BeautySlesh

My name is Slesh Teray, I’m the owner and director of the BeautySlesh studios. https://beautyslesh.com/

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Sanitize and Disinfect Your Microblading Tools: Keep Your PMU Equipment and Studio Clean

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]   Let’s talk about the unglamorous part of being a microblading artist: sanitizing and sterilizing our microblading tools. Unless you can already afford to hire an experienced assistant right away, you have to learn how to clean and disinfect your equipment. I personally use single-use needles and dispose of them properly, but I still have to clean and sterilize the microblading pen and other tools I use during the procedure. These tools come in close contact with skin and, for some, blood. If your equipment is not disinfected properly, you and your clients may be at risk of getting bloodborne diseases such as hepatitis b, HIV, and similar illnesses. Without further ado, here are things I recommend you get to ensure your tools and your studio are hygienic and safe for your clients. Basic Products To Keep Your Tools Clean Here’s a quick list of products we recommend for use in your microblading studio. You can either get the same brand or your preferred one as long as they are high-level or medical-grade. Disposable adult bibs (also known as dental bibs). This versatile bib is a must-have in your studio. You can use this to cover and protect your facial chair and change it every time you have a different client. Tray for used tools. You can easily grab this tray with everything that needs disinfecting at the end of the day. Disposable anti-microbial gloves. Keep your hands clean either while working on your clients or disinfecting your microblading tools. Disinfecting Tray. If you don’t have a UV sterilization tray, that’s all right. You can soak the tools in a disinfecting tray with no problems (more on this later). Sterilized tray for clean tools. Make sure your newly disinfected tools are kept in a clean, sterilized tray. Cleaning brushes. This can be one of your make-up brushes as their bristles are soft and non-abrasive. PREempt CS 20, Cidex, or similar high-level disinfectants. Use this for soaking the tools (more on this later). Acetone. When you need to clean stubborn dirt such as glue or ink. Spray Nine heavy-duty cleaner and disinfectant. You can use this for wiping surfaces and trays in your studio, including the chairs. CaviWipes surface disinfectant. You can use this brand or your preferred medical-grade disinfectant wipes after spraying the surfaces with Spray Nine. Alcohol. This should be at least 70% to 90% alcohol.   How to Disinfect Your Microblading Tools and Trays I recommend placing a new adult bib on your facial chair, pillow, and tool tray every time you have a different client to avoid any form of contamination. Once your last client of the day leaves, grab the tray for used tools to wherever you keep your disinfectant tray. Fill your disinfecting tray with either PREempt CS 20 or similar high-level disinfectant. Put enough solution to cover your tools. Fill your sink or bowl with warm water and dishwashing liquid. Wash your tools and brush them first. Immerse your tools such as your microblading pen in the disinfecting tray filled with the solution. Let them soak for 20 minutes or so. If you’re using a different disinfecting solution such as CIDEX, follow manufacturer instructions that come with the product. Once they’re finished soaking, rinse them with warm water. Place them in a clean towel to dry. Once dry, store them in a clean, sterile tray. While your tools are soaking, you can start cleaning your work area. Spray Nine is a highly-recommended disinfectant that you can use to spray on your chairs, tables, trays, and other surfaces. After spraying, you can use medical-grade towelettes and wipes such as CaviWipes. You can also use the waiting time to vacuum, mop, or arrange your tools for the next day. Going through all the cleaning and disinfecting will not only make your tools and studio hygienic. Doing these steps will avoid having to face bigger problems in the future should a client complain about cleanliness in your studio and the tools you use. More so, you will have the peace of mind that your clients are safe in your hands. Don’t forget to give yourself a pat in the back after a long day’s work, too!           Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free and helpful microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be beneficial to our microblading career.   Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Managing Client Bookings: How I Automate My Booking Process and What I Use in My Microblading Business

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]   Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be helpful to us as eyebrow artists. So you’ve practiced your microblading patterns and your models are happy with the results–congratulations! Now that you can start booking more clients, you need to find ways on how you can run your microblading business efficiently and automatically. Doing so will let you spend more time improving your craft and working on more clients in the future. Using Appointy as my online scheduler for Beauty Slesh has helped me free up so much time so I can focus on mastering new techniques, tools, and patterns and serve my clients better. Apart from having more time (which is more than enough reason for me!) here are three more reasons why I love Appointy and why I use it for managing my online bookings for my microblading business: 1. My clients can book and pay 24/7 – As long as my client has the link to book an appointment with me, they can easily do so even outside of office hours. My clients can book, pay, reschedule, or cancel their booking through Appointy without having to wait for me to reply to them. We can’t afford to lose clients just because it took us a long time to respond to their queries regarding the schedule! If you only have a few clients, in the beginning, going the traditional route of booking clients through answering their questions on your social media or WhatsApp can work at first. But is it efficient? Definitely not. Once you start getting more inquiries, you’ll end up losing precious time checking your calendar to make sure you don’t double book clients or finding a slot that works for both of you. All the hours you spend in scheduling add up and you’ll be surprised to see how much time you spend on this task that you can easily automate.   2. I can easily customize the procedures, schedules, and payment process Above photo is what clients see while the photo below is how my dashboard looks.   On my dashboard, I can set up different procedures that I do and set the time it typically takes for the procedure. The schedule can be easily customized to my availability, too. I can decide which slots I want to open and until when my slots will be open and block unavailable times. For example, I only want to open booking availability until the end of April, Appointy lets me do that. This feature is perfect for me because my schedule changes so much! Since customers can pay using this scheduling tool, you can also design how much you want your clients to pay upon scheduling. You can have them pay in full upfront upon booking or just the deposit. The terms of service and cancellation policies can also be included depending on what your specific terms are. Another way I can customize this online scheduling tool is through the questionnaire my clients fill out during their appointment. I can tweak the questionnaire for the full procedure and for touch-up without having to print the forms. Once my clients book, they will be asked the questions that I included in Appointy.   3. They have incredible customer support – I was so impressed with how quickly their representatives responded to my queries. It literally took a minute for them to reply when I asked something. The installation process is user-friendly, but they can also install everything for you if you ask them to. If you’re confused with setting up automatic reminders or offering gift certificates and discount coupons, their customer support reps are very friendly and will help you right away. I can go on and on about how Appointy has been really helpful in my microblading business, but it’s a lot better if you just try it out yourself. You can try Appointy for free for 14 days using my link or clicking the photo below.   How do you manage your client bookings and how long does it typically take you to coordinate schedules in a day? Let me know in the comments!             Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Microblading and Marketing: Tips and Tricks to Booking More Microblading Clients

