening your clients to rescheduling clients if someone cancels. In addition, many clients have questions they want answered and love to have an actual person to talk to. 

If you had a receptionist, in the event of a cancellation, he or she would have moved up a client from later that day, the following days or the following weeks. What needs to be understood is, you can NEVER make up that time. Your client that had to cancel will reschedule up the road and take up an appointment that should have been for someone else. You can’t take 2 at once! You would also be sitting around during that cancellation and losing that income. Perhaps, you can use that time to market yourself, but you would have done that anyway, at the end of a day. 

If you hired someone to answer your phone or check your online scheduling, from just 10 to 4, have them trained in Blood Borne Pathogens so they understand the importance of cross contamination, be sure they have or you can provide their Hep B series and you now have an assistant that can turn over your room for you and set up for the next client, even pull the pigments you will be using. It is the greatest asset you can offer to yourself, all while making you money. 

I’m reading your mind as it says, I can’t afford it! Let me show you how you can. Let’s say you are charging $400.00 for a procedure. If your receptionist rearranges your schedule due to cancellations 1 to 2 times each week, which is considered a low number of cancellation or rescheduling in any practice, and moved a client up into that space, she has made you, $20,000.00 a year just from one reschedule. If she reschedules 2 clients, she has made you, $40,000.00. See? You can afford her. 

Women have busy lives and many plans throughout their days often change. These changes are quite expensive if they occur while you are working and can’t catch that cancellation either by phone or online. I find it totally unprofessional to pick up a phone during a procedure. I have seen them wrapped in barrier film, etc. It is just not professional and completely dangerous to place it near your face with a contaminated glove. It’s just as bad to have a computer screen wrapped. Please don’t! 

Maybe you’re concerned about what your receptionist will be doing in-between answering your calls or online appointments? Be sure he or she knows how to keep you on social media. Most younger people know exactly what and how to do it. Now, he or she is advertising for you! 

I do hope you see these financial benefits having someone at your desk to greet your client’s. They can pre-numb your clients and offer them a refreshment. It speaks volumes about you! It truly does. 

– Rose Marie Beauchemin-Verzella, CMI, CPCP

Keeping your client comfortable during a permanent makeup procedure is a challenge for many. I’d like to share some of the methods and products that we, at Beau Institute, have found extremely effective.

You can make your client’s experience a painful nightmare, that she will surely share with her friends and frighten them away from your door or you can apply the effective topicals that allow you to have a comfortable client that will share an entirely different story with her friends and they will come running to you.

Also, when your client is comfortable, you can work more effectively and much quicker. The secret is, have them arrive prior to their actual appointment time and allow them to numb. Be sure they are comfortable during this time in a spot where they can read a book, magazine or have a fresh coffee or tea or other refreshments.

Be sure to double check you client intake form for any allergies.

Keeping the Client Comfortable for Permanent Eyebrows

We begin a pre-numbing with Zensa Topical Anesthetic (active ingredient 5% lidocaine cream) for 20 to 30 minutes. For Microblading, I prefer 30.

Set your table during this time, with the topical anesthetics you will be using once the skin is broken, since Zensa is not effective for broken skin, only skin that is intact. Now, when you bring your client into your procedure room, you simply select their colors and needle/needles, remove the Zensa, draw their brows on and begin to tattoo once the shape is approved by your client.

Another clever idea from one of our trainers is she uses the Numb Quik Stick to pre-numb brows and leaves it for 20 or more minutes.

Now, for the topical anesthetics that are most effective on broken skin…

I find Duration Ultra very effective but one dip with a cotton swab and you have sucked up far too much product. If I mix it with Magic, it creates a more gel-like consistency, goes further and has a most potent numbing action. You may ask, why don’t we just use Tag? You certainly can. We have just found this combo to be very effective.

To use less of your anesthetic products, choose micro-brushes, which we carry. They absorb much less with each dip into your topical anesthetics and a small pigment cap will last an entire procedure.

Another 2 numbing creams in our repertoire, are Numb-Pot-Gold and Super-Trio. My experience has been that the same topicals do not react with the same efficacy on every person. I keep the others, close-by, if I find my client is not responding to my go-to formula. It’s always so interesting to see the difference when you change your topical anesthetics and watch your client become immediately comfortable.

For the final tip on increasing the efficacy, place a small amount of Vaseline over your chosen topical anesthetic and leave for 30 seconds and when you wipe, you will see the difference. It’s huge! Vaseline is an occlusive and heats up the topical anesthetic you are using and makes it much more effective.

Keeping the Client Comfortable Permanent Eyeliner

We sell many topical anesthetics, but the one we have found to be extraordinary for pre-numbing eyeliner, is Eyz-a-Blu! It doesn’t melt down and our clients can see their phones or read a magazine without anything burning their eyes. It is so effective! We leave it on for 20 to 30 minutes, set up the table, mix the pigment color and lastly, remove the topical, draw the eyeliner on both eyes and begin to trace the outermost shape on the first top eyelid with your machine.

We layer this outline with, Duration, more Eyz-a-Blu and top it off with Vaseline, then go to the second top lid and do the same.

