2024 was the year of struggling to get clients and learning to do machine hair strokes hoping it would help.
And when Branko Babić, the maker of the modern-day microblading we know and love directed all his attention to machine stroke techniques and even developed a whole range of machines, pigments and supplies (all available on PMUHub!) specifically for the so-called nano brows, any doubt in our minds was gone:
Machine hair strokes are the new microblading.
We spoke to Branko at a 2024 PhiAcademy Master Meetup to hear his thoughts about the current state of affairs in the PMU industry.
Watch the full interview, or keep reading to find out!
Where We’re At & Where We’re Going
The PMU industry has had its ups and downs, and the point where we ended 2023 and entered 2024 was definitely a down. It seemed like new people were more reluctant to try their luck at PMU, finding students was tough, and only a lucky 1% of artists could manage to keep themselves booked out.
We asked Branko what he thinks happened.
Right now, the position of the industry is not so great, and I can safely say it was to be expected. Most artists and even academies around the world believe that the stagnation and decreased demand for courses and treatments is the result of the global economic crisis, but I have a totally different stand.
Branko has watched microblading go from a niche procedure to every-other-person-on-the-street-had-it-done to being labeled as obsolete, so he wasn’t surprised by the dwindling demand that caught so many artists unprepared.
In 2018, microblading reached its highest popularity. It pulled along all other permanent makeup treatments – lip pigmentation, eyelid pigmentation and so on. All that had a huge expansion thanks to Instagram and social media.
We should never have expected that demand to be sustainable forever. It should be expected for it to start decreasing, but at some point, I am sure that we will reach a flat line.
And he’s not just saying that. Branko has been observing the fates of related treatments.
I can easily compare this to the emergence of nails. When nail extensions first appeared, it had a sudden boom. In the next few years, it reached its biggest expansion. Then a certain decline. And now it has a stable line of demand.
Also, the market is now hugely competitive. There are versatile artists who are not only concerned with their technique. They’re engaged with their image, they have their PR. they’ve become influencers for their businesses.
So it was totally expected for there to be some stagnation and a slight decline.
To Branko, this is not a good or a bad thing. It’s just the way things are.
The market is simply relentless. It will weigh out, in the end, the demand itself and the need for treatments and courses.
So, the bottom line is, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We’re just going through an inevitable rough patch.
“I’d Never Define Hair Strokes as a Trend”
Branko says that following trends is essential for success, but only those that actually make sense. Because, at the end of the day, permanent makeup is not supposed to be treated like makeup. It’s supposed to just be an enhancement of the natural facial features.
That has always been my stance,” Branko agrees. “And not just when talking about eyebrows. If we’re talking about lips, I was never a fan of lip contouring unless the natural contour is so invisible that it needs to be enhanced. But even then, it should be done so softly that the transitions do not show that work has been done, something’s been drawn.
Branko concludes that permanent makeup should only compensate for certain shortcomings in color and eyebrow shape.
Therefore, machine hair strokes cannot be called a trend, since it’s a universal technique that gives an extremely realistic look of natural eyebrow hairs.
Everyone is talking about hair strokes technique as a trend. But I’m not sure that the technique should be defined as a trend at all. It’s been emerging for a long time on the market – for the past 5 years – but it’s emerging very slowly.
It’s reaching its full bloom in the past year and this year for the simple reason that all those artists who started practicing it need a very long time to perfect it and showcase it and for it to become popular.
That has a good and a bad side. As I said, I’d never define hair stroke as a trend. It’s coming up slowly but it’s not leaving. And for that reason, we (Phi Academy) have prepared a specialized product range.
But, on the other hand, since this treatment takes a lot of time to perform, a long time to master, to learn this treatment, for people who are already in microblading it is very hard to step out of their comfort zone and start doing hair strokes.
But he also says that success lies outside of your comfort zone, and machine hair strokes offer certain advantages over microblading.
Compared to microblading, the hair stroke technique has a huge benefit of not limiting the placement of strokes. We can cross the strokes and be much more creative. The results are more natural-looking.
Work by @jasna_liverios_grandmaster
But on the other hand, many artists are avoiding this technique because it requires a lot of practice, but in order to truly be a good artist and master, you need to know both techniques – microblading and machine strokes.
And there are so many examples of amazing artists who truly do both equally well. For Mersida Hodžić Ramić, it was not an easy journey, but it was 100% worth it: “I had some difficulties to achieve good results. But later, with hard practice and more tries, I succeeded and absolutely fallen in love with this technique.”
Warning: Potential Issues in the Future
Branko also touches upon the supplies artists are using and how they can affect the health and overall status of the industry. Pigmentology has become a huge topic in recent years and artists seem to be much more interested in it than a few years back. They’re more interested in learning the chemistry behind the pigments and the conversation around the organic/inorganic formulas has been really loud and active.
They recognized an opportunity for a new way of marketing the treatments, and a surge of new formulas followed. Specifically, a number of brands have been coming out with predominantly inorganic formulas, which are known to last a shorter time, which allows artists to market their treatments as truly semi-permanent.
For Branko, there’s a whole lot of problems here.
Here’s a trend that does not make sense: in the past few years, we have a trend of using pigments that are 100% inorganic. The color black is problematic here.
Some 15 years ago we had a crisis with clients precisely because of that pigment which would, after a few years, turn to red. Iron oxide pigment will one day turn red and that’s its nature and there is no chance for that to change.
Later on, carbon black appeared which never changes color. But since it always stays black, the rest of the pigments fade, through the skin, after a while it reflects as gray. Which is actually not too bad. Because that gray color, with a laser, can be removed in 1 or 2 sessions. But red is a problem – forever.
And now that trend of using 100% inorganic pigments, including iron oxide, has appeared again. And that’s a trend that scares me.
Branko is anxious about how this unwanted long-term fading could reflect on the image of the whole industry.
I’m worried that one day we could have a decreased demand due to the use of pigments that I know and we’ve seen that they cannot bring anything good to the industry.
So, if you got caught up playing around with inorganics, consider yourself warned!
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