Permanent Full Lip Makeup: the pain comes later!

I decided to go to a well regarded cosmetologist (I guess that's what you would call them) duo. They're both welcoming, lovely, and have been doing their thing (permanent makeup) for a long time! Having already have my eyebrows tattooed here, I felt comfortable going under their needle once again.

The salon I went to is their headquarters, and it is exceptionally clean and professional. Plush chairs, discreet but easily navigated entrance, pretty decor.

One of the pros of choosing this particular business for your permanent make up is that the pigment used is free of iron oxide, and thus will not heat up and potentially sting or burn in an MRI scan or similar should you require this kind of radiation in future. Most permanent make up pigments do contain iron oxide, so it can be something to ask about.

On the day of my treatment I arrived at 2pm and we discussed the colour I wanted, the expected outcome, all the health risk possibilities, the details of the procedure, and the possible discomforts.

Then we took a couple of pre-procedure lips, and I lay down to have numbing cream applied & then a lip liner drawn on to guide the tattooing. We examined and approved the shape ( paying attention to the way my natural lip line runs into my surrounding skin at two points, noting the freckles on the borderline of the lip, and deciding whether to take the corners of the mouth wide or directly into the corners). Then I lay down and did some work on my phone as the numbing cream settled in.

The cream is great, but it doesn't not work 100% until your skin has been broken. Drawing that first edge is a little stingy feeling. Once the cream gets into your lips however, you feel very little. It is as if you are being coloured in with a pen. Occasionally there was the odd nervy spot where the numbing cream just doesn't seem able to best my powerful pain transmisserd in those spots!

Apart for that, I could almost swear I was asleep for about half the procedure. whenever anything started hurting my technician would massage in some more numbing cream and the pain would subside soon.

We finished up about two and a half hours later, with very swollen lips! It was as if I had gone in for lip injections! Speaking clearly with enunciating was now in the past. The numbness lasted a while, but about an hour later, seemed to be completely gone. The pain began to set in, and whilst it is certain not unbearable, it is deeply uncomfortable. Sipping was not a good time. A straw was out of the question as pursing my lips was too painful, eating was constrained to carefully placing one macaroni at a time into my mouth.

I dabbed my poor enormous, purpled with swelling lips with cold cotton pads and applied bepanthen cream as advised.

One day after procedure

I woke up this morning with lips just as enormous, but less purple and more red (I had a lighter colour applied, so we aren't there yet. The lips do seem to be beginning to heal.

At work no one said anything , which was kind seeing as my lips are enormous!!! Was deeply uncomfortable most of day and found it very difficult to eat lunch. In the present moment I have managed of eat a more finely cut dinner than usual. Expect to possibly lose weight!

Lips are still sore, but hopefully another night will give the skin time to heal a little more. I am really looking forward to the final colour once the tattoo finishes up its process.

My lips are deeply uncomfortable today. They look really gross and raw, though a lot of the swelling is gone down.

Really happy with how clearly you can see my upper lip now! A darker colour was used on the top lip because it was so so light before.

Colour is still not quite accurate, as to be expected with all the trauma!

I'm so hungry. :'(