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be helpful to us as eyebrow artists. When the world caught on the microblading trend somewhere around 2015, finding a great microblading artist wasn’t easy. There were not as many microblading artists that were available a couple of years ago compared to the present, so competition wasn’t as stiff. Today, there have been more and more talented eyebrow artists offering microblading procedures. This is why just because you have mastered the microblading patterns or are really good in your craft doesn’t mean clients will automatically come knocking on your door. How exactly can you stand out so you can get more customers? Keep reading to learn my tips and tricks to booking more microblading clients .   1. Take lots of pictures of your clients in different angles Even if you’ve only had a few clients, you can take photos in different angles and edit them for posting to your social media. Just from one microblading client, you can take a couple of shots of the same client and post them with various captions. For example, one photo will have a caption related to the pattern and hand movements, the next one will have a depth-related caption, while another photo can be captioned with tricks on getting clean, crisp strokes. You get the idea. People have asked me what camera I use for my photos on my social media. You can start by just using your phone and play with its editing features or use an editing app. If you’d like to invest in a camera though, I highly recommend the Sony Camera Alpha 600. This is what I use and how it delivers high quality of the photos and videos even though it’s very compact.   2. Your social media platforms should have beautiful images of eyebrows Aren’t you thankful that we live in a time where you don’t need tens of thousands of dollars to promote your business? You can create social media accounts for free and work on growing them organically when you’re not working on clients. But how exactly? What I did was consistently post attention-grabbing eyebrow or make-up related photos. Some photos you can post are before-and-after shots, photos from Pinterest, a beauty blogger’s photo, or even stock photos related to microblading. Learn how to edit your photos so your target audience will stop scrolling through their feed. Investing in an editing course to create beautiful images that will capture women’s attention is more than worth it. I put a lot of effort into editing my photos to keep my social media profiles beautiful and professional-looking. All my hard work has paid off! If you want to learn more about editing photos for your social media or website, you can pre-register for the course here so you can be notified when it is live. In the course, I teach about the proper lighting, reducing skin redness or uneven tones, tricks for Pinterest and Instagram, the good angles for taking eyebrow photos, and a lot more.   3. Don’t be scared to spend on Instagram or Facebook ads They say the higher the risk, the greater the reward. Well, with paid ads, you really are taking some risk by spending on ads, but the reward can also be great. The good thing about trying Instagram or Facebook ads is you can set your own budget and test which ads work for your target audience. In my case, I’ve had more success attracting the right audience using Instagram ads while my Facebook ads didn’t exactly work. Even though Facebook Ads didn’t work for me, it might work for you so don’t completely rule it out! What I like about Facebook Ads is you can target customers that live closer to your studio.   4. Ask your friends or clients to refer you Word of mouth is still one of the best ways of promoting your service. It’s easy to ask your family and friends to refer you to people they know. But how can you have your clients send their friends to you? It’s not just about doing a great job, but also making a connection with your clients. Try to make them feel at home and comfortable during your microblading treatment. Be the perfect balance of warm, friendly, polite, and professional. If they feel happy with your work and how you made them feel during the treatment, they will gladly recommend you even if you don’t ask them to.   5. Offer discounts for clients who refer a friend or post their eyebrows and tag you I offer three prices on my price list. One is the regular price. The second one is the discounted price if they post their beautiful brows on their social media and tag me on the post. For the third one, I included a discount for clients who booked a full procedure with a friend. This has been a very effective way of promoting my microblading service and getting more clients! Even if they don’t manage to bring a friend the first time, they typically end up inviting friends to book with them first. Once their friends see the beautiful results and decide to get microblading done, they are more likely to come to you.     6. Create a profile on Google My Business Most of us have Googled something like “ Japanese restaurants near me ” or “ salon near me.” If you want to show up in one of the recommended businesses whenever someone searches “ microblading near me ” or “ nanoblading near me,” you have to have a Google My Business profile. The free version should be enough if you’re still starting. Make sure the contact details and addresses are correct though so you won’t end up losing a potential client!   7. Have an automatic online booking system Many customers tend to search for services outside of office hours. If a customer found your website, but can’t call you because your office is closed or maybe you can’t reply because you’re not online to check messages, you end up losing a potential microblading client. If you have an online booking system in place, your customers can easily book the schedule themselves and even pay for the booking online. This also makes you look more professional! I use Appointy to automatically schedule my microblading clients and it has helped me free up so much time. If you want to learn more about Appointy, I wrote a more detailed post about why I like it here . For a free, risk-free 14 day trial, you can click here or click the photo below.       Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Machine Shading: Choosing the Right Speed Settings and Depth

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] “What speed should I use when microshading? What should be the depth?” I get asked these questions a lot. Choosing the right depth and speed of your machine is crucial as it will significantly affect the results. Whether you want to achieve a lighter shade or a seamless fading effect, the speed of the machine for shading plays an important role. If you want to know the difference between microshading and microblading, click here . The Beauty Slesh PMU machine and the sample lines created when doing machine shading When using the shading machine, the needles make pinpoint dots on the skin as you move the machine while shading. When you set the machine to the highest speed settings, the dots created are closer to each and will look more like lines. When you decrease the speed, the dots created are farther apart from each other. This will result in lighter shades and is very important for achieving the powder brows effect. So what exactly should you consider when choosing your speed settings? Three Factors to Consider When Setting the Shading Machine Speed 1. Is the speed right for your client’s skin? You should consider whether a certain speed will damage your clients’ skin or if it is too painful for them. You should also note whether their skin is sensitive and gets irritated quickly or is prone to bleeding. 2. Is the machine speed strong enough to insert the pigment? If the machine you’re using has poor quality, there may be instances when the machine is not strong enough to break into the skin’s superficial layer. For machines with poor quality, increasing the speed settings might damage the skin, but if you’re using a high-quality one, this won’t be a problem. 3. Which speed should you choose when shading different areas of the brows? The speed setting I commonly use is versatile and will work well whether you want darker or lighter shades. However, different machines will have different speed settings and results. For starters, the distance between the dots in the photo is the ideal distance. Adjust your machine speed settings to achieve the same effect and distance between each dot. Staying on that speed setting will make it easier for you to control the machine and the darkness of the shades that you want. Take note of your hand movement and position as well. Even if we’re using the same machine, but our hand movements and position are different, then we’ll have different results even if we set the same speed. Again, practice with your latex skin first and play with your machine’s speed settings until you achieve the distance of the dots in the photo. Hand Movement and Pressure Once you know the ideal speed setting for your machine and can achieve the same distance and pattern, you can start playing with creating different shades using the same speed settings. If you want a lighter shade, you can achieve this by doing wider hand movements and applying lighter pressure. To achieve darker shades for the tail of the brows, you can do slower hand movements and focus on one area of the brow until you get the desired darkness. Apart from identifying the correct speed, make sure to practice your hand movements and the pressure you apply as well. You can watch my YouTube video showing the different results when using different settings here . The Right Depth When Microshading You can practice on a radish (in photo) or latex skin. You can see the hand movements when machine shading through this video.   Whether you’re doing microblading or microshading, keep in mind that you should only make cuts or pinpoint dots on the superficial layer of the skin. They should be shallow and shouldn’t hurt even when you’re not using a numbing cream during the first pass. If you go deeper on the skin, you’ll end up with bluish and patchy healed results. Ideally, the depth should not be more than .5 mm. But again, make sure you’re only working on the outer layer and not any deeper. If you want to achieve a darker shade, do not apply more pressure or stay in one area for too long. Instead, do more passes and go over the same area a couple more times while still applying light pressure still. I can’t emphasize enough how much better your results will be if you just work on the superficial layer of the skin and not go any deeper. I hope you find this post about the correct speed and depth for machine shading helpful! Once you’re done with the treatment, make sure to take photos of your clients from different angles so you can use them for promoting your service. You can read about different ways to attract more clients here . I can’t wait to share my editing course with you and teach you my tricks on how I created photos that got me more clients. Don’t forget to sign up here to get notified once the registration is open. Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free and helpful microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be beneficial to our microblading career. Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Digital Microshading: Ombre Brows, How Many Passes, Healing Process, and More

