Lip Blushing: A Semi-Permanent Makeup Treatment
If you’re interested in enhancing the color and shape of your lips, lip blushing is worth considering. Also, as we age, our lips tend to lose their youthful color and get slightly smaller. This treatment option can restore your lips to fuller, youthful radiance for a few years at a time!
What is lip blushing?
As a semi-permanent cosmetic tattooing procedure, lip blushing aims to bring your lips back to their natural fullness and youthful appearance. This is achieved by depositing pigment into your lips, adding color and shape to your lips.
The benefits of lip blushing
The popularity of lip treatments, whether it be fillers, blushing, or injections, has exploded in the past several years. Lip blushing has come a long way from its beginnings in permanent tattooing procedures. Instead of faded, synthetic looking pigment, modern lip blushing features natural looking, soft colors.
Lip blushing enhances your existing, natural lip color. Other benefits include improving the shape of your lips, increasing volume and providing a full, even look to your lips. Those with uneven lip tone benefit greatly from this treatment, as it naturally gives an even fullness to your lips.
Who is eligible for the treatment?
Just about anyone who can deal with mild pain, and is interested in the benefits that lip blushing provides can ask a provider about setting up an appointment. Although, pregnancy and some health conditions may prevent you from being the best of candidates, so it’s important to fill out consultation forms prior to booking! It can be a costly treatment, but lasts quite a long time. You may also want to check with your practitioner about any supplements or prescriptions you’re currently taking. Anything that has a blood-thinning side effect should not be taken before your appointment.
What to expect during the procedure
Overall, the length of time a lip blushing procedure takes depends on many factors. It can take anywhere from 3 hours to 5 hours. Arrive at your appointment on time (or even a few minutes early!) to make sure you fit into your practitioner’s schedule.
Preparing for your appointment
Upon arrival, the first thing your practitioner goes over is your desired lip shape and tone, sometimes by drawing sketches before performing the semi-permanent treatment.
Next, your practitioner numbs your lips. Since the procedure involves penetrating your lip with small needles, numbing your lips helps to reduce pain and discomfort during the procedure. While your lips are numbing, your practitioner goes over the color pigment of your choice. Once decided, they begin to insert pigment in multiple layers into your lips to create an even, natural tone.
How much does lip blushing hurt?
Everyone’s pain tolerance is different. Generally, with numbing, the pain you feel during the procedure should be fairly mild. If you think your pain tolerance is high, you might not feel pain at all.
Remember, don’t take anything that may cause your blood to thin before the appointment. That includes ibuprofen and aspirin. On the other hand, if you’re worried about the pain, you can take acetaminophen, aka Tylenol, before your appointment.
How long your results will last
Similar to a semi-permanent treatment such as microblading, you can expect your lip blushing results to last for a few years. If you enjoyed your look, you’ll have to have the procedure done again.
Lip blushing healing process and aftercare
Due to the nature of the treatment, following proper aftercare guidelines is vitally important. Just as with a tattoo, poor aftercare leads to avoidable side effects, and diminished results. Follow the advice that your practitioner provides to guarantee that your lips heal correctly.
Side effects and the importance of aftercare
For those with some experience with semi-permanent makeup or tattoos, the side effects possible with lip blushing should be normal. Right after your appointment, it’s normal to experience some slight redness and swelling in your lips. After a few days, expect some scabbing to appear.
You can experience cold sores following your treatment. This can occur due to triggering the herpes simplex virus which will result in loss of pigment and typically lasts during the healing process. Take an antiviral medication starting 48 hours prior to your appointment and after the treatment to prevent breakout.
It’s extremely important that you don’t pick at or irritatie the scabs; let them heal on their own. Scarring or pigment loss may occur if scabs are removed early. For this reason, it’s advisable to avoid going to the gym or prolonged sun exposure for the first two weeks of aftercare.
Failure to follow proper aftercare guidelines may lead to your lips getting infected. You should contact your doctor if more extreme side effects like worsening pain and tenderness, further swelling, or oozing pus start to occur.
After about a week the scabs should recover, but full recovery isn’t until 6 weeks after your treatment. Some practitioners will schedule you a follow up appointment after 6 weeks to touch up any spots that didn’t absorb all the pigment, or to slightly alter the shape.
Find a licensed practitioner
Lip blushing is a cosmetic procedure that should only be performed by a licensed body art practitioner. Talk to your practitioner about any concerns you have about your lips before the procedure, and never go to an unlicensed or inexperienced provider.
Soon, Necesse Aesthetics in San Jose will obtain a body art facility license and offer lip blushing services for all interested clients! Follow our social media, and keep your eyes open for more info and updates. We look forward to expanding our offerings, and to continue providing the best aesthetics experience to you all.