Are permanent makeup prices too high, reasonably priced, or not high enough? The cost of services for most occupations reflects expenses of education, office suites, equipment, supplies, insurance, advertising, and so on. As a business, permanent makeup prices may or may not reflect any of the above expenses. Permanent makeup prices attract a gamut of trainees ranging from medical graduates to high school dropouts. There are natural born artists and perfectionists, and others that wouldn’t know the difference. Accomplished artists maintain a professional office with spa-like ambiance, absorbing the overhead cost. Some work with a medical supervisor that receives a fee or portion of the permanent makeup price for patient care regarding prescriptions needed before, during, and/or after the procedure, and managing post infections or other complications.
Unlicensed technicians do “backroom” permanent makeup procedures in salons, homes, and hotel rooms. With no overhead expenses, the permanent makeup price is about half the going rate. There is no valid way to check quality of work since everything is hush-hush. Clients willing to take a chance and hope for best with the super deal are reassured verbally by the person doing the recruiting. The recruiter gets a portion of the fees for rounding up the clients, and possibly for supplying the room to do it in. There may be a before and after book to look at, and the client may know someone else who has had a procedure done there.
Permanent makeup is considered an art for some, and is just a paid task for others. A higher permanent makeup price, a license, and a nice facility will not guarantee good results, but the odds of getting a better result are in favor. Those who are out in the public eye have to stand the test of time. The backroom technicians can just disappear if clients are unhappy. Permanent makeup artists who have been in business long enough will eventually have a reputation, be it good, bad, or indifferent. Like cosmetic surgeons and other arts, you hear about the ones who are really good or really bad. The ones in the middle aren’t talked about as much.
Comparing time spent doing a permanent makeup procedure to other cosmetic services like false eyelash extensions or facials at $100 for an hour, the permanent makeup procedures may be running around $200 per hour. Massage can even cost $100 per hour. Permanent makeup procedures are more specialized and have a slew of consequences, so it doesn’t seem unreasonable to pay twice as much to have makeup tattooed as to have skin rubbed and steamed. When the facial or massage is over – it’s over. The pricy eyelash extensions last one to three months. Permanent makeup lasts several years for the money. Comparing permanent makeup prices to other specialized services like botox, wrinkle fillers, and lip plumpers (which only takes minutes), the permanent makeup price is less and it lasts longer.
All things considered, permanent makeup prices may be a pretty good bang for the buck. That is, depending on if the work was satisfactory, and if the technique and type of pigments used give the client the longevity expected.
About Me
- auraofbeauty
- Tulsa, OK, United States
- Mychelle Tulk, RN Aura Of Beauty Permanent Makeup 6465 S Yale Ave, ste 607 Tulsa, OK 74136 918-747-8598
43 comments:
It might be fair since new ones tend to charge less etc. Kinda like going out for fast food or fine dining. You can choose the level of service ya want.
good god permanent makeup prices are too high! People that go to college for 4 yrs don't make that an hour. And you wonder why everyone wants to do this. Everyone can turn their two wks notice in at the burger joint and and start tattoing faces.
Whether or not permanent makeup prices are reasonable depends on who you are. When I was the client, I thought the prices were high. After I got trained to do it, I thought no amount of money was worth the hassle and quit. It isn't all they crack it up to be. You have clients that don't know how things should be anyway and are happy with what they get, then others gripe about something they have to inspect in a magnifying mirror to find. Never mind that what you put on them was better than what they did themselves, if you tattoo it, they will gripe about the teeniest thing.
From the artist's point of view, it depends how much money they are capable of making on their regular job. For a doctor, nurse, or hygienist, the permanent makeup price would have to be up there more to be worth their time. For someone with no college or skills, the lower prices still look good.
I let my cousin do my permanent makeup after she got trained. It was a feebie. If I had to pay for it, how much I would pay depends on the skill of the person doing it.
u r all greedy and should just charge your normal hour rate.
Let me mention that the artist does not get all the money. Part of the permanent makeup price goes to the facility, which is up to halfdepending on the wheelin' and dealin' just like massage, hair, and whatnot. Then all the supply expenses goes to the artist. There are lots of people that have their own facility for spa services or whatever, so they don't have to share that money, and lower prices still gives them more than what I was getting charging a higher price at a spa. Hello Mychelle, I love my eyes and lips. Thanks!
You said the permanent makeup price is about $200 an hr, but that is fiction. Everybody tends to regurgitate what they hear or read. It really takes longer than stats say to do a procedure. Sure some people do a job quick, but call that client after some months have passed and ask if their makeup is still on. It takes twice as long to do permanent makeup as what everybody says. Is everybody embarrassed to admit it because everybody else is saying it only takes them so long? You can do a little that won't last long in an hour.