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] Have you ever wondered how some women have beautiful powder or ombre eyebrows even in their #WokeUpLikeThis or #NoMakeUp photos? You have the wonders of microblading and microshading to thank for that. If you are thinking of offering digital microshading to your clients, keep reading to find out what you need to know to serve your clients better. Microblading vs Microshading: What’s the Difference? Long story short, the major difference between microblading and microshading is the stroke. You use a pen to create hair-like strokes with microblading, whereas microshading is a more advanced technique that deposits pigment into the eyebrows through needles that create pin-point dots. If you want a more detailed comparison and contrast of microblading and microshading, you can read our post here. Tools for Microshading to Achieve Ombre Eyebrows Mapping thread (watch our mapping tutorial here ) Beauty Slesh Pro Outline Pencil PMU Machine 1RL needle Ink (I used Tina Davies on my tutorial) Emla numbing cream Applicator Plastic wrap Tissue for wiping ink and cream Digital Microshading: The Process of Creating Ombre Eyebrows Just like with microblading, the first meeting with your client involves consultation. You can ask the client what shape they like and what their preferred darkness is. If your client has any concerns, questions, or want to tell you about their experience with permanent make-up, this is the time for that. Following your client’s preferred style, proceed to map and draw the eyebrows. I use a white waterproof pencil to outline the brows as they are more visible than simply using dark-colored pencils. Keep checking the outline to make sure it’s the right shade. This photo shows how the outline looks like after I wiped the ink.   Using the machine, start with gently outlining the tail of the brows in an up and down motion. Outline the eyebrows with light pressure at first to see how your client’s skin absorbs the ink. After working on a small part of the tail, wipe the ink with a dry tissue to see how pigmented the brows are so far. If the skin doesn’t absorb much, shade with slightly harder pressure. If it’s too dark, then make sure your pressure is much lighter when shading the other end of the brows to achieve the ombre effect. Filling in the Outline Once the outline is done, you can start shading inside the outline. Some eyebrow artists may shade a small portion of the brows first and wipe to check the darkness, but I usually shade the full brow first before wiping to check the result. This makes the shades more even as my hand becomes more familiar with the movement and pressure. If I stop midway to wipe and check, the pressure and stroke direction might change, resulting in patchy brows. Once you reach the front of the brows, you can do the pendulum movement so the points are farther away from each other and not as full as the tail. I shade the bottom brows more as I want them to look darker and go lighter as you go to the top of the brows. How many passes should you do when doing digital shading? Since her skin is already irritated after the first pass, I applied some numbing cream on the skin first and worked on the other brow When the whole brow is filled, wipe the ink to check the results. If her skin is irritated (see photo), apply a numbing cream, and move on to the next brow. If it’s not yet irritated, you can do another pass to achieve the desired darkness. On your succeeding passes, apply lighter pressure when shading to better control the darkness. Remember, it’s easier to do a touch-up of lighter brows than correct dark brows that your client is not happy with. Also, I recommend a depth of no deeper than .8 mm when shading. The number of passes when microshading with a digital machine depends on your client’s skin. I recommend doing five, if possible, but if your client’s skin is sensitive and gets irritated quickly, continue the shading procedure during touch-up. The client’s eyebrows after four passes (left) vs the fifth pass (right) The Healing Process After the Digital Shading Procedure Your role as the brow artist doesn’t simply include creating beautiful ombre brows. You also have to educate your client about the healing process and how they can take care of the brows before your next appointment. Remind your client to sleep on their back while the eyebrows are not yet completely healed. The ink has not yet completely settled until the skin has healed so it’s important to be extra careful with the eyebrows after the treatment. Expect the skin on the eyebrows to shed in the next few weeks after the procedure. Remind your client to apply an antiseptic ointment and use unscented soap to wash their face day and night. Depending on the skin, healing can take up to two to three weeks. Schedule another appointment with your client after a month or so to check the results and the skin’s reaction to the procedure. If there are some bald spots or the client wants a darker shade, you can adjust accordingly during the touch-up! Are you feeling excited about adding digital shading to your services and give your clients the coveted ombre eyebrows? Ask us about our machine shading and other courses here ! Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Digital Microshading: Ombre Brows, How Many Passes, Healing Process, and More

Have you ever wondered how some women have beautiful powder or ombre eyebrows even in their #WokeUpLikeThis or #NoMakeUp photos? You have the wonders of microblading and micoshading to thank for that. If you are thinking of offering digital microshading to your clients, keep reading to find out what you need to know to serve your clients better. Microblading vs Microshading: What’s the Difference? Long story short, the major difference between microblading and microshading is the stroke. You use a pen to create hair-like strokes with microblading, whereas microshading is a more advanced technique that deposits pigment into the eyebrows through needles that create pin-point dots. If you want a more detailed comparison and contrast of microblading and microshading, you can read our post here. Tools for Microshading to Achieve Ombre Eyebrows Mapping thread (watch our mapping tutorial here ) Beauty Slesh Pro Outline Pencil PMU Machine  1RL needle Ink (I used Tina Davies on my tutorial) Emla numbing cream Applicator Plastic wrap  Tissue for wiping ink and cream Digital Microshading: The Process of Creating Ombre Eyebrows Just like with microblading, the first meeting with your client involves consultation. You can ask the client what shape they like and what their preferred darkness is. If your client has any concerns, questions, or want to tell you about their experience with permanent make-up, this is the time for that. Following your client’s preferred style, proceed to map and draw the eyebrows. I use a white waterproof pencil to outline the brows as they are more visible than simply using dark-colored pencils. Image caption: Keep checking the outline to make sure it’s the right shade. This photo shows how the outline looks like after I wiped the ink. Using the machine, start with gently outlining the tail of the brows in an up and down motion. Outline the eyebrows with light pressure at first to see how your client’s skin absorbs the ink. After working on a small part of the tail, wipe the ink with a dry tissue to see how pigmented the brows are so far. If the skin doesn’t absorb much, shade with slightly harder pressure. If it’s too dark, then make sure your pressure is much lighter when shading the other end of the brows to achieve the ombre effect. Filling in the Outline Once the outline is done, you can start shading inside the outline. Some eyebrow artists may shade a small portion of the brows first and wipe to check the darkness, but I usually shade the full brow first before wiping to check the result. This makes the shades more even as my hand becomes more familiar with the movement and pressure. If I stop midway to wipe and check, the pressure and stroke direction might change, resulting in patchy brows. Once you reach the front of the brows, you can do the pendulum movement so the points are farther away from each other and not as full as the tail. I shade the bottom brows more as I want them to look darker and go lighter as you go to the top of the brows. How many passes should you do when doing digital shading? Image caption: Since her skin is already irritated after the first pass, I applied some numbing cream on the skin first and worked on the other brow When the whole brow is filled, wipe the ink to check the results. If her skin is irritated (see photo), apply a numbing cream, and move on to the next brow. If it’s not yet irritated, you can do another pass to achieve the desired darkness. On your succeeding passes, apply lighter pressure when shading to better control the darkness. Remember, it’s easier to do a touch-up of lighter brows than correct dark brows that your client is not happy with. Also, I recommend a depth of no deeper than .8 mm when shading. The number of passes when microshading with a digital machine depends on your client’s skin. I recommend doing five, if possible, but if your client’s skin is sensitive and gets irritated quickly, continue the shading procedure during touch-up. Image caption: The client’s eyebrows after four passes (left) vs the fifth pass (right) The Healing Process After the Digital Shading Procedure Your role as the brow artist doesn’t simply include creating beautiful ombre brows. You also have to educate your client about the healing process and how they can take care of the brows before your next appointment. Remind your client to sleep on their back while the eyebrows are not yet completely healed. The ink has not yet completely settled until the skin has healed so it’s important to be extra careful with the eyebrows after the treatment. Expect the skin on the eyebrows to shed in the next few weeks after the procedure. Remind your client to apply an antiseptic ointment and use unscented soap to wash their face day and night. Depending on the skin, healing can take up to two to three weeks. Schedule another appointment with your client after a month or so to check the results and the skin’s reaction to the procedure. If there are some bald spots or the client wants a darker shade, you can adjust accordingly during the touch-up!  Are you feeling excited about adding digital shading to your services and give your clients the coveted ombre eyebrows? Ask us about our machine shading and other courses here ! The post Digital Microshading: Ombre Brows, How Many Passes, Healing Process, and More appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Machine Shading: Choosing the Right Speed Settings and Depth

