subject: The History Of Semi Permanent Make Up [print this page] Semi permanent make up is a process which is being used more and more often in the world of beauty today. Semi permanent make up is a method used to enhance the eyebrows, eyes or lips by permanently tattooing on the make up which would normally be cosmetically applied and reapplied on a day to day basis.
During the process of application of semi permanent make up, the pigment or colour is tattooed into the upper layer (or dermis) of the skin. This creates the effect of perfectly applied lip liner or lip blush, top or bottom eyeliner or pencilled in eyebrows.
This article looks at the history of semi permanent make up, where it came from and how it originated..
Evidence has been found to support the fact that permanent make up has been used in a crude form since the Ice Age, when natural materials were used to create colour or dyes, and instruments were fashioned out of bone and sticks to insert these colours into the skin.
Female Egyptian mummies, some dating back as far as 4000 years, have been found which display tattoos. These tattoos were placed on female dancers, concubines and women singers. Egyptian mummies have been recovered with tattoos on the face and body. Cleopatra is thought to have displayed tattoos on her skin.
Mummies with tattoos have also been discovered, not only in Egypt, but all over the world including Europe and Siberia, showing that not only has the art of tattooing been around for thousands of years but that it was also a world wide practice. It is commonly known that the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs were also tattooing themselves long before the Christian era.
Until the mid 1800's all the colours used in these dyes were obtained from natural sources which included animals, vegetation and minerals. It wasn't until the 1850's, when the first artificial dyes were invented, that a varied range of new and different colourants were available in a wider assortment of shades that were more permanent and considered safer for use in cosmetics, foods and drugs.
With time, these basic techniques were developed and embraced by the Western world which came to realize that there was a lot of convenience to be had in having permanent make-up applied. Using it to draw in eyebrows and other facial features that needed defining it was then expanded to accentuate the eyes (eyeliner). The technique took another transition when it was discovered that the same could be done to define lip liner and lips.
Initially the equipment and technique used to tattoo the pigments into the skin was a sharpened bamboo stick, or with a needle attached holding the pigment, which was then hand-tapped into the skin, free hand or by using another stick.
The machinery used today has been adapted from the rudmimentary bamboo sticks mentioned above. There is a variety of different machines and different types of techniques of tattooing available together with a range of different coloured pigments to choose from, but the simple principle of inserting colour under the surface of the skin remains the same.