I agree that it takes longer than said to do a good job that lasts on eyeliner and lips. So knock that 200/hr down to 100/hr, half that for the facility, now down to 50/hr, half that for expenses, now down to 25/hr. It doesn't look so good now does it? Permanent makeup prices are not high enough.
Not everyone cares if it is a decent job that lasts. They just want the money right now and heck with tomorrow.
If I can have a comfortable experience in a doctor's office, I would be willing to to do that and pay a little more for it. All the artists around here tell you it doesn't hurt, but my sister had it done and she said she would never do it again.
It would take me 4 sessions to get the same amount of retained eyeliner color on someone that Mychelle does. I know because she did my eyeliner. Not having the advantage of being able to use the meds that nurses in a doctors office can totally sux. It can take as long to get started on permanent eyeliner as to do it because some ppl don’t numb well. I try to start, they hurt, I wait longer, etc. With up to 4 sessions of time spent trying to get started and actually doing some work, I have spent more time with a person than she would have, so yes, I deserve the same fee for the same procedure.
If permanent makeup prices were based on time expected to spend doing it rather than flat rate what any one person considers a finished job there would be more variation in prices than there already are. What one person calls eyeliner isn't what another person calls eyeliner. One artist's upper eyeliner is one line along the lashes. Another artist's upper eyeliner is good coverage through the lashline plus the eyeliner at the top edge. That makes two of the first artist's eyeliner. Still another artist's eyeliner is is lashline, top edge, plus a second lighter color stacked on top of that. That makes three of the first artist's eyeliner. Thank you Mychelle for introducing all the different ways to do eyeliner.
permanent makeup prices should be higher, the low prices make it seem less important than a massage
So if I do lashline coverage, a liner on the top edge, stack a lighter color, plus a sheer faded-off top, I have done four times the work as the first artist... right? What I just described is what I do just about every time. That is the most popular request.
and your point is? Just givin’ ya a hard time. I know you’re driving home the point that you do a lot of work for your high price. I understand that. The majority of us don’t have the advantage of the meds you use to do that. Not everyone can afford the higher permanent makeup prices and are content to get less when they pay less. There is a market for all levels here. I don't have a background in the beauty field like most of you, but can do a basic makeup tattoo and not mess up.
They are not content. They whine that it is not enough or whatever. I can’t see it.. waaa. It looks harsh.. boohoo. It didn’t last.. sob. They want to pay mart prices for expensive products. If I had known that you don’t really even make the money back that you put into training I wouldn’t have wasted my time and money. The times that I do make a few bucks it is not worth dealing with them afterwards.
sounds like someone's poor quality work doesn't bring in many customers
The problem with california is that every tom, dick, and jane do permanent makeup and it keeps the prices down to where even those that do quality work can't charge a fair price.
the only ones that would think a permanent makeup career is a good idea is redneck hillbillies that don't have other options to earn better than minimum wage.
CAREER did you say? Most of us keep our day job. I can count on one hand how many people do only permanent makeup for a career. I got trained in it because I dabble a little in anything and everything. At first I thought the payback for the training would be better but oh well. For some reason you think that you will get trained, start a business, and the customers will come beating the door down. That just doesn't happen and you are left feeling a big disappointment. In fact, customers are few and far inbetween, so you end up being more nervous than the client every time you do it.
The more services you offer the better chance you have of maintaining a steady income. Besides hair services, I offer facials, waxing, eyelash extensions, and permanent makeup. The permanent makeup price may look the best, but you have to work harder for it. It takes forever and more than one visit to get er done. If I broke down the time spent for the money on my other services, permanent makeup is not all that much better and is more stressful. If someone isn't crazy about their haircut, it is not a big deal. It'll grow out quick enough. One microscopic error on permanent makeup and the client eats you alive. They have to live with that a very long time.
I went to one of those three day training sessions. I thought the permanent makeup prices looked good and thought I would make a lot of money at it. HA! You know the permanent makeup training school says "we make over a quarter mil a year". In hindsight, I doubt that. If they do, it is in sales and training, not just doing procedures. The real money is in sales. Have you noticed the ones that claim they make that much do the worst permanent makeup jobs? The trainers can train you to be a mechanic with the tools, but that's a far cry from artistry. It makes sense that if the trainers were all that great they wouldn't be sharing the secret which would take business away from them. Unless of course they were just getting old and tired or burned out on it.