“What speed should I use when microshading? What should be the depth?” I get asked these questions a lot. Choosing the right depth and speed of your machine is crucial as it will significantly affect the results. Whether you want to achieve a lighter shade or a seamless fading effect, the speed of the machine for shading plays an important role. If you want to know the difference between microshading and microblading, click here . The Beauty Slesh PMU machine and the sample lines created when doing machine shading When using the shading machine, the needles make pin-point dots on the skin as you move the machine while shading. When you set the machine to the highest speed settings, the dots created are closer to each and will look more like lines. When you decrease the speed, the dots created are farther apart from each other. This will result in lighter shades and is very important for achieving the powder brows effect. So what exactly should you consider when choosing your speed settings? Three Factors to Consider When Setting the Shading Machine Speed 1. Is the speed right for your client’s skin? You should consider whether a certain speed will damage your clients’ skin or if it is too painful for them. You should also note whether their skin is sensitive and gets irritated quickly or is prone to bleeding. 2. Is the machine speed strong enough to insert the pigment? If the machine you’re using has poor quality, there may be instances when the machine is not strong enough to break into the skin’s superficial layer. For machines with poor quality, increasing the speed settings might damage the skin, but if you’re using a high-quality one, this won’t be a problem. 3. Which speed should you choose when shading different areas of the brows? The speed setting I commonly use is versatile and will work well whether you want darker or lighter shades. However, different machines will have different speed settings and results. For starters, the distance between the dots in the photo is the ideal distance. Adjust your machine speed settings to achieve the same effect and distance between each dot. Staying on that speed setting will make it easier for you to control the machine and the darkness of the shades that you want. Take note of your hand movement and position as well. Even if we’re using the same machine, but our hand movements and position are different, then we’ll have different results even if we set the same speed. Again, practice with your latex skin first and play with your machine’s speed settings until you achieve the distance of the dots in the photo. Hand Movement and Pressure Once you know the ideal speed setting for your machine and can achieve the same distance and pattern, you can start playing with creating different shades using the same speed settings. If you want a lighter shade, you can achieve this by doing wider hand movements and applying lighter pressure. To achieve darker shades for the tail of the brows, you can do slower hand movements and focus on one area of the brow until you get the desired darkness. Apart from identifying the correct speed, make sure to practice your hand movements and the pressure you apply as well. You can watch my YouTube video showing the different results when using different settings here . The Right Depth When Microshading You can practice on a radish (in photo) or latex skin. You can see the hand movements when machine shading through this video . Whether you’re doing microblading or microshading, keep in mind that you should only make cuts or pinpoint dots on the superficial layer of the skin. They should be shallow and shouldn’t hurt even when you’re not using a numbing cream during the first pass. If you go deeper on the skin, you’ll end up with bluish and patchy healed results. Ideally, the depth should not be more than .5 mm. But again, make sure you’re only working on the outer layer and not any deeper. If you want to achieve a darker shade, do not apply more pressure or stay in one area for too long. Instead, do more passes and go over the same area a couple more times while still applying light pressure still. I can’t emphasize enough how much better your results will be if you just work on the superficial layer of the skin and not go any deeper. I hope you find this post about the correct speed and depth for machine shading helpful! Once you’re done with the treatment, make sure to take photos of your clients from different angles so you can use them for promoting your service. You can read about different ways to attract more clients here .   I can’t wait to share my editing course with you and teach you my tricks on how I created photos that got me more clients. Don’t forget to sign up here to get notified once the registration is open! The post Machine Shading: Choosing the Right Speed Settings and Depth appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Microblading and Marketing: Tips and Tricks to Booking More Microblading Clients

Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be helpful to us as eyebrow artists. When the world caught on the microblading trend somewhere around 2015, finding a great microblading artist wasn’t easy. There were not as many microblading artists that were available a couple of years ago compared to the present, so competition wasn’t as stiff. Today, there have been more and more talented eyebrow artists offering microblading procedures. This is why just because you have mastered the microblading patterns or are really good in your craft doesn’t mean clients will automatically come knocking on your door. How exactly can you stand out so you can get more customers? Keep reading to learn my tips and tricks to booking more microblading clients .   1. Take lots of pictures of your clients in different angles Even if you’ve only had a few clients, you can take photos in different angles and edit them for posting to your social media. Just from one microblading client, you can take a couple of shots of the same client and post them with various captions. For example, one photo will have a caption related to the pattern and hand movements, the next one will have a depth-related caption, while another photo can be captioned with tricks on getting clean, crisp strokes. You get the idea. People have asked me what camera I use for my photos on my social media. You can start by just using your phone and play with its editing features or use an editing app. If you’d like to invest in a camera though, I highly recommend the Sony Camera Alpha 600. This is what I use and how it delivers high quality of the photos and videos even though it’s very compact.   2. Your social media platforms should have beautiful images of eyebrows Aren’t you thankful that we live in a time where you don’t need tens of thousands of dollars to promote your business? You can create social media accounts for free and work on growing them organically when you’re not working on clients. But how exactly? What I did was consistently post attention-grabbing eyebrow or make-up related photos. Some photos you can post are before-and-after shots, photos from Pinterest, a beauty blogger’s photo, or even stock photos related to microblading. Learn how to edit your photos so your target audience will stop scrolling through their feed. Investing in an editing course to create beautiful images that will capture women’s attention is more than worth it. I put a lot of effort into editing my photos to keep my social media profiles beautiful and professional-looking. All my hard work has paid off! If you want to learn more about editing photos for your social media or website, you can pre-register for the course here so you can be notified when it is live. In the course, I teach about the proper lighting, reducing skin redness or uneven tones, tricks for Pinterest and Instagram, the good angles for taking eyebrow photos, and a lot more.   3. Don’t be scared to spend on Instagram or Facebook ads They say the higher the risk, the greater the reward. Well, with paid ads, you really are taking some risk by spending on ads, but the reward can also be great. The good thing about trying Instagram or Facebook ads is you can set your own budget and test which ads work for your target audience. In my case, I’ve had more success attracting the right audience using Instagram ads while my Facebook ads didn’t exactly work. Even though Facebook Ads didn’t work for me, it might work for you so don’t completely rule it out! What I like about Facebook Ads is you can target customers that live closer to your studio.   4. Ask your friends or clients to refer you Word of mouth is still one of the best ways of promoting your service. It’s easy to ask your family and friends to refer you to people they know. But how can you have your clients send their friends to you? It’s not just about doing a great job, but also making a connection with your clients. Try to make them feel at home and comfortable during your microblading treatment. Be the perfect balance of warm, friendly, polite, and professional. If they feel happy with your work and how you made them feel during the treatment, they will gladly recommend you even if you don’t ask them to.   5. Offer discounts for clients who refer a friend or post their eyebrows and tag you I offer three prices on my price list. One is the regular price. The second one is the discounted price if they post their beautiful brows on their social media and tag me on the post. For the third one, I included a discount for clients who booked a full procedure with a friend. This has been a very effective way of promoting my microblading service and getting more clients! Even if they don’t manage to bring a friend the first time, they typically end up inviting friends to book with them first. Once their friends see the beautiful results and decide to get microblading done, they are more likely to come to you.     6. Create a profile on Google My Business Most of us have Googled something like “ Japanese restaurants near me ” or “ salon near me.” If you want to show up in one of the recommended businesses whenever someone searches “ microblading near me ” or “ nanoblading near me,” you have to have a Google My Business profile. The free version should be enough if you’re still starting. Make sure the contact details and addresses are correct though so you won’t end up losing a potential client!   7. Have an automatic online booking system Many customers tend to search for services outside of office hours. If a customer found your website, but can’t call you because your office is closed or maybe you can’t reply because you’re not online to check messages, you end up losing a potential microblading client. If you have an online booking system in place, your customers can easily book the schedule themselves and even pay for the booking online. This also makes you look more professional! I use Appointy to automatically schedule my microblading clients and it has helped me free up so much time. If you want to learn more about Appointy, I wrote a more detailed post about why I like it here . For a free, risk-free 14 day trial, you can click here or click the photo below.       The post Microblading and Marketing: Tips and Tricks to Booking More Microblading Clients appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Managing Client Bookings: How I Automate My Booking Process and What I Use in My Microblading Business

  Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be helpful to us as eyebrow artists. So you’ve practiced your microblading patterns and your models are happy with the results–congratulations! Now that you can start booking more clients, you need to find ways on how you can run your microblading business efficiently and automatically. Doing so will let you spend more time improving your craft and working on more clients in the future. Using Appointy as my online scheduler for Beauty Slesh has helped me free up so much time so I can focus on mastering new techniques, tools, and patterns and serve my clients better. Apart from having more time (which is more than enough reason for me!) here are three more reasons why I love Appointy and why I use it for managing my online bookings for my microblading business: 1. My clients can book and pay 24/7 – As long as my client has the link to book an appointment with me, they can easily do so even outside of office hours. My clients can book, pay, reschedule, or cancel their booking through Appointy without having to wait for me to reply to them. We can’t afford to lose clients just because it took us a long time to respond to their queries regarding the schedule! If you only have a few clients, in the beginning, going the traditional route of booking clients through answering their questions on your social media or WhatsApp can work at first. But is it efficient? Definitely not. Once you start getting more inquiries, you’ll end up losing precious time checking your calendar to make sure you don’t double book clients or finding a slot that works for both of you. All the hours you spend in scheduling add up and you’ll be surprised to see how much time you spend on this task that you can easily automate.   2. I can easily customize the procedures, schedules, and payment process Above photo is what clients see while the photo below is how my dashboard looks. On my dashboard, I can set up different procedures that I do and set the time it typically takes for the procedure. The schedule can be easily customized to my availability, too. I can decide which slots I want to open and until when my slots will be open and block unavailable times. For example, I only want to open booking availability until the end of April, Appointy lets me do that. This feature is perfect for me because my schedule changes so much! Since customers can pay using this scheduling tool, you can also design how much you want your clients to pay upon scheduling. You can have them pay in full upfront upon booking or just the deposit. The terms of service and cancellation policies can also be included depending on what your specific terms are. Another way I can customize this online scheduling tool is through the questionnaire my clients fill out during their appointment. I can tweak the questionnaire for the full procedure and for touch-up without having to print the forms. Once my clients book, they will be asked the questions that I included in Appointy.   3. They have incredible customer support – I was so impressed with how quickly their representatives responded to my queries. It literally took a minute for them to reply when I asked something. The installation process is user-friendly, but they can also install everything for you if you ask them to. If you’re confused with setting up automatic reminders or offering gift certificates and discount coupons, their customer support reps are very friendly and will help you right away. I can go on and on about how Appointy has been really helpful in my microblading business, but it’s a lot better if you just try it out yourself. You can try Appointy for free for 14 days using my link or clicking the photo below.   How do you manage your client bookings and how long does it typically take you to coordinate schedules in a day? Let me know in the comments!             The post Managing Client Bookings: How I Automate My Booking Process and What I Use in My Microblading Business appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Sanitize and Disinfect Your Microblading Tools: Keep Your PMU Equipment and Studio Clean

  Let’s talk about the unglamorous part of being a microblading artist: sanitizing and sterilizing our microblading tools. Unless you can already afford to hire an experienced assistant right away, you have to learn how to clean and disinfect your equipment. I personally use single-use needles and dispose of them properly, but I still have to clean and sterilize the microblading pen and other tools I use during the procedure. These tools come in close contact with skin and, for some, blood. If your equipment is not disinfected properly, you and your clients may be at risk of getting bloodborne diseases such as hepatitis b, HIV, and similar illnesses. Without further ado, here are things I recommend you get to ensure your tools and your studio are hygienic and safe for your clients. Basic Products To Keep Your Tools Clean Here’s a quick list of products we recommend for use in your microblading studio. You can either get the same brand or your preferred one as long as they are high-level or medical-grade. Disposable adult bibs (also known as dental bibs). This versatile bib is a must-have in your studio. You can use this to cover and protect your facial chair and change it every time you have a different client.  Tray for used tools. You can easily grab this tray with everything that needs disinfecting at the end of the day. Disposable anti-microbial gloves. Keep your hands clean either while working on your clients or disinfecting your microblading tools. Disinfecting Tray. If you don’t have a UV sterilization tray, that’s all right. You can soak the tools in a disinfecting tray with no problems (more on this later). Sterilized tray for clean tools. Make sure your newly disinfected tools are kept in a clean, sterilized tray.  Cleaning brushes. This can be one of your make-up brushes as their bristles are soft and non-abrasive.  PREempt CS 20, Cidex, or similar high-level disinfectants. Use this for soaking the tools (more on this later). Acetone. When you need to clean stubborn dirt such as glue or ink. Spray Nine heavy-duty cleaner and disinfectant. You can use this for wiping surfaces and trays in your studio, including the chairs. CaviWipes surface disinfectant. You can use this brand or your preferred medical-grade disinfectant wipes after spraying the surfaces with Spray Nine. Alcohol. This should be at least 70% to 90% alcohol.   How to Disinfect Your Microblading Tools and Trays I recommend placing a new adult bib on your facial chair, pillow, and tool tray every time you have a different client to avoid any form of contamination.  Once your last client of the day leaves, grab the tray for used tools to wherever you keep your disinfectant tray. Fill your disinfecting tray with either PREempt CS 20 or similar high-level disinfectant. Put enough solution to cover your tools. Fill your sink or bowl with warm water and dishwashing liquid. Wash your tools and brush them first.  Immerse your tools such as your microblading pen in the disinfecting tray filled with the solution.  Let them soak for 20 minutes or so. If you’re using a different disinfecting solution such as CIDEX, follow manufacturer instructions that come with the product.  Once they’re finished soaking, rinse them with warm water. Place them in a clean towel to dry. Once dry, store them in a clean, sterile tray.  While your tools are soaking, you can start cleaning your work area. Spray Nine is a highly-recommended disinfectant that you can use to spray on your chairs, tables, trays, and other surfaces.  After spraying, you can use medical-grade towelettes and wipes such as CaviWipes. You can also use the waiting time to vacuum, mop, or arrange your tools for the next day.  Going through all the cleaning and disinfecting will not only make your tools and studio hygienic. Doing these steps will avoid having to face bigger problems in the future should a client complain about cleanliness in your studio and the tools you use. More so, you will have the peace of mind that your clients are safe in your hands. Don’t forget to give yourself a pat in the back after a long day’s work, too!           Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free and helpful microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be beneficial to our microblading career.   The post Sanitize and Disinfect Your Microblading Tools: Keep Your PMU Equipment and Studio Clean appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Ombré Shading: How to Get Beautiful Gradient Effect For the Eyebrows