Now, when you come back to the first top eyelid to fill inside what you have traced, it is numb.

Once you complete the first top lid and go to the second, you will see how comfortable your client will remain.  

~ Remember the coat of Vaseline occludes the topical anesthetics, speeds them up and makes them more effective.

Keeping the Client Comfortable Permanent Lip Liner & Shading

Zensa applied, densely, like toothpaste, over the lips, for 20 minutes is very effective. Once Zensa is removed, assuming your color is poured and machine loaded and ready to go, draw on lip shape and tattoo your outline.

If your client does not wish to see a line or differential from the line to the lip fill, use a 7-Round to draw your outline. It will not heal sharply, once lip is filled or shaded inward for an ombre effect.

Once lined to capture the shape and skin is broken, I switch topicals to my mixture of Duration Ultra and Magic and top it with Numb-Pot-Gold. It acts as an occlusive, due to its viscosity and at the same time adds more topical anesthetic to the layering.

Warning…

I have found that prescriptive strength topical anesthetics, like BLT, have a time span of efficacy. If you are not finished in this window of time, you cannot get your client numb again. This happened to me when a female doctor flew in to have a full-lip procedure. It suddenly stopped working and I could not get her numb again. I do not use ANY prescriptive strength topical anesthetics, simply because I do not find the need for them.

Experimenting with topical anesthetics is so interesting. We are always looking for tricks and tips, so please share yours!!!

– Rose Marie Beauchemin-Verzella, CMI, CPCP

Are your client intake forms asking the right questions? With the number of baby-boomers we all have in our permanent makeup practices, today, we should be asking specific questions regarding their current health and health history.

Things to consider with client intake forms?

One example would be knee replacements. More and more younger women, especially athletic women, are having knee replacements. Are you asking if your client has a joint replacement on your client intake forms? If so, do they require pre-medication? Only their orthopedic surgeon can answer this. This is due to the opinion of each surgeon. What makes it difficult is this opinion is not across the board and can never be assumed one way or the other, by us.

Some surgeons want all their patients pre-medicated and that could be from one, 1000 milligram of an antibiotic 1-hr. prior to procedure, to a 5, 7- or 10-day course of antibiotics. Others do not want their patients pre-medicated after 2-years. It is just not a call we can make. We would be guessing and placing our client at risk.

Any infection in the body can stop at an artificial joint, since it has no antibodies and will allow infection to just collect at that location. It happened to my own father. He had a knee replacement in his 50’s, that was perfect and years later, began to flare up, become red, swollen and painful. His doctor was giving him steroid shots in his knee to reduce the inflammation. It would calm down and months later flare up, again. In a phone conversation, he mentioned he had a tooth that was acting up and being in his late 70’s, I thought it would be hard to have him understand the connection. I explained what could be happening and urged him to see his dentist, right away. It was a molar; it was pulled out and he lived till 98 and never had another issue with his knee. It was, in fact, his tooth.

Are you asking your permanent makeup clients to list any auto-immune diseases they have? Often, post-menopausal women and even peri-menopausal women have hypo-thyroid issues, such as Hashimoto’s, and are on a hormone replacement. It really isn’t for us to determine whether they require medical clearance, so have them ask their doctors. Many women can develop thyroid issues as young as 40.

Lupus is an autoimmune disease that requires medical clearance and they cannot be in a flare up at the time of a permanent makeup procedure. Bleeding, bruising and risk of improper healing as well as infection are all possible.

The American Academy of Micropigmentation offers up-to-date, client intake forms as well as informed consent and re-consent forms to its members. Keep a look out for my next blog in which I will discuss other possible contraindications. Please feel free to email me with any questions at info@beauinstitute.com or to share any of your experiences with contraindications and micropigmentation.

– Rose Marie Beauchemin-Verzella, CMI, CPCP

Lets look at 5-Common Struggles for Permanent Makeup Practitioners. I never want to forget my beginnings. I had no predecessors and no one to ask why a procedure didn’t heal exactly as I planned. Thirty-years ago, I had no one to tell me that the hair strokes I placed in eyebrows had to be spaced out or they would heal together. Bearing this in mind, I will always find time to answer our graduates with these initial struggles and do everything possible to make things make sense and hopefully easier for them.

Here are some of the struggles I hear, consistently, from new practitioners and I hope this helps a lot of people out there.

Struggles for Permanent Makeup Practitioners #1

My permanent eyeliner isn’t staying! It looks great when they leave and, in a few days, it’s all gone!

My response…I feel your pain and disappointment. I used a standard coil for my first 12 years, so my eyeliners held but were swollen for DAYS!!! But I can still relate!

Although, myself and our Certified Micropigmentation Master Instructors do explain that this may happen to you, in your first few eyeliners, and tell you exactly why it will happen, I will say it again. SLOW-DOWN, SLOW-DOWN, SLOW DOWN! It is the hardest thing to do. You want to get your client done and you may see she is not thrilled with having you around her eyes and you move too fast. It is frightening to stay on the skin, but it works.

