The natural look has been trending for years and it’s found its place in the permanent makeup industry as well. Permanent makeup is here to enhance our natural beauty and improve our facial features without looking fake and unnatural.
If we talk about permanent makeup for eyebrows, hair stroke brows are still the most popular brow style. Why? Because they give the most natural look. They just add additional hair strokes to make your brows look fuller and give them the desired shape.
Let’s go through permanent makeup treatments that can give your brows the desired hair stroke look.
Are Hair Stroke Brows Better than Powder Effect Brows?
Not really. Both types of brow PMU are great, but they cater to different tastes.
Whether you will choose hair stroke brows or powder effect brows depends primarily on your preferences. For people who like a more dramatic, but still soft makeup look, powder brows are a better choice.
Sometimes, though, it’s a matter of which is more suitable for your skin type. If your skin is oily, powder brows are generally a better choice. Hair stroke eyebrows done with microblading will become blurred after some time, but if you’re stone set on hair stroke eyebrows, you can get machine strokes – they’re more resilient, but still won’t look as crisp as on dry skin.
Still, if your artist advises powder brows over hair stroke brows, don’t discard them straight off the bat. They can also look quite natural because the shading can be done softly.
Image source: Instagram @be_uniquelyyours
Which PMU Treatments Can Give Me Hair Stroke Brows?
Permanent makeup treatments that give eyebrows delicate hair strokes are:
- Microblading
- Nano Brows
- Combo Brows (hair strokes + shading)
Hair Stroke Brows with Microblading
Microblading is still the most popular hair stroke eyebrows treatment. It is done with a manual tool that makes cuts on the skin that look like hairs. The cuts are filled with pigments, and once they’re healed, they look indistinguishable from actual hairs.
This is the most popular treatment by far. It’s what most clients come in wanting, but not everybody is a good candidate for microblading. Microblading isn’t really suitable for:
- Oily skin – the strokes blur relatively quickly
- Skin with large pores – the same
- Mature skin – the technique can be too harsh for older skin. It can be done, but in a special way.
The strokes of microblading can be thicker or thinner, depending on the thickness of the blade used. Recently, super-thin blades emerged on the market and many artists can now create very delicate strokes.
For more information on microblading, read this guide.
Image source: Instagram @jentheesthetician
Hair Stroke Brows With Nano Brows
Nano brows give a very similar look to that of microblading, but they’re done differently. Instead of a hand-held tool, the strokes are created with a PMU machine. The pigments are injected by a needle that vibrates and pierces the skin in tiny dots that add up to a hair stroke.
Lately, many artists have started highlighting the advantages of nano brows over microblading:
- The strokes are thinner and look more natural
- They blur less
- They’re more suitable for oily and mature skin than microblading
- They last a bit longer
- They’re more resilient
For more information on nano brows, read this guide.
Image source: Instagram @permanentbeautybyamanda
Hair Stroke Brows with Combo Brows
Combo brows are a fusion between microblading and shading. They’re also called hybrid brows.
This style includes hair strokes, but adds shading to the brow. The area between the strokes is shaded in with a machine or a manual tool, and this adds depth and definition. The look is a bit more dressy than just hair stroke eyebrows, yet looks like you have natural volume.
But the biggest advantage of adding shading is not the unique look but rather the fact that it makes manual hair strokes possible even for oily skin. Since the areas between strokes are shaded, the blurring of the strokes will not be that visible.
This makes combo brows suitable for almost anyone, and also prolongs the lifespan of the results, since shading fades more slowly.
For more information on combo brows, read this guide.
Image source: Instagram @boldbrows_christina
Different Styles of Hair Stroke Eyebrows
The strokes in hair stroke brows can follow different patterns, depending on the look you want.
They can be drawn closer together or farther apart, they can be longer or shorter, they can even be drawn as hair clusters. The 2 very popular hair stroke patterns at the moment are feather brows and hyperrealism brows.
When it comes to combo brows, you can choose between basic shading, and ombre shading. Combo brows done with lighter heads are called combre brows, an emerging trend.
It’s a good idea to explore these patterns before your treatment so you can tell your artist what type of look you want.
What Happens to Hair Stroke Brows After a Few of Years?
All PMU treatments fade after some time, and hair stroke brows are no different, no matter which technique was used. On average, they’ll last around 18 months for microblading, and around 2 years for nano brows and combo brows.
The strokes are supposed to gradually lose color intensity until they finally become invisible. However, in some cases, the fading process comes with blurring. Oily skin sometimes causes the pigments to move in the skin and the strokes to spread or merge together. In extreme cases, stroke brows can end up looking more like shading after a couple of years.
Then, there’s the question of how many times you can get the brows touched up. Even though they’re supposed to fade away, each PMU treatment leaves behind a small amount of pigment residue. If you get hair stroke brows over and over again, at some point, the skin will look too dark and it won’t be possible to draw new strokes because they won’t be visible.
So at some point, you have to switch to shading.
Which Hair Stroke Technique Should I Choose?
Generally, the look of microblading and the look of nano brows are so similar that the decision between the two should only be based on your skin type. Microblading is not really suitable for oily skin, while nano brows work for all skin types. You’ll get the hair stroke look you want – the technique with which they’re created is less important. Plus, the prices of microblading and nano brows are approximately the same.
If you want natural volume further enhanced with some shading, combo brows are the way to go.
Cover image source: Pexels