Ombré Shading: How to Get Beautiful Gradient Effect For the Eyebrows Ombré shading has become a trend and more and more clients have been asking for this coveted eyebrow effect. Who can resist having gorgeous eyebrows 24/7 anyway? With ombré brows, there’s no more filling in your brows before work every day or worrying about how they would look like whenever you go swimming. Depending on what your clients want, you can create either natural-looking brows or the full eyebrow make-up look with ombré shading. It’s such a versatile technique, but it is less intricate than doing hair strokes when microblading. To get the ombré effect, you have to blend the shades properly to achieve a beautiful fade from light to dark. Keep reading to find out you can do just that. Creating Soft Transitions and Seamless Gradient for Ombre Shading 1. Draw a crisp outline. You should map the brow really nicely to achieve a crisp outline. To make it easier for you, the outline should be sharper than when doing microblading. 2. Shade the outline gently from the tip to the head of the brow. Always remember that pressure has to be lighter as you go towards the head to make a lighter front. The top line of the front of the brows should look very light, so apply very gentle pressure. If the outline on the front of the brows is dark, it will be hard to achieve a natural look once you start shading. Wipe just a small section of the shaded outline to see if there’s any ink left, if there’s none left, increase the pressure. 3. Start filling in the tip of the tail of the brows up to the arch. This should be the darkest section of the brows. When shading, start from the top part of the brow, shade your way to the bottom, and then back up again. Make sure the hand movements are consistent throughout so the results are even. Keep the pressure light to achieve good retention and avoid scarring. 4. The secret to a beautifully blended ombre effect is your hand movements! Since you want a darker effect in the tail, your strides should be more controlled and your back and forth hand movements narrower. This allows the shading machine to create more pin-point dots on the tail of the brows to achieve a darker look. Hand movements for the head of the brows should be wide enough for the dots to be far apart from each other. Work on a small section of the tail first and wipe the pigment once you finish working on that specific section. This will let you evaluate your work and make any needed adjustments if there are any gaps or missed areas. Only then should you move on to the next part of the brow. 5. Continue on to the middle part of the brows, with wider back and forth movements of the hand compared to when shading the tail and the arch. 6. Again wipe the pigment after working on a small section to ensure the shades are blended well and you did not miss any areas. 7. Once you reach the front of the brow, apply extremely light pressure and much wider hand movements. You should simply be brushing the machine on the skin to achieve dots that are much farther apart from each other. 8. With wider strides, blend your way back in towards the middle part of the brow for a seamless looking gradient effect. 9. Speed I use – A lot of people ask me what the machine speed setting should be when shading. There’s no one answer to this as different machines have different speed settings. What I can say is play with the settings until you achieve similar dot effects in the photo above when you make wide back and forth strides. I wrote a more detailed post about it here . 10. The machine I use – I use the Bella Dragon Machine which is really best for shading. Check it out here https://www.beautyslesh.com/product/bella-dragon-pmu-machine/ 11. Color I use – I use Tina Davies pigments for shading. You can the pigments using this link http://bit.ly/32xhDNm to get a 15% discount on your purchase.   I’m launching an Ombré Shading course at BeautySlesh Academy soon!  I’ll teach you everything you have to know to create consistently beautiful and elegant ombré shaded eyebrows that your clients will love. I’ll even share my exclusive ombré shading techniques that got me more clients. If you’re ready to invest in yourself so you can offer ombré shading to your clients, you can pre-register here . Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free and helpful microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be beneficial to our microblading career.   The post Ombré Shading: How to Get Beautiful Gradient Effect For the Eyebrows appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Ombré Shading: How to Get Beautiful Gradient Effect For the Eyebrows

Ombré Shading: How to Get Beautiful Gradient Effect For the Eyebrows Ombré shading has become a trend and more and more clients have been asking for this coveted eyebrow effect. Who can resist having gorgeous eyebrows 24/7 anyway? With ombré brows, there’s no more filling in your brows before work everyday or worrying about how they would look like whenever you go swimming. Depending on what your clients want, you can create either natural-looking brows or the full eyebrow make-up look with ombré shading. It’s such a versatile technique, but it is less intricate than doing hair strokes when microblading. To get the ombré effect, you have to blend the shades properly to achieve a beautiful fade from light to dark. Keep reading to find out you can do just that.   Creating Soft Transitions and Seamless Gradient for Ombre Shading 1. Draw the outline of your desired brow shape first. To make it easier for you, the outline should be sharper than when doing microblading. 2. When working on the outline, the pressure should be lighter the closer you get to the top front of the brows. The outline should match the lighter shade of the front of the brows. The top line of the front of the brows should look very light, so apply very gentle pressure. If the outline on the front of the brows are dark, it will be hard to achieve a natural look once you start shading. 3. Start filling in the tip of the tail of the brows up to the arch. This should be the darkest section of the brows. When shading, start from the top part of the brow, shade your way to the bottom, and then back up again. Make sure the hand movements are consistent throughout so the results are even. Keep the pressure light to achieve good retention and avoid scarring. The secret to a beautifully blended ombre effect are your hand movements! Since you want a darker effect in the tail, your strides should be more controlled and your back and forth hand movements narrower. This allows the shading machine to create more pin-point dots on the tail of the brows to achieve a darker look. The lighter the shade that you want, the wider the hand movements should be. 4. Work on a small section of the tail first and wipe the pigment once you finish working on that specific section. This will let you evaluate your work and make any needed adjustments if there are any gaps or missed areas. Only then should you move on to the next part of the brow. 5. Continue on to the middle part of the brows, with wider back and forth movements of the hand compared to when shading the tail and the arch. 6. Again wipe the pigment after working on a small section to ensure the shades are blended well and you did not miss any areas. 7. Once you reach the front of the brow, apply extremely light pressure and much wider hand movements . You should simply be brushing the machine on the skin to achieve dots that are much farther apart from each other. 8. With wider strides, blend your way back in towards the middle part of the brow for a seamless looking gradient effect. Machine Speed Settings A lot of people ask me what the machine speed setting should be when shading. There’s no one answer to this as different machines have different speed settings. What I can say is play with the settings until you achieve the similar dot effects in the photo above when you make wide back and forth strides. I wrote a more detailed post about it here .     I’m launching an Ombré Shading course at BeautySlesh Academy soon!  I’ll teach you everything you have to know to create consistently beautiful and elegant ombré shaded eyebrows that your clients will love. I’ll even share my exclusive ombré shading techniques that got me more clients. If you’re ready to invest in yourself so you can offer ombré shading to your clients, you can pre-register here . Heads up! This post contains affiliate links and I will earn a small commission for any purchase you make at no extra cost to you. This will help me provide you with more free and helpful microblading content in the future! Don’t worry as I will never recommend anything on Beauty Slesh that I don’t personally believe in and won’t be beneficial to our microblading career.   The post Ombré Shading: How to Get Beautiful Gradient Effect For the Eyebrows appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Improve your microblading: How to achieve crisp strokes.

