Lips
Permanent tattooing can be used to enhance the natural color of your lips, to create, define, or slightly alter your lip line, or to dramatize and color your lips.
Clients with naturally darkly pigmented lips will never achieve a lip color other than their own natural color, a few shades darker. Bright orange or red pigments in Asian skin tones will turn to a cool red. Those clients can never attain a bright lip color. They can achieve a darker lip color, but applying lipstick on top of their tattoo is the only way they will achieve bright reds or oranges. Clients most often request a natural lip color which is darker than their natural color. You should be warned that a natural lip color/enhancement will not last as long as a bright lip color. Touch-up application will likely be needed every two to three years. If the pigmented area is properly cared for, brighter colors will last as long as two to four years before a touch-up is needed.
You will be scheduled for a touch-up appointment, at no extra charge, six to eight weeks after your initial treatment. You have a three-month period in which to get your touch-up and complete your procedure. There will be a charge for touch-ups, at the brochure rates, after your two initial appointments. Any touch-up for work not originally done in this office will be charged at the full fee, regardless of how much, or how little, work needs to be done.
A local injection will be given for your initial procedure and your scheduled touch-up appointment. Numbness will last 1-3 hours. You should not have the permanent makeup procedure done on your lips for six months following the insertion of gortex, allografts, or fat in your lips. You should also wait six months after Accutane treatment. You should wait three to four months after dermal fillers such as Juvederm and Restylane.
More than 75% of all Americans have been exposed to the Herpes Simplex-type virus. Herpes Simplex stays in the body until colds, fever, menstruation, exposure to stress, sun or trauma stimulate it to create a cold sore. Herpes outbreaks consist of painful fluid-filled blisters which are highly contagious until they are completely healed. Cold sore outbreaks last about seven days and usually appear 2-5 days after a procedure, but they may last for up to three weeks. If you have had prior scarring from cold sores, acne, dermabrasion, or augmentation on your lips, it may be more difficult to get pigment to stay in the treated area. Repeated application of pigment in a localized area may cause scar tissue. If a cold sore outbreak occurs after micro-pigmentation, it is likely that you will lose the pigment from the area of the lesion. My Physician will provide you with enough anti-viral medication to get you through your tattoo procedure. You will need to seek treatment resolution elsewhere for future unrelated out-breaks.
Your lips will swell markedly during the initial and touch-up procedures. You must be aware that you will not want to be seen for 1-2 days after treatment. No matter how much this is emphasized, no client is ever prepared for how she will look! There is NO WAY you can keep your lip tattoo a secret from your significant other or family for the first two days! Don’t even try! You will be shown pictures so that you will know what is normal. All of us who have had our lips tattooed have gone through this. You are not alone! Your lips may be sore for a day or two. You will look normal enough to be seen in public by the third day. Do not plan important events where you need to look your very best until three weeks after your touch-up visit. This will be emphasized at your consultation and again, before your initial treatment.
Bring a lipstick the color you desire to your initial procedure visit. If you are not sure of the color, we can discuss colors. Your lip color will initially, be 30-40% brighter than the final color will be. The initial color will not be the same color as your final result. Your lips will chap and peel at 3-5 days. It will sometimes appear that you have lost the pigmented color after your lips peel. The color will reappear in about 2 weeks, and your lips should be healed by then, but the color may still change for up to four weeks. A touch-up visit will be scheduled 6 -8 weeks after your initial procedure. Remember that initially, it will take 2 treatments to meet your expectations and to arrive at the color and shape you desire. Future touch-ups will only require one treatment.
Lips After-Care
Do not apply any products to your lips until your treatment area is healed, other than those we have given to you. You will be given “Bag Balm” to use every few hours while lips are chapped and a lidocaine ointment to use if needed for pain the first day. Apply these ointments with a Q-tip, not your fingertips, to avoid infection. Remember that you will have an open wound for at least three days. If you use up all the Bag Balm before your lips are healed, you may stop by the office and get more, or buy more. Bag Balm is available at Wilson’s Feed Store in Napa, most Costcos and CVS Drug stores. This product is very important in the healing process. Vaseline does not keep moisture in your lips as well as does Bag Balm, and it does not have the antibiotic additives. If you are allergic to Sulfa drugs, you may, or may not, have a reaction to Bag Balm. Check with me if you do have a Sulfa allergy, and we will discuss your options.
**Do not wipe your lips with a napkin or lick your lips repeatedly.
**No soap, sunning, sauna, swimming in chlorine or salt water,tanning parlor, or jacuzzi until your lips are healed.
**Before bathing, apply Bag Balm or Vaseline to your lips and avoid direct water spray.
**Do not rub, traumatize, touch, or pick at the treated area. If scabs appear, do not pick them off. The pigment may be removed with the scab. You should not kiss or have oral sex until your lips are completely healed.
**The color will be markedly darker initially, because of surface stain of the pigment, in addition to the pigment in your skin. The color will change three to four times within the first four weeks.
Minor symptoms of infection could include but are not limited to: redness, swelling, warmth in the treated area, and tenderness at the procedure site. These are also most certainly normal results of the procedure. Major signs and symptoms of infection could include elevated body temperature, purulent - pussy or smelly- drainage from the procedure site ( hard to ascertain the first 3 days as drainage is also normal), red streaks radiating from the procedure site toward the heart, or pain radiating from the site. These are symptoms which indicate that you should seek immediate medical care.
You will be given a follow-up appointment for 6-8 weeks after your initial procedure. You will be injected for your touch-up appointment, and you may swell as much as you did at your initial procedure. You will need to take the cold sore medication for your touch-up just as you did for your initial procedure. The prescription you received will authorize a refill. Remember, your lip tattoo is not completed until your touch-up has been done.