Exploring the Pros and Cons of Hair Strokes: What You Need to Know

Microblading is a buzzword in the beauty industry, but customers are catching on to the disadvantages. Microblading is a commonly searched word on the internet for cosmetic tattooing of eyebrows. Everyone is obsessed with the look of hair strokes because it looks so natural until it's not.

Hair strokes, whether microbladed or created with a single needle, will have more disadvantages long term if "overdone." There are a few reasons why hair strokes will become problematic for the technician and the customer.

The main reason is that clients do not feel fully satisfied with how natural hair strokes look. After finishing a procedure and giving the customer the mirror, they tend to point to gaps in the eyebrows. They'll commonly ask us to fill them in with another hair stroke or shaded pigment. They just can't see past it! The artist can say no, or the artist can try to put something in that gap even though we know we shouldn't until the revisit.

The client thought they wanted hair strokes, but what they really wanted is the area filled in with a nice form of color, but not too tattooed, not too fake, not too unnatural, not too noticeable but noticeable enough, and permanent but to last a long time.

Another reason that hair strokes are a disadvantage is because the hair strokes get patchy and they age at different rates based on the level of saturation, depth of ink, or location in the skin. So when it starts to fade, it can become an eyesore because it does not age seamlessly with pigment.

Lastly, hair strokes can be difficult to work over from a technical standpoint. Picking and choosing where we want to add color and separating the strokes with enough distance in between each other feels like a chess game. What's my next move?

All in all, shading is seamless, creates a soft form, and can be gently modified long term so that we can easily re-work the area. I hope this helps.