Improve your microblading: How to achieve crisp strokes. Let me ask you something: Do you struggle with your brow work turning blurry? Do you seem to get endlessly patchy results? Do your strokes never seem to disappear at all? If you answered yes to any of these above questions then don’t get discouraged because this post is for you. Microblading can feel like one of the hardest procedures to learn, and as you likely already know, it takes quite a bit of practice to achieve the desired look. The following two factors will greatly influence your results: A. Your client’s skin condition.   B. Your choice of technique, skills, and microblading patterns. Let’s discuss these in more detail so that you can have a well-rounded understanding of their effects on your microblading goals starting with the first one. A: Your client’s skin condition. No matter how excellent your skills are if your client has problematic skin it’s difficult to expect great results. I personally don’t perform microblading on every skin type and I always try to explain to my clients with a skin condition that it could result in undesirable soft-blurred strokes and that might not meet their ideal expectations. Sure it  would still look natural, but it wouldn’t be as ideally crisp as it should be. You should only move forward with the procedure if after you’ve explained these points thoroughly they still express a desire to continue. The following are some of the common skin conditions that can affect your microblading results: 1. Being overweight . Often people with overweight body types can experience an oilier skin consistency. If they’re lucky they might receive a powdered brow look but worst case scenario it can possibly heal into a terribly patchy smudged look. You can definitely still provide microblading for such clients, but make sure you choose a more suitable microblading pattern that I will discuss later on in this post. 2. Having big pores . When working with this skin type it will be very hard to make microblading stay on the skin. Most of your efforts will be lost on this kind of skin during the healing process and it might require several touch-ups furthermore resulting in the strokes will not be as crisp as ideally desired. 3. Previously tattooed brows . Another difficult skin type worth mentioning is any that’s been previously tattooed with ink that hasn’t faded completely. Even though the strokes might have healed crisply they’ll likely become almost invisible and unable to cover the previous tattoo. In this case, I usually perform machine strokes as they heal nicely in almost any case. For more information about microblading versus machine hair strokes click here . 4. Highly vascular skin . This skin type often requires several touch-ups because due to the nature of the skin it can be very hard to inject the ink without excessive bleeding. In some of these cases, it is best not to perform microblading at all. 5. Previous skin treatments . Clients that came to you after skin treatments, facials, sunburns, will have similar results to those with high vascular skin. Microblading in this scenario is not recommended. B: Your choice of technique, skills and microblading patterns. 3 Finger stretch . Your client’s skin is your canvas and you need to work with it stretched tightly. This is a very important condition which many of you might ignore but keep in mind that the more you stretch the skin tightly into the direction of your planned stroke, the crisper it would be after healing. Strokes should not overlap. If the front of the brow looks clean and is healing nicely but the middle and tail of the brows appear patchy then this is an indicator that you must work on your stroke placement. As with the front , middle and tail parts of the brow, strokes should have their own position and place. I recommend carefully planning the middle brow strokes and practice a hundred times if needed. There should be no sense of improvising the results for your client in these areas and practice makes perfect. Equal distance between strokes . Each and every stroke that I place on my client’s brows is with a precise distance between them. If you need some guiding assistance when doing this you can put dots around the shape to assist you with guiding the distance by eye.  Clean pattern . It’s important to always make certain that the middle strokes are as clean as the front. There should be no overlapping and no overstuffing the area with strokes. Fewer strokes better healing . The less the number of strokes you need to make the less damage you make to the skin and therefore the better healed the result. Don’t try to stuff an empty spot with a bunch of random strokes. Instead, it is better to fill it out on your touch-up to avoid the neighbour strokes being messed up. Otherwise, you can get a patchy and blurry look, or sometimes even scarring. When it comes to people with problematic skin conditions I prefer a simpler microblading pattern with just a bunch of semi-curved parallel lines. Make sure to place ink on the skin first. You should make sure your blade has ink on the tip before you slide. You want to make sure you get your ink inside the micro-cut so typically I would first slightly tap on the skin to place the ink first and then slide through the skin. Quality of ink. The quality of your ink is very crucial and it does improve your results drastically. Although I usually try not to sponsor outside brands I must say that the Phibrows ink is by far my favorite for microblading.  Quality of blades, thin and thick. As you could imagine, thinner blades tend to create less damage to the skin which leads to a much crisper outcome. What more can I say? It’s as simple as that. Fewer paths mean better healing . Microblading strokes were not meant to look thick, intense or vivid so it’s not recommended that you aim to achieve this by doing too many paths because by doing so this will scar the skin. Clients who like dark, “stand out” brows should choose powder brows, add shading to microblading, or have strokes done by machine. Stay away from any temptation to try to achieve a heavy brow look with just microblading as you’ll cause too much damage to the skin and I don’t recommend it at all.  The Secret Path I’m going to share my secret here and that is to inject the ink one more time right after you’ve placed it. R ight after you finish one side of the brow you can inject ink one more time (very carefully) throughout the pattern before finally moving to the other brow. Let’s consider w hat happens when you move to the other side, your skin will naturally react and start to lock in the ink so it makes no sense to reopen it again and again and thus damage it. When doing this you should place the ink with caution over the exact same stroke being careful not to go over the boundaries. Otherwise healed strokes will come out thicker and blurrier. After the second (or at most the third) path of ink injection, you should stop and if the stroke is not dark enough you should explain to the client that you’ll be leaving it for their touch up. Your pattern for each skin type For good, tight-conditioned skin, I prefer to use a more complicated pattern: For oily, problematic skin, I prefer to use a simpler, parallel lines pattern: Pressure and depth It’s important for new students to pay careful attention to the depth of their work as it is common that they might tend to go too deep in the beginning. It should only be as deep as you would do if you were microblading without numbing cream; as shallow as possible! Remember, you can always add missing strokes on the touch-up but you can never color correct deeply scarred blue strokes.  You can practice on fruits and bananas, just slightly scratching the upper layers. Want to learn more? Check out my videos on Youtube . The post Improve your microblading: How to achieve crisp strokes. appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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The pros and cons of microblading vs machine hair-strokes.

The pros and cons of microblading vs machine hair-strokes. Pros of microblading: 1. The microblading process uses a manual tool with a blade which makes it very easy to operate and draw strokes. 2. Unlike with the machine, micoblading doesn’t have an intimidating sound for the client to have to overcome. This also means that there are no vibrational distractions either so you can better control a manual tool while placing strokes more easily than you could with a machine. Cons of microblading: 1. Microblading makes small cuts where ink is to be placed in the skin that could be comparably similar to a papercut. Unfortunately, some inadequately trained artists can damage the skin of their clients even though the cuts are only small in scale. Moreover, at this point, any touchup procedures will just further damage their client’s skin. 2. After the ink has been trapped, the skin starts to lock the ink. It takes more effort to lock ink in the whole cut, as well as chances are ink is not distributed evenly. You may notice also if It bleeds, it will be almost impossible to keep ink inside. 3. After first ink injection, there is a second, third path you may need to perform, to make sure ink has been placed. This would trigger potentially over thicken the stroke which during the healing process will turn into a fatty blurry stroke,  far from natural-looking Pros of Machine Hairstrokes: 1. The hair-strokes process uses a machine that has one tiny needle that inserts small dots of ink inside the skin. This procedure is almost painless and you can perform machine hair-strokes without any numbing cream. This method tightly locks the ink within as the dots increase and align together to create a stroke. 2. Another major benefit of machine hair-strokes is that the skin rarely will bleed which assists with keeping the results of the ink. 3. Once you do the stroke you can make it easily darker just by going through the same path again until you are satisfied with the intensity of the outcome. With microblading, if the result doesn’t appear dark enough you can only perform limited stroke paths to avoid scaring. This means that at a certain point if the outcome isn’t ideal then there is not much you can do and you must leave it until you can provide a touch-up. Please note: The darkness of the machine hair-strokes isn’t created by going deeper into the skin but are created by inserting more ink at the same depth. Cons of machine hair-strokes: If you operate with the needle too deeply into the skin you’re at risk of overusing the machine. Ideally, your hand movement should be light and the needle should delicately touch the surface of the skin. It is also important to keep in mind that it is hard to control the machine because of the vibration so you’ll need to confidently keep your hands stable with practice and overall I would suggest moving on to learning hair-strokes after mastering microblading. In addition to this here is some further comparison: 1. The potential for unwanted blurry healing: There’s a 60% chance of this with microblading. With the machine, there’s a 30% chance of this happening. 2. Ink Placement : The microblading process needs several paths. The machine-based procedure could be done with one path. 3. Healing process and healed result : Microblading has a healed result of 30-80% with a longer healing process with special aftercare. The machine-based process has a healed result of 50-90% and almost no aftercare is required as it’s easy to heal. 4. Healing timeframe: Microblading will take twice as long than machine procedures. The post The pros and cons of microblading vs machine hair-strokes. appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Deciding between manual shading and machine shading for your career.

Deciding between manual shading and machine shading for your career. It can be difficult enough to know the difference between manual shading and machine shading let alone to learn which is best to learn how to perform for your future career. In general, the difference between these two methods is what’s we refer to as the ‘healed result’ and ‘brow look’. In this article, we’ll be describing these in more detail so that you can feel confident in understanding the differences so you can better decide what your own individual preferences are moving forward. 1. Manual Shading. It should be noted that manual shading does tend to heal better however when machine shading has been performed correctly it can also heal without loss as well. By performing manual shading you can create a more grainy look with more visible dots. You can make a really nice soft outline, especially by using specific shading tool such as 3RL. . 3RL   2. Machine shading. When using machine shading you can create a smooth and seamless shade. However, It can be hard to do a soft outline as it will appear more defined than in manual shading. You can create a nice ombre effect with two methods and bot h the procedures can be performed fast but usually, for the beginners, manual shading does take much more time and effort.   The difference in the process : Manual shading. Manual shading requires numbing cream before the procedure.  When starting the process, you should place the ink on the skin area first, then start to tap with slight pressure in the area where the ink is lying. Be aware that overly pushing shading needles into the skin will create undesirably patchy dark spots after healing. Erase the ink, see the result and then go to further areas. The Shading tools you choose will depend on the look you want to achieve and really depends on your own personal preferences. It is recommended that you first try practising on fake skin to see which one suits you more. I usually prefer 3RL because I can do more accurate tiny work without patches. Also because I’ve noticed that I can better control the shades area. I could use 2 raw shaders in specific areas like the middle part of the brow because this would help me complete the task faster. Machine shading. Machine shading can be done without numbing cream which is a great benefit for the healing result. Though after the skin starts to be irritated you can then place the secondary numbing cream. Additionally, you don’t need to place the ink on the skin first with the machine. You choose the proper speed and start your hand movement in a pendulum motion with your hand operate delicately on the very top of the skin. It’s important for you to ensure to switch the speed depending on the area of focus. Choose a lower speed for the light head of the brows and for the bottom and middle of the brows you can move to a faster level to help shade the area quicker. My preference. Unfortunately, machine shading simply can’t perform everything we might need in PMU such as the thinnest eyeliners or extra seamless ombré transitions. With that being said if I had to decide on only one option I would invest in learning machine method as it has so much more applications and to be creative with. The post Deciding between manual shading and machine shading for your career. appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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Should you be a microblading artist?

