How to Prevent Bluing as Black Eyeliner Fades

Countless times, we have been asked how to prevent bluing as black eyeliner fades. 

I’d like to explain that there are many reasons for this blue residual that appears at various times, from weeks to years.

One’s complexion plays a huge role in how black stays black. The best metaphor I can give you is to watch a professional basketball game for just five minutes. You will see many races, nationalities and complexions on the court, and many of these players have tattoos. In their tattoos, you will notice several shades of blacks and blues. This is due to their skin undertones. So, you see, we must place some responsibility on our clients for how black their eyeliner will remain. We can use the same black pigment on half a dozen women with different ethnic backgrounds and achieve six different results. Skin is a live organ and when we are working in it, we are working with someone’s DNA. These characteristics play a huge part in how color will heal in the skin.

On a basketball court, you will see fair men with very blue tattoos that were meant to be black. You will see some black men with blue tattoos and others that are still black. This could be due to the age of the tattoo or the ink used. Now, look at an in-between complexion and you will see various shades of blacks and blues. This is a great metaphor to give to your client that is insisting she wants her eyeliner to remain black forever and not like her friend’s that turned blue. I explain to my client there are no guarantees on what their complexion will do with it and how black it will heal in their skin. I know it’s going to be very black if I use Black Noir with 2 drops of Carbon. But it is a great reality to give your client.  

You may question why we see black tribal tattoos on people that seem to remain black but our eyeliner procedures do not. We cannot – and I repeat we CANNOT – use these black inks on the face, especially around the eyes. This would be dangerous on many levels, with migration being the highest level of danger and allergic reactions coming in a close second. These inks come with the tremendous risk and high probability to river into the surrounding area of the eyes and cheeks. You must also know that they, too, will eventually turn bluish since blue will always be dominant in black, regardless of whether you’re working with ink or pigment, and the base of these tribal inks is blue. 

There are many black pigments to choose from in our permanent makeup world. Face Inks has developed five blacks and they each achieve a different result—which basically means more or less blue and more or less intensity. 

Almost Black: Almost Black is a favorite among many practitioners and is a soft black that tends to have the eventuality of a gray fade as opposed to blue. It is great for women that are not quite committed to the black liquid eyeliner look but need a dark liner. It also slips into the skin, very nicely.

Onyx: Plain Onyx is quite blue. I tend to use this on my fair women with blue eyes. It is dark but if they are natural blondes or redheads, it will achieve a blue cast much quicker. I like to place the Onyx C (Carbon) between the top lashes and use the plain Onyx on the lid. This provides a deep frame and softer eyeliner. It’s quite beautiful. 

Onyx CI (half Carbon and half Iron Oxide): Onyx CI is a great black when you want to achieve dark black eyeliner that generally pulls more grayish tones over the years. However, remember that your client’s complexion plays a tremendous role in how black will fade out.

Black Noir: Black Noir, our most popular black, has a warm base. It is our blackest black on most complexions. The base of the black has a significant effect on how long black pigment will remain black. If there is a bit of warmth added to the black to alter the base, you can achieve a longer lasting black.

  

Onyx C: Onyx C is Face Inks straight carbon. This can be used straight between top lashes ONLY!  However, I do darken Black Noir by adding 1-2 drops of Onyx C to a half cup of Face Inks Black Noir. I find I can achieve the blackest black with this formula. I never use a needle smaller than a 3-Outliner when I am adding Carbon. Carbon is ink and has no particle size. This can increase your risk of migration, especially with the use of smaller needles. 

It’s important to know that any eyeliner color can migrate if placed too deeply. Use caution when performing this procedure.

Beware... White is Your Enemy!!!

While flying out to Las Vegas for the SPCP Conference, I had begun to write this article regarding the abuse of white pigment in the skin.  Low and behold, Pat Gaultier presented at the conference and her topic was Black and White and it was as though she was finishing my sentences. Pat was simply wonderful in presenting both the verbal and visual ramifications of using white to attempt corrections, cover-ups or to highlight particular areas (other than Montgomery Glands on areola).

On behalf of those who did not get to attend, especially if you are fairly new to the profession, my suggestion is you think of white pigment as your enemy and not your new best friend. 

There are many practitioners new to this profession and although extremely talented, do not fully understand the downside of attempting to cover up a mistake with white or beige or highlighting a lip with white or beige. They are not in this profession long enough to see this downside of using white in these instances and it won’t be pretty. 

White is titanium dioxide and the only color in our spectrum that is opaque. This is why many believe they can use it to cover something up. It is not sheer and translucent like all the rest of our pigments. It is dense and quite heavy in weight and never, ever leaves the skin. It will simply outlast any color it is mixed with because it is heavier and it will eventually float to the top like sour cream.  

To appreciate the density, picture the lifeguards at the beach. They often apply zinc oxide, which is mostly titanium dioxide, across their noses in a big white strip to deflect the sun. It is quite dense. If they were to place a stripe of any of our other colors across their noses, they would be sheer. None of our other colors would provide protection to their noses since they do not have the same density or weight that titanium dioxide has. 

Light skin tone pigment or camouflage colors that would match a Fitzpatrick 1-3 will contain titanium dioxide which is white.  Attempting to cover up a mistake with a light skin tone pigment may first appear to be effective but it will be short lived. Sooner, as opposed to later, the pigment particles of the beige in this camouflage color will vacate and all that will remain is a yellowy white. It may even appear to be raised and sit on top of the skin surface. It is unsightly! I have even seen white or the yellowish white appear 3-dimensional.

We see these attempts all the time. They are generally made around the eyes, especially on the outer canthus where the top eyeliner was extended too far into the outer corner of the eye, bottom eye lids where the liner was crooked or uneven, eyebrows that have been make too long or low or uneven in the front (both medially and laterally) and around the lips.

Let’s first take a step back and ask why these attempted cover ups are necessary? Why these mistakes? If practitioners took the time to draw on these procedures prior to tattooing, these mistakes would have been avoided. Yes, even a lash enhancement should be drawn on to see how the lashes are seated and the eyelids are shaped. Only then can you identify the subtleties for the most flattering and perfect placement of color.

Lips must be drawn on as well and certainly eyebrows. If measuring tools are used on eyebrows and you check them for evenness before tattooing, there would be no reason for attempting a cover up. Drawing on your procedures is critical to insure you never have to do a cover up.

The latest trend is using white around the lips as a highlighter or to create the illusion of fullness and a vermillion border. This is a dangerous practice since the white will remain forever and possibly yellow, while the lip color will eventually fade. In a few years this will not be attractive. It is not over the counter makeup! White never leaves the skin and eventually yellows so imagine this client up the road. Ask any tattoo artist! If the white of a tiger’s eye is tattooed, it will eventually yellow and have to be tattooed again to whiten it.

This is not the first time practitioners have abused the use of white. Years back, some were attempting filling in wrinkles with white, tattooing the darkness under the eyes with white and tattooing it on the wet line. All of these proved to be great disasters. The under eye areas clumped with whitish yellow and could not be laser removed since white will turn back on contact with a light source. These women were maimed.  My late and dear friend, Patti Pavlik, wrote an article, “I Have this Needle Now What Else Can I Do With It”? We addressed these issues of white being used wrongly and the ramifications of doing so. Here we are a decade later addressing these very topics. 

How do you rid the skin of white when laser is not an option? Salt removal has proven to be the best solution in my practice. Crooked French Eyeliner procedures where the white was uneven next to the black eyeliner, I did a salt removal and it worked perfectly. Clumps of white that turned yellow used in attempted cover-ups were also removed with salt solution. Salt solution has never let me down! It is the safest and most effective pigment removal system ever discovered.

Email us at rosemarie@beauinstitute.com for our salt removal instructions and post care.

 

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