Woman left with no eyebrows at all warns of dangers of cosmetic tattoo trend

August 22, 2017  21:07
A WOMAN who was left with no eyebrows after a dodgy tattoo job has issued a warning about the dangers of the brow inking trend.

Kym Lee, from Sydney, decided to have permanent eyebrow tattoos two years ago but was unhappy with the result.

She told news.com.au: “I just didn’t like the eyebrow shape, because she was tattooing me sort of free hand.

“I went back for a touch-up, but it’s a tattoo ... you can’t just rub it out and fix it again.”

Still not happy with her look, she decided to get the brows lasered off.

She said: “The more you fix it, the more it becomes a big blob. So I just thought I need to erase all this and start again.”

But the laser used to remove her eyebrows was so hot that it burnt her skin, creating a blister.

“It felt like my skin was being fried,” she said.

Kym went elsewhere for a second opinion, and after eight sessions costing her £740, all the tattoo has been properly removed.

“I didn’t have a lot of brows to start off with, but now I literally have no eyebrows,” she said.

“It takes me 10 minutes to draw them on in the morning. I have a pen that I use to draw my own eyebrows on every day.”

With the upsurge in the popularity of tattoos, laser removal has become big business and the latest technology – which uses sound waves rather than heat – costs over £150,000.

As a result, many unqualified beauty therapists buy cheap laser removal machines online and offer the service to clients without proper training.

Andrew Chim from Sydney’s Detail Tattoo Removals said more and more people were coming to him after getting bodged tattoos from untrained beauty therapists.

He said:  “There is a massive backyard cosmetic tattoo industry, because any therapist can buy a tattoo gun and do eyebrow tattoos for new revenue.

“In the past few years we’ve seen a massive increase in people coming in with bad eyebrow tattoos and wanting to get them removed.

“Many places are still using the Q-Switch machines, because they can’t afford to buy the new Picoway machines. We bought the Picoway about two years ago, it cost us £185,000 and that is the only technology that can get rid of tattoo ink properly.

“The laser literally shatters the ink into tiny pieces so your immune system can get rid of it more quickly. There is very little heat involved and after three to six treatments, the ink can go away.”

Kym now says is wary about getting her eyebrows tattooed on again and that she will do her research before committing to any more treatments.

“I think I need to give myself some time until I’m sick of drawing my eyebrows on myself,” she said.

“To be honest, I prefer the no eyebrows, because now I can draw on whatever I want.

“Even without eyebrows, I’m happy.”

We recently revealed the hot new trend for micro-blading your eyebrows.

 

 

 

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