You could say that eyebrow tattoo aftercare advice in this country is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, and more people should make of that what they will. A new set of brows on a mild week in Melbourne is all well and good, but you are on to something else when you have put in the same work in the grip of a Perth heatwave or a sticky time in Brisbane. To get to it: for the short answer, be clean about it, let your technician be the arbiter on whether to keep them dry in the opening days, and do not pick at any scabbing or peeling. Steer clear of the beach, the pool, the sun and anything that makes you sweat, and stick with the aftercare product he or she puts forward.
I am Rhys Parker and I can tell you it is seldom the treatment itself that is the issue. It is the everyday Australian things in its wake that trip people up. A hot shower without a second thought, putting the dog out in the UV, a foray into the steam room or the notion that a swim is no harm done. Down here, how well the pigment holds is as much a matter of restraint as the artist’s hand.
Why the weather is a factor
There is an awkwardness to fresh cosmetic tattooing. Call it what you like but it is controlled skin trauma, and the Australian climate has a way of being rough as guts on skin trying to heal. For advice on brow tattoo healing seasons, consider the humidity, salt, UV, heat and sweat that will muscle their way in if you let them.
You might find some common ground if you put microblading aftercare in Australia side by side with powder or ombre brow aftercare. But then there are differences to be had in your skin type, the local climate and whether your technician is for a wet or dry healing approach.
What the climate does
A warm day can soften a scab before its time and you will be tempted to put a hand to it. Wind and cold will see you overdo the ointment because the skin is so dry. In either instance, excess moisture or friction will put a crimp in the healing process.
And then there is the UV. The Bureau of Meteorology will tell you we have some of the highest in the world, and strong sun with fresh brows is a poor mix. Have a look at the BOM UV Index for the latest before you plan to be out and about for long.
A Do and Don’t
No need for a military operation but you want a plan. Most of the trouble in the first fortnight is avoidable if you do not equate “healing fine” with carte blanche.
- Do: heed your technician, have a clean pillowcase, a lukewarm shower and a wide-brim hat for outdoors. If told to, put on a rice-grain layer of the ointment they recommend.
- Don’t: put them in the sun, scrub or soak them, go for a swim or in a sauna, or put in a hard workout. Plainly put, leave the scabs alone.
Healing from Day to Day
Here is the part most want to know, without the brochure talk. What two weeks down the line is likely to entail. In truth it is not always neat; your brows will seem darker and uneven of a patch before they come to terms with it.
The 14 day window is where it counts, though healing time for an eyebrow tattoo in Australia is subject to your immune system, the method used and so on. Should your technician at LuxeInk, TattLab, Lartiste Brows, My Rejuvenate, Tanya Beauty Care, Coastal Skin Clinic or the like have a different protocol, you follow theirs.
| Day Range | What to expect | Course of action | Hot weather |
| 0–1 | They will be bold and sharper than you thought. | If you are to blot the lymph, do so and don’t touch the area. | Get in the air-conditioning, no long midday strolls. |
| 2–4 | Some tightness and tenderness. | Saline solution or whatever cleanser was instructed, minimal ointment. | Put off the strenuous exercise, do not let the brow line sweat. |
| 5–7 | Scabs and peeling will make an appearance. | Let them be, keep it dry. | The humidity will have the scabs feeling soft and itchy, resist rubbing them. |
| 8–10 | Patchy or lighter in colour. | Be patient, it is often temporary. | Keep the beach wind and direct sun at bay. |
| 11–14 | Colour is settling, the surface is calmer. | Makeup and sunscreen around the area only if your technician says so. | Not pool safe until given the all clear. |
Reality check
You may expect to be polished by morning and carry on, but The truth of the matter is you will be a little taken aback by your own reflection for some days and have to make room in your schedule for healing. You will find yourself having to plan around it, from gym time and school runs to what to do about the fringe when you want to put some water on it without drenching your brows.
Brow tattoo healing seasons are of more consequence than one might suppose. To book in ahead of a week of outdoor sport or a camping jaunt in summer, let alone a tropical holiday, is generally to court problems.
Heat And Sweat
In summer the aftercare becomes something of an exercise in warding off friction and moisture. The advice you get for tattoo care in Australia may seem straightforward enough but putting it into practice is another thing; one has to keep cool without being so over-cautious as to make getting through the day unfeasible.
Light sweating is where most err on the side of underestimating things. There is no requirement to put in a half marathon. Yet a hot yoga session, a tram platform that is too crowded, lugging your shopping over a car park in 33°C heat or even a sharp uphill walk can be all it takes to see the area dampened.
A word on timing your exercise
When you have but a single day before you are back to your normal routine, the first week should be given over to calm indoor pursuits with minimal sweat. A gentle walk is more to be had than cycling against a hot headwind or doing strength work in an unventilated gym under the lights. As for any notion of “I will pop in for a HIIT class and dab my brow”, frankly it is not for beginners. Salt, bacteria and heat are in the sweat and wiping it down puts up the kind of friction you want to avoid.