Well the permanent makeup prices were not good enough to keep me in the business. People flinch, squirm, jump, and some of them are very verbal ie screams loud. It was so frustrating trying to do what I needed to do but couldn't because the client can't take it. I paid for that extra course in numbing technique and that only helps you get started faster. To get enough lasting pigment in there it doesn't help later in the procedure. Since I have worked at the same place for years, I can't get away with taking their money and doing just enough to satisfy them for the moment. They would come back to me months later and say this isn't lasting and I would be obligated to do it again. If I could travel in somewhere to do it I would because the travelers take the money and run and don't have to face the clients later. It would be worth having a lower permanent makeup price to go somewhere to do a group of people and just leave and forget about it.
What urks me is when people who are not in the beauty business at all go get trained because think they can make money doing this. They don’t even know how to put on their own makeup, much less someone else’s. That just shows they don’t care how it will turn out, it is all about the money. If I had a nickel for every client that asked questions about how they can get trained while I was doing their permanent makeup… sheeesh! Go get ya some honey! I silently laugh at them. They have no idea how hard it is to get the brows even, the eyeliner straight, the lips even, the color right, and implant enough to last. They have no idea how clients come back to tell you what is wrong with it. You think this is fun, easy, and glamorous? It is so much responsibility and accountability I almost threw my supplies in the trash a dozen times. I feel you people who have nothing to do with the beauty industry have no business getting into permanent makeup, and feel you are stepping on my toes. If jenben413 thinks CA is over-run with permanent makeup techs, Texas is worse. That Dallas permanent training school that makes pigments was giving free permanent makeup classes for almost twenty years. There was a snowcone hut across the street that we went to during break, and the snow cone lady had a sign in the window for $99.00 permanent makeup. Yea, she had gone to the free classes too.
Monique, the snow cone lady was just being an innovative entrepreneur. She can charge a dollar for the shaved ice for numbing and just do you right there on the floor of the hut.
Hey! I resemble that remark and resent it Monique. Some of you makeup artists don’t do such a hot job on regular makeup. With permanent makeup you can’t put it on and wipe the edge with a q-tip to make it right. It’s amazing how being the slightest half line up or down can ruin the flow of tattooed eyeliner or worse case ruin the shape of the eye.
Hmmm This post is about permanent makeup prices, but you have given me an idea for a new post: Who makes the best permanent makeup artist – esthetician, artist, etc. I’ll get busy on it and you can vote and give your point of view.
Get over it Monique. In every occupation there is a curve with only a few excellent ones at the high end. Look at cosmetic surgeons – you really have to pick one carefully. There are lots of doctors that start doing the plastic surgery procedures because they want the money. I’m sure they all start out thinking they will be good at it but that is beside the point. The ones that are really good charge more and people pay it. There are people who want quality and are willing to pay for it.
The sad thing is that those who do poor quality work don’t even know their permanent makeup is bad. Sometimes the client doesn’t know any better either - unless it is REALLY bad.
If Monique’s permanent makeup was all that she would have enough biz that she wouldn’t be b*tchin about who is stepping on her toes.
This is not manicures or haircuts that the customer comes back for every month. You do the job and they don’t need to come back for years. Get Real! There are not enough customers for someone to specialize in just permanent makeup, well excuse me, with a few exceptions. Not everyone wants permanent makeup. Some want it but can’t afford it. Some want it but are afraid it will hurt or whatever. Going back to the cosmetic surgery comparison given by Sandra in the other post, just about everybody could use some type of cosmetic surgery, but not everyone gets it.
When you are talking about cosmetic surgery, you are talking thousands of dollars; when you’re talking about permanent makeup, you are talking about only hundreds. Anyone can come up with a few hundred or so. When I was doing procedures, I let customers talk me down more from my already low permanent makeup prices. Then they make small talk while I work about their vacation, facelift, next botox appt, and other expensive things that make permanent makeup prices look like pocket change. It made me soooo mad that I was slaving away doing their procedure cheap, using up a chunk of my time just to help them afford their next round of botox or next vacation. They don’t talk the botox lady down on her price.
You Rock Wildone! Right On! I ignored NJ regulations and went to the home of a hair client to do her eyeliner because she was a senior and gave me a sob story about how she couldn’t afford the permanent makeup prices. Going to her home cut out the facility fee, but I was still getting close to what I would have gotten on my part of the fee so it sounded good to me. I pulled up to a house in a neighborhood that I wouldn’t have been able to afford to live in. That was my first clue that I was a sucker. My second clue came a couple of years later when the client said she needed a touchup because it had faded quite a bit – especially after her vacation to Egypt. I could have slapped her. She can afford to go to Egypt but can’t pay permanent makeup prices? I went ahead and did it because I didn’t want to lose her as a hair client, but NEVER AGAIN will I do that for anybody. I risked fines and losing all my licenses doing that.
