What's the Deal: Local makeup artist fixing permanent makeup disasters
Artist blames 2-day speed courses for poorly-trained technicians
MT. LAUREL, N.J. (WPVI) -- Permanent and semi-permanent makeup is back and it's a far cry from the severe tattooed look of the 1990s.
However, one veteran makeup artist says that lately she's being asked to fix up more and more botched jobs and she has an idea why.
When Randi Jackson first got permanent makeup, she just wanted fuller brows and no daily battles with eyeliner. Instead, she got a 17-year nightmare.
"Her brows were very uneven," said Rose Marie Beauchemin Verzella from the Beau Institute in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey. "They were put in so deeply, they turned a steel gray color."
The artists covered eyeliner that ran with white, which turned yellow.
"People said 'I love your blue eyebrows!' I didn't think there was any way to change it," said Randi.
A salon referred her to Rose Marie at the Beau Institute.
The foundation of Rose Marie's fix?
"Salt - Morton salt," she said.
She uses very salty water, tapping it into the skin with a fine tattoo needle.
"Get under the tattoo and use the salty water to pull it out, lift it out," she said.
It's a technique, once used by sailors to remove unwanted tattoos. It requires multiple treatments with time in between to let redness go away and let the skin and color flake off.
Lasers work on body tattoos, but on the face, they can damage eyes, cause scarring, and drive the pigment deeper into the skin.
Rose Marie says requests for fixes are booming and she blames the rise in 2-day tattoo crash courses.
"They have no idea of skin, no idea of cross-contamination," she warns.
Randi says the discomfort and patience the process required was worth it, because she feels natural again.
"I just don't feel embarrassed. I don't think about my eyes like I did," she said.
Rose Marie says you should always check the certification and license of the artist doing permanent makeup or the new semi-permanent microblading and ask to speak with other customers to get their experiences
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