‘That’s a tattoo?!’
MANILA, Philippines - Your face looks more lifted...” “Your eyes look rounder.” I can get used to this. “What did you get done?” It’s been three weeks, and all I did was change my brows. They are fuller, even, face-flattering – and I am really waking up like this, and I will be for a year more or two. On good days, I do away with maquillage altogether. My newfound fascination with styling my bob is where I’ve diverted all the minutes saved off filling and shaping sparse commas into feathered twin arches. No one suspects that it’s all a tattoo – but it isn’t the tattoo you’re probably thinking.
“People online ask me how much I charge for hair implants, which they’re not,” shares cosmetic tattoo artist Pauline Ylaya, which was almost the reaction I had about her 6D hyper real eyebrow embroidery.
Now that the latest makeup and technique is able to temporarily replicate the results of noninvasive surgery, you’d think you would only see red, blue or green arches on lolas with feng shui brows, permanently tatted for good fortune so deep, all that’s left are hard-to-remove undertones (something Ylaya has had lots of experience tatting over). Even those caricature-like brown stenciled-on brows should already be a thing of the past but for chain brow salons, it’s what’s fast and easy.
Ylaya’s work makes the case for customizing, to always ask for a personal touch. “It’s hard to teach the artistry,” the former bridal makeup artist of three years says. “What is taught in schools is to do eyebrows in a straight-up, straight-down pattern, but I follow the hair growth and then I also use different pigments. You can’t just use one color for the entire thing, that’s not how your eyebrows are supposed to look like. It’s really lighter here and then darker here.”
Replicating that “natural” yet “blooming” look — two essential keywords for the bridal category — for real women is where her 6D technique was developed. She uses a spectrum of black and brown pigments, all with different undertones that she mixes for your ideal shade.
I’ve never had a tattoo before, so learning that Ylaya trained at two specialty schools in Malaysia where she perfected applying pigment with needles, drawing different eyebrow shapes onto the thinnest balloons was a relief. You wouldn’t feel a thing throughout the session anyway; anesthesia is applied (and reapplied as needed) all over the brow area.
A session begins with a consultation of what brow shape, length and shade you want. At first, I asked for a thick, straight, feathered brow, which is how I do my makeup, but Ylaya dissuaded me against it, considering I’d have to live with it for up to three years. It wouldn’t look right on a bare face too, she said, and we reached a compromise with a shape that’s closest to my good brow but with an extended tail. This consultation process takes the longest, so she only sees up to four clients a day in her temporary Avida Towers Alabang studio. Ylaya can also do the usual 3D eyebrows and straight and powdery-looking brows that are en vogue in Seoul
To achieve the most life-like results, Ylaya uses a wide range of needle sizes to mimic the different levels of thickness of brow hair strands, comparing these to the many makeup brushes a makeup artist uses.
“With this variety, I can make hair strokes closer to each other. You can’t do that with bigger needles, it’d just create a bigger wound. Smaller cuts, smaller hair, which results in fuller-looking arches,” she explains. It all comes individually wrapped, opened in front of you, and her tools are all sanitized.
Ylaya also does hairline restoration, semi-permanent lip tinting, and eyeliner, all employing a semi-permanent technique that cuts the skin superficially so the pigment isn’t deposited too deep into the skin like regular tattoos — which is a good thing because our face changes, and sometimes we change the color of our hair.
Right after my session, the strokes were sharp and pronounced, like a regular tattoo, and the week after, it started to peel off gradually, revealing strands so natural-looking, the girl who threads my brows couldn’t tell apart which hairs were real or not at first. As with regular tattoos, the color can fade faster for those with iron deficiency, so the body absorbs the pigments. I care for it by skipping the area when applying my retinol and AHA-rich skincare and applying sunscreen on it when I go out to prolong the color.
I’m due for a touch-up in a week to fill in areas that faded faster during the initial peeling and tweak the shape, and then I won’t have to think about ever doing my eyebrows for a while – which is the best part. Maybe I’ll even have my lips tinted, too.
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