Should you be a microblading artist? People often approach me about what I do and understandably they have many questions on their mind like: What skills are needed to become a microblading artist? What are the pluses and minuses of the work? How do I get started? Before I tell you more about my story of entering the PMU world let me answer the first question. I strongly believe if you have a love for the art, have a good sense of aesthetic and makeup, and a creative mindset – then you should go for it! However, as easy as the PMU world might sound unfortunately it’s not an easy path, but with practice and experience, you can perfect your skill base. Finding a solid course with an excellent guideline is half the battle because it helps you to accelerate your learning with real experts in the field. We’ve covered many of the important factors pertaining to a microblading career below, so read on to learn more… Skills you need to have before applying for Training: 1. A stable hand First of all your hand should be really stable when it comes to providing your client with crispy strokes or following the outline in shading. Simply put, if you find your hands shaky then a PMU career might not be suitable for you. Additionally, it’s rather important to be able to freehand draw straight lines and general intuitive natural drawing skills. With practice you can improve these things, so we are not discouraging you if your heart is in it, but if you struggle with these requirements you’ll need to understand that practice will be imperative for your improvement to help to bring you up to the ideal skill level. 2. A tough mind You’ll need to be thick-skinned (pun intended). It’s common in this kind of work to be dealing with various clients on a daily basis. Each client has their own unique personality traits, concerns and demands and chances are you will have to deal with all kinds of situations and scenarios on top of your actual brow artistry. It is common for customers to have ongoing concerns with the healing process of the work you provide for them because of the new sensation and you’ll likely get messages about this even though you had explained this to them several times. Being comfortable dealing with this kind of situation is something you must be comfortable with and able to do in a calm, understanding and informatively helpful demeanor. There’s good news however, the number of such clients will subside as your workflow process and results improve over time. 3. Resourcefulness You are in charge of your brow fate and will have to face and overcome the struggle of finding new clients and your first models to work with. This can be a daunting prospect for people that haven’t had experience in this area before. 4. Initial capital This isn’t a necessary requirement for everyone, but it’s highly advisable in most scenarios to seek capital for your brow business to help things run more smoothly for you. Investing in a reliable course is an investment that will not only save you so many tears and mistakes but it will fast track your earning potential by getting you prepared. It’s also important to use high-quality ink and not cheaper types as the higher quality ones. At the very least this will protect you from having your color turning fire orange after a year! And finally, expensive blades and needles will give you the ability to achieve crispy strokes and really helps to bring the best out of your efforts. 5. Patience As with anything the path isn’t always easy and when it gets challenging you’ll need to dig deep and be willing to keep growing and not give in. It’s common for just about everybody to feel that their work is bad in the beginning but with continual practice and patience, you’ll begin to improve and then if you continue you’ll even excel. We’ve all been there and trust me I know the feeling too. I’d like to say I was born a gifted natural from the day I started, but honestly, my first work was terrible. What’s my secret? The same as yours needs to be. You need to be willing to practice as often as possible, learn from attending new masterclasses, and expand your knowledge on the topic by searching through the YouTube videos.   The pluses of a PMU microblading career: 1. High paid work Yes, you can earn a lot! Trust me from experience when I say that the biggest difficulty you’re going to have is from your friends asking you how you’re making so much money all of a sudden. Not a bad problem to have. 2. Flexible schedule One of my favorite things about what I do is that I can build my own schedule. By structuring your business correctly you can have as many holidays as you want! If you don’t like being told exactly when you need to arrive at the office, or getting declined days off work, then this is the ideal career choice for you. 3. Ability to grow your business After a certain point, you can hire people and expand your business. You can open a packed full Salon with all kinds of products and services. If you get really good you can also teach and have your own training classes. 4. Make connections and meet people Treat your clients like gold and they turn to gold! When you have several clients who are satisfied with your work they will do anything for you, including sharing your good work with their friends and family. Because happy clients beget happy clients.   The minuses of a PMU microblading career: 1. Dealing with complicated clients As I mentioned before you will have all types of clients with all kinds of concerns. It’s important to be aware and prepared for this so that you can smoothly respond to any issues and resolve them with a professional and kind attitude. 2. Stressful procedures PMU procedures will put stress on you because there is no room for mistake. No room at all. Your work will come and go, but you need to respect that the work you provide your client will be staying on the client’s faces for at least 1.5 years. You’ll need to be able to handle this calmly and excel under the pressure. You can see videos on how I used to practice before doing the actual client microblading or shading procedures when I was just starting on the BeautySlesh YouTube channel. 3. Back pain Once your client base grows and things are going well for you there’s a new challenge you’ll need to overcome, back pain. You’ll be sitting for long hours in one position over your clients and it’s important to manage this by stretching as needed in between your clients and maintaining a healthy physical routine. 4. Eyes You’ll be staring carefully and attentively at your micro strokes and shading work for long hours each day so it’s important to remember to try to rest your eyes at regular intervals between clients when possible. 5. Responsibility Infections All equipment must be cautiously sterilized and treated without fail to avoid infections and other health issues. This work deals with blood and so hygiene and cleanliness are imperative and non-negotiable for both you and your client’s protection. Speaking from personal experience microblading is a lucrative and fulfilling career that will reward you tenfold as long as you respect the responsibilities that you bare with it both for yourself and for your clients. By now it should be clear to you that just as with any business there’s pros and cons. Though despite the few minuses this business has, to me they’re clearly outweighed by the overwhelming benefits of my decision to follow this path. This is a beautifully rewarding career with open-ended potential at your fingertips, but it isn’t given to you, you have to create it. If after reading this article you know that this is your path then we’d like to hear from you.  If you have an interest in learning more about a career in microblading then contact us today to discuss your options. The post Should you be a microblading artist? appeared first on BeautySlesh - Brow Academy . Want to read more? Check out my other articles here: https://beautyslesh.com/tutorials/

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“How deep should the needle go❓” . ✅ Thursday question❓” How deep in millimeters should the needle go in?” . .
🔸 The fast answer is that you should go no deeper than 0.9mm and the ink should be placed in the upper layer of the dermis - BUT why? (The average epidermal thickness is 0.1 millimeters, dermis average thickness about 2 mm.)
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👉 First of all, the epidermis is on average 0.1mm thick so why not place the ink in there?
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🤔 Well because this layer of skin will actually renew itself every month! So if you were to only go this deep then the microblading work will be gone after the healing is complete. That is why some of the strokes disappear, due to too shallow placement of ink.
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👉 If we place ink in the lower layer of the dermis, instead of the right upper layer of the dermis, what will happen? 🔺 If the ink is quite deep then it is covered by too many layers of skin color, it will actually look blue under the skin. 🔺 Placing ink that deep will form a scar. Having a deep cut in the dermis will cause the body to form new collagen fibers to mend the damaged area. The new scar tissue will have a different texture and quality than the surrounding tissue besides that scar. Meaning that your client will not be able to hold the ink in that area. The tissue will be loose and not have enough tightness to help keep ink. For the same reason when a client comes to you to fix the old tattoo, microblading usually does not hold. .
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🙃 Leave your comment or question! I am curious about your thoughts on the depth and also clients who come with an old tattoo, where you be able to cover it with microblading?
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To see live questions and videos on this topic check out my IG @learn_beautyslesh stories.
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