If I am asked by friends what works in reality there is nothing to it: air-conditioning, loose hats that don’t chafe, an early start on your errands and a paper towel if the technician says to blot. Pick up the kids from school before the car has become an oven, rather than after a long foreshore walk and a visit to the bakery with a wet fringe on your face.
UV and the Brows
Australian sun and new brows are as compatible as a mozzie in the bedroom at 2 am. UV will impede the healing process and in time cause fading, hence the insistence on hats and good timing from artists.
You must avoid the sun following your treatment, peak UV times in particular. In practice that means physical protection and leaving your errands to the early morning or late afternoon.
Sunscreen comes after the hat
Technicians will not want you to put sunscreen on the area until the skin has closed of its own accord in the initial phase of healing. So a wide-brimmed hat is indispensable. Not a visor that leaves your forehead to it, nor a cap that is tight on the brow line, but one that properly shades the face.
And once you have been given the go-ahead for sunscreen it is important for the long term as much as the immediate aftermath. Those who are out of doors a lot, be they tradies, golfers, runners or anyone with a weekend habit of being on the water, will see their pigment go faster.
Water, hair and showers
Questions tend to be forthcoming here since one cannot just put on the airs of a feral bushwalker for a fortnight and not have a wash. The idea is to minimise the steam and soaking.
As for swimming with an eyebrow tattoo, during the early stages of healing don’t bother. The chlorine in a pool, the sand and salt at the beach, they are all irritants to the skin and will compromise the pigment.
Is it possible to wash your hair?
Within the first few days of microblading you can, provided you are careful and keep the water and conditioner at bay from the brows. Take a lukewarm shower and angle your head back so the spray does not come your way.
It is the runoff that is the problem. Some casual showering and a bit of product running down the forehead is the source of many an aftercare blunder in Australia, not any flagrant rule breaking.
In the initial stages of healing you will have to forgo the ocean and the pool, as well as saunas, steam rooms and any protracted bath time. Put off the wet areas of a spa circuit or a day at My Rejuvenate if you have a hotel weekend in mind; a new cosmetic tattoo is not compatible with that sort of steamy relaxation.
The Essentials: Ointment and Cleansing
There is nothing exciting about good aftercare, which is as it should be. The object is to let the healing take its course, not to make of your eyebrows a chemistry set.
For the first couple of days your technician might put you on a very gentle regime to get rid of residue, perhaps with saline or sterile water. Some artists will then advocate dry healing, others will want you to put down a thin barrier of Bepanthen or the like. Thin being the operative word.
A question of how much
When it comes to ointment, you are looking for something on the order of a grain of rice, not the sheen of a glazed doughnut. An excess will over-soften scabs and hold in debris, whereas skimping can make things feel taut, but adding more is no solution.
You will hear Bepanthen come up a lot in Australia and it may feature in an aftercare talk from some clinics or well known artists such as Tanya Beauty Care and Coastal Skin Clinic. But do not use it unless your technician has said so. What suits your skin and the way you have been treated is what matters.
Mistakes best left alone
The worst kind of poor healing does not make for a horror story. It is the sum of a thousand small indiscretions: a trip to the beach, a session at the gym, a hard scrub in the shower or a moment of “surely it is fine now”.
Do not be tempted to pick at flakes and scabs, it is only going to dislodge pigment. And when people start to panic and over-cleanse they would do better to leave well enough alone. Same with ointment, thicker is not an improvement. Then there is the early application of a brow pencil or foundation, which is an irritant to skin in the process of mending. One must also factor in the climate; in these parts of Australia powder brows need more sweat management in humid conditions than in a cool week.
Some will have to be more circumspect
Those who commute on a bike, put in a daily workout or work outside, or who reside in hot and sticky climes for most of the year require a more rigorous approach. In the north where there is a wet season, aftercare can become fiddly. In the Top End under build-up weather it is not a matter of heat so much as the sense that every part of you is ready to perspire.
Healing is less of an issue if you can put in a week indoors and out of the sun, working from home for instance. Technicians are wont to recommend in private that one times the appointment to fit the lifestyle, not just an opening in the calendar.
And if you need to
Tenderness, flaking and some redness are to be expected. But do not say “she’ll be right” to pain that is getting worse, or to marked swelling, pus, fever, a rash or redness that is spreading. For any aftercare you need to make sense of, put in a call to your technician before anything else, particularly if you are in doubt as to what is normal. Should an infection or allergy be a concern, do not delay in seeing a doctor. A GP or urgent care will be of more service than the Dr Pickles type of armchair diagnosis one might find in an online comment section from some stranger.
Questions for the artist
Find out if the treatment calls for dry healing or a little ointment, at what point water and makeup are permissible, and when exercise, sun and swimming can be taken up again. An artist of quality has no issue with such questions; a poor one will treat aftercare as something of an optional extra.
A word to the wise
Were I to distil it all, