Semi permanent brow tattoo: embrowdery tried and tested

I spent a good portion of my youth plucking my eyebrows to the point of extinction. You know that great early noughties look, the short, thin line of barely there brow? Yep, that was me!

Luckily they grew back when full brows came into fashion, and in recent years I've been letting my bushy bad boys grow wild and free. I've never considered professional intervention, but that does mean my brows can look a bit... unkempt.*

Enter Embrowdery at Up To My Eyes in Greystones. Embrowdery is semi-permanent makeup that's applied in strokes that mimic the eyebrow hairs. First the therapist marks in your eyebrow shape using a VERY dark pencil.  You work on getting the perfect shape together - so this can take a half an hour. Then comes the plucking and this was actually the most painful part of the process, honest.

THEN the Embrowdery proper begins.  The therapist uses a metal hand tool to apply the colour to the top layer of skin. I couldn't honestly describe Embrowdery as painful (and I'm a HUGE wuss) but it's definitely uncomfortable; my eyes watered and I wanted to sneeze the entire time.

Also I made a serious tactical error: before we started I had a really good look at the metal hand tool (embrowderiser?) which is a sort of a small scalpel. If my crippling fear of the dentist has taught me anything, it's NEVER look at the tools of the trade...

Anyway, check out the results!

I'm honestly pretty impressed by how natural it looks.  After the first treatment the Embrowdery fades by as much as 50% and a second and third session are necessary to make the effects last between 18 months and 2 years. Also it's very definitely not Beaut.ienomical - it costs a whacking €380.

I'm VERY pleased with my new brows, I really feel they shape my face and people keep complimenting them. Here they are in their natural habitat. (A face full of slap.)

So would you try Embrowdery?  Or will you stick to tried and trusted methods of brow fixin' (have a look at our eyebrow category for tons more).