I would like to comment on your comments if you don’t mind. 1) re: some people getting permanent makeup training that are just not good at it. A NACE survey indicates barely over half the population chooses a career or training because they like the work it enables them to do. A portion of people chooses training for the income it generates. Medical school is a good example. How many doctors do not have a good beside manner, and are not good at their job? Do you think they are in the medical field because they love people and want to help them? For many, heck no! 2) re: clients talking the permanent makeup artist down on her prices. They do this because they think they can. They think if so-and-so down the road can do it for $200 why can’t you? They just don’t get it.
Can I join this forum? With permanent makeup prices, you might be getting what you pay for. Better watch out! Not meaning to pick on doctors or the medical field – it just makes an easy comparison since everyone can relate to it. My example is to compare going to a qualified physician for plumping/filler injections vs the backroom/home jobs. Look what happened to Priscilla Presley. That doc that wasn’t even a doc used cheap mechanic grade silicone instead of medical grade quality silicone. Under-educated permanent makeup artists don’t know any better than to use cheap equipment and pigments to do their cheap-looking jobs.
Under-educated permanent makeup artists don’t get that just because it looks clean doesn’t mean it is. They wipe things off and call it good. Besides the needles, other parts of the machine are disposable or need to be autoclaved. Idiots do things like pour leftover pigment back into the main bottle. Reusable items like the cap holder and the tray you work off have to be properly disinfected. A quick wipe doesn’t cut it. You have to know how long each microorganism lives on surfaces, which disinfectant or germicide kills each one, and less known about is contact time. A certain germicide has to be in contact with the item for a certain number of minutes to effectively kill certain microorganisms. If you just give it a wipe and it immediately dries, that is not enough contact time. An autoclave has to reach a certain temperature for a certain number of minutes to kill off everything. A salon in TX was shut down for spreading hepatitis and two clients were infected with aides in Canada. Go right ahead stupid public, with the lowest permanent makeup price you can find.
Tell us how you really feel and don’t hold back this time. Hah ha ha
I almost got $75 eyeliner in Mexico but was warned that the girl wipes and reseals the needle in the package so each person would think they are getting a new one because she opens it in front of you.
Callie brings up an important fact about length of time germs are able to live on objects. The time factor is what makes it so dangerous for people to flock to the motel room, salon, or someone’s home where a traveler has come in to do permanent makeup on a group of people. Not armed with the knowledge or sterilizing equipment to ensure prevention of disease transmission, the traveler can infect the whole group. For instance if client #3 has an infectious disease, clients #4, 5, and 6 done afterward can be infected. Right here in Tulsa, a hair salon would recruit customers for group prices on permanent makeup. A woman in one of the groups done caught herpes in her eye. What most likely happened was that someone done before her had cold sores or lips done, and the herpes was passed along during the eyeliner procedure to this woman.
I have a half dozen metal handpiece sets that go to my machine. I can line up a day of several permanent makeup clients. As each client is finished, the metal pieces are placed in disinfecting solution, and all are sterilized in the autoclave at the end of the day. That way, I don’t have to take time out sterilizing between every client. Autoclaves are expensive and certainly not something one would travel with – also very heavy. There is no way the traveling techs with cheap permanent makeup prices have an autoclave and probably only have one set of handpiece adapters. Fluids get up in the handpiece parts that surround the needles too – not just on the needles. You have to have a decontam routine for those parts.
That's exactly how I do it too. That is the routine for all medical offices. Instruments used during the day are all autoclaved in one batch at the end of the day. Not only do travelers not have multiple handpieces, they don't have multiple colors to choose from either. I get calls from upset women who say they got in on one of these great deals, and everybody got the same dark color for eyebrows. The color is easy enough to change, but the shape usually needs to be fixed too which means some or all of it needs to be removed.
I am a nurse. I went for training in permanent makeup. I thought it would be a fun, low stress way to make extra money, or even replace my present job. What a shocker! To do the permanent makeup in comfort for the client, the medical supplies and numbing meds add up to more than I thought they would. Every time I turn around I am low on something. Needing another box of syringes, another box of needles for those syringes, or injectable lidocaine to go in them. Then there is still the prescription quality topical that is used in addition to the injectables. I use prescription eye ointment after eyeliner, other prescription ointment after brows or lips, and the list goes on. It seems like you should be able to do more people from a bottle of pigments, but it runs out fast too. Depending on how many touchups a person asks for, they can cost me quite a bit in supplies. The only one that makes easy money from permanent makeup is the physician for use of his office.
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