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Article
dated: February 02, 2002 in the Business section of the
Hebron & Marlborough LIFE.
Permanent cosmetics benefits women of all types and ages, no
matter how you look at it.
Evelyn
Webb, owner of About That Hair, with some of the tools of her trade.
Photo by Tracey Weiss
by Tracey Weiss
Imagine diving into a pool and coming back to the surface to
reveal that your makeup hadn’t smudged, ran or bled. That’s the reality of
"permanent cosmetic makeup," a method of tattooing eyeliner, eyebrows
and lipstick for a perpetually fresh look.
Marlborough resident Evelyn Webb, owner of About That Hair LLC,
is one of a handful of practicing, board-certified electrologists (formerly
known as a hypertrichologist) in the state. This allows her to do permanent hair
removal, facial waxing and permanent makeup, also known as cosmetic tattooing.
Her 600 hours of training, combined with an artistic flair, have brought her
clients from all over the Connecticut/Massachusetts area.
"A little color can make a lot of difference," Ms.
Webb said. "People who are fair-skinned and maybe want to darken their
eyebrows, or create the illusion of a dark line around their eyes, it’s
perfect for them."
Nora Mularski, 42, is a hairdresser in East Haddam who had Ms.
Webb apply permanent eyeliner a year ago. "I love it," she said.
"It’s the best money I ever spent on myself. "I’m very fair and
without mascara, I don’t have eyes! I’ve been using eye makeup since sixth
grade. It’s freed me to have this done."
Another of Ms. Webb’s clients, Francine Phoenix, 50, had her
apply permanent eyeliner and eyebrows. "I spent 20 years tweezing my
eyebrows. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I went to Evelyn for electrolysis and
we started to discuss the permanent tattooing.
Evelyn is very good. She didn’t rush me into anything and we
had several consultations before I went ahead and did it. I’m so
pleased."
Both women added that the pain associated with permanent
makeup is minimal. "Evelyn made it as comfortable as possible," said
Ms. Mularski. "She puts a little Neosporin on the area she’s done and
after a day the little bit of puffiness and redness that was there is
gone."
"When I had the corner of my eyes done, it was a little
more sensitive than the other areas," said Ms. Phoenix, "but by the
time I got home it was gone."
Permanent cosmetics is also an option for women with alopecia
areata [an auto-immune skin disease resulting in the loss of hair on the scalp
and elsewhere on the body] can suddenly have eyebrows again.
Ms. Webb, who operates out of a private office in her home in
Marlborough and spends a few days a week in a Simsbury location, said that her
average customer is a female over 40, "someone who knows what they want and
has been wearing their makeup the same way for years. But I get all kinds of
people of every age and color as clients."
Permanent cosmetics can be applied in several ways, either
with a traditional tattoo or coil machine, the pen or rotary machine, or by
hand, which is how Ms. Webb applies her craft. The technique deposits colored
pigment into the upper layer of the skin.
She cautioned that there are some people who want something
more than a basic dark line under their eyes, and that she always steers them
toward the more conservative and basic liner.
"Sometimes they want me to add eyeliner beyond the lash
line. I’ll try to talk them into the more traditional eyeliner. They can
always add more makeup on top of their permanent makeup."
When it comes to permanently putting on eyebrows, Ms. Webb
said that she has some standard shapes she can follow, or, if the customer wants
something particular, she can replicate it. "You do have to have some artistic flair in this position and you need to take
your time when you’re in the middle of doing someone’s makeup."
Getting the right colors for the right skin takes some care,
especially when one knows that days after the actual application, the color will
fade.
"The makeup always looks much darker at first than it’s
actually going to be," Ms. Webb said. "Then it fades into its true
color."
While permanent cosmetics are considered just that, like any
tattoo, the color will fade over years. Ms. Webb has either refreshed or
"fixed" many jobs over the years.
"There was a woman who had gone to a place in Hartford
four times," Ms. Webb said, "and they had basically given her eyebrows
that were green. I fixed the color and the shape. She’s so much happier now
and she looks great.
"People who have permanent makeup should use plenty of
sunscreen when they’re outside. That will prevent some of the natural
fading."
Ms. Webb’s entrance into her field came after giving birth
to her daughter, Lauren, and spending years working for Southern New England
Telephone. "
I wanted to be home more for my daughter and do something
would make me and other people happy," she said. "So I started looking
at skin care magazines and then it occurred to me that I wanted to give
electrolysis and permanent makeup a shot."
Ms. Webb trained in Florida to learn how to use the hand
method for permanent cosmetics. "It gives me more control and according to
my patients, hurts less than electrolysis."
While it seems a simple process, Ms. Webb will not work on
women who are on blood thinners, or who are diabetic.
"State statutes says that I must have a doctor available
to talk to me if I have any questions. The skin reacts a certain way to
tattooing, so I would know if that person couldn’t handle it the minute I
started.
Fortunately, I’ve never had that situation because I take
every precaution."
She also will not work on women who are pregnant. "It
just makes sense not to introduce something like permanent makeup to a woman
having a baby. It’s just common sense."
Ms. Webb is a member of the Society of Permanent Cosmetics
professionals (SPCP), the CT State Electrologist Association (CSHA) and the
American Electrologist Association. She plans to take her national board certification test in the near future, which
she considers part of taking her business to the next level.
Ms. Webb has also just begun to expand her business to include
burn victims and women who have breast reconstruction after cancer. "With
permanent cosmetics, victims of burns, scars and cancer have options they didn’t
know existed," Ms. Webb said. "I can actually tattoo scars and while
it may not look perfect, a bright red scar can be made to look less
obvious." She added that burn victims can be made to look better just by
applying permanent eyeliner and lipstick. But the most dramatic change is for victims of breast cancer,
who, after having reconstructive surgery are often left without nipples and
burdened with scars.
"Nipples can be tattooed onto a woman’s breast,"
Ms. Webb said. "And if you match the right color of the woman’s skin, you
can minimize the scars. Not only does it look incredibly real, it makes the
woman happy and much more comfortable -- and so much more confident -- with
their own body. So many of them say to me, ‘I didn’t know I had that option available
to me,’ and they do."
Ms. Webb has started to contact burn centers and surgeons to
see if she can develop relationships with them to help these patients. So far,
the response has been good and she’s confident she’ll be opening into a whole new niche in her career.
"There’s such a market for this," she said.
"I want women to know that this is available to them. At this point, the
money is not nearly as important as being able to help someone find their
confidence again."
Ms. Webb’s prices range from $275-550, depending on the
procedure.
For more information, you can call her at 860.295-7466, or go
to her web site at www.aboutthathair.com. HML
(Reprinted from Hebron & Marlborough Life, with permission
from White Publishing, LLC.)
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