Relax & Breathe

I always say, eyeliner is meditative. Drop your shoulders and place a bit of Lavender on the edge of your nostrils (seriously), put on some new age, spa music and take a deep breath. Gear down to reduce your own personal speed. Lower your voice to a calming tone. Remember, to move slowly around your client’s face. Avoid quick or jerky movements.

Numbing

Be sure your client has had Eyz-a-blu topical on for 30 minutes, select and mix her color, insert and adjust your needle and lastly, remove her topical anesthetic and quickly draw her on and begin tattooing, in that order.

Stretching

Be sure you have a very tight stretch on her eyelid, without pushing on her eyeball. Just stretch the skin in the area you are starting, very tightly.

Sketch

Begin etching your insurance line from the top down toward the lashes to insure you won’t go further than your drawing and then establish your width. This prevents the dreaded call that her permanent eyeliner looked great when she left and now it has shrunk to nothing. If she is hypersensitive, use pointillism method to get your line in.

Once you have a sketch, layer your topical anesthetics and do the same on the other eye. Return to the first eye, remove the layered topical anesthetics and straighten your line. She should be numb.

Remain focused and begin your SLOW tight circles or Ovals of two forward and two back and do not lift your needle. If you move this way, you won’t have to go back over it. If you move quickly, you will not get the pigment deposit and will have to continue to go over the same area, repeatedly and simply chew it up and swell it up.

Remember, the skin (in all permanent makeup procedures) should appear like velvet and not like stucco or suede. If you start to see a grain in it, you have moved too quickly and repeated your strokes too many times. Breathe and slow down!

Struggles for Permanent Makeup Practitioners #2

Struggle My client said she shouldn’t have to pay for her permanent makeup touch-up.

My response…I dislike talking money with my clients. This should be done previously on the phone either by you, if you do not employ a receptionist, or your receptionist but NEVER at the time of procedure. A fair price should have been agreed upon prior to the arrival of your client. They can send a selfie for you to see what is involved if it is a touch up, visit.

It is best to have a price chart or menu of services on your web site. It can appear something like this.

• 6-month touch-up $200.00
• 1-yr. touch-up, $250.00
• 2-yr. touch-up, $350.00
• 3-yr. touch-up, $450.00

This is just to give you an idea on setting up a FIRM pricing for your clientele and prevent them from trying to have you reduce their price after you have finished their procedure. I urge you to not fall into this trap and sooner or later someone will attempt to have you do so and you will remember these words…NO, NO, NO. Your work is work the value you place on it. Do not allow this to occur.

You all know what your demographics are and what your area will bring. Whatever that is, stick with it!

Remember…Always use the price you want to charge one day as your regular price and make the actual price you are charging, a special price for a holiday, a season, etc. For instance: Regular Price, $600.00, Spring Special, $399.00. Always place an expiration on this special. You need to have a Call-To-Action. Got it???

Struggles for Permanent Makeup Practitioners #3

My client has crooked eyebrows that keep moving up and down when she speaks.

My response…This is an easy one. Have her give you a big smile and take her picture. Show it to her and tell her this is where her permanent brows will be placed because it is when she focuses on something her brows go up. You would never want to place them there.

Struggles for Permanent Makeup Practitioners #4

I am not sure how much time to schedule for a permanent makeup procedure for a new client.

My Response…It is so imperative that you have more than enough time to do a procedure. This reduces your stress level and your client’s as well.

In the beginning, we suggest 3 hours for a permanent eyeliner procedure. This is from beginning to end. You can even have them come in 15 minutes early to apply your topical anesthetics. Do not rush!

If you are charging $400.00 and allow yourself a 2-hour time frame for her touch up in 6-weeks, you will still have earned, $80.00 per hour, less your set up costs.
I say 3-hours, in the event you get a person that tears, twitches, sneezes, has little deep-set eyes (they take longer) wants a larger eyeliner, etc. you just don’t know. It’s like a box of unmarked chocolates! You never know what you are going to get! Allow the time and enjoy any extra you have with your client. This would be a good time to draw her brows or other procedures on and show her your entire bag of tricks.

Remember, do not schedule eyeliner procedures past 1:00 pm. You will find your clients do not have the sustenance to be as tolerant as they would be in the am.

Struggles for Permanent Makeup Practitioners #5

My client draws her lips on way outside her natural lips or vermillion border. What do I do?

My Response…We have sent women home when they insisted this is what they wanted and the only way they wanted their lips to appear. It would be hideous, and you would not want your name on it.

However, let me say, this! Older women lose their vermillion border. It flattens out. You can cheat a bit on them, and it won’t look contrived. But you can only cheat a little bit.
If they still have a vermillion border or have the help of injectables to give them one, then you can only come onto the crest of the border but not over it. I think of the vermillion border as a wave. I can ride up on the crest of that wave but never over that wave.

Remember, a millimeter on a lip is like a mile! Giving a woman a millimeter or two on her lips will give her a much more youthful look but giving her something extreme will make her appear contrived, unnatural and hardened.

Contact Us for more information about developing your practice.

– Rose Marie Beauchemin-Verzella, CMI, CPCP