Pigments for PM: secrets of quality from Yulia Dmitrieva

Yuliya Dmitrieva , master stylist of the highest category, founder of the school-studio of permanent makeup PMLife, winner of two all-Ukrainian championships (2014), jury member of the all-Ukrainian PM championship (2015), participant in the IBF world championship (Kyiv, 2017), author and manufacturer of pigments for permanent makeup PMlife (Ukraine)

What primarily distinguishes PM pigments from tattoo pigments? Pigments for permanent makeup are thick, glycerin-based, contain iron oxides in their composition. They are light-resistant, coarsely dispersed, rather hard to be introduced into the skin, slightly pigmented, not bright, have a weak residue during healing, often, after a while, they become red in the skin. Pigments for tattoos are liquid, water-alcohol, mostly contain synthetic organics, have a bright palette of colors. They are finely dispersed, warm tones, for the most part, not lightfast. Tattoo pigments are easily applied to the skin, give a large residue during healing, and when burnt out, they often acquire cold shades.

Photos provided by the author. The work was done with PMlife pigments

Experienced masters (respectively, more daring) used tattoo pigments in their work, getting bright and rich results that were worn for a long time. Unfortunately, due to the low lightfastness of warm tones in the palette of tattoo pigments, eyebrows quite often went into cold shades. The density of laying also, of course, mattered: the denser the pigment was laid (and the survival rate, I remind you, is very good), the greater the concentration after the warm shade of black burns out.

Photos provided by the author. The work was done with PMlife pigments

I, like many masters, started working with pigments for permanent makeup. The healed results of my procedures were soft and airy, not many clients understood such a result. And in the permanent makeup of the lips, I wanted to achieve a light styling of the pigment and rich colors. I had basic knowledge of color, but I had to tinker with pigmentology. It took several years of trial and error, collaborating with a chemistry lab to study the properties and characteristics of some well-known brands of pigments, and testing and observing the behavior of various pigments in the skin.

Now the time has come when many masters are interested in the composition of pigments, and not just the result obtained after the procedure. As a result, there are many opinions and disputes about the use of various pigments.

In 2019, based on all the information and knowledge gained, I released a line of PMlife pigments for lips, eyebrows and eyelids based on synthetic organics. Pigments are easily introduced into the skin, take root well. But knowing the disadvantages of using synthetic organic pigments (such as the low light fastness of warm colors in eyebrow pigments), the thought of improving them did not leave me.

Everything ingenious is simple and the solution, as it turned out, lay on the surface. The fewer components (colors) - the more predictable the result. Iron oxide red has been added to the fade-resistant synthetic organic black and yellow pigments. it is also characterized by resistance to fading. But at the same time, we encountered a difference in the dispersion of these pigments. Black carbon black is a very fine and opaque pigment, yellow is also fine, and iron oxide red is large and quite heavy, when mixed it quickly exfoliates and precipitates. Knowing that chemical hemogenizers and thickeners could make it difficult to introduce pigment into the skin and not be very useful for the wound surface, the method of dispersion (grinding) of red iron oxide and mechanical hemogenization of all components was applied. As a result, we obtained combination pigments that are stable to fading, opaque, with an average color residual after healing of 80%.

Photos provided by the author. The work was done with PMlife pigments

The line of combined pigments PMlife for eyebrows consists of five shades. The lip pigments remain organic, the palette currently consists of eight colors and will expand. For the eyelids, the black pigment carbon black is used, it is easily applied to the skin and takes root well with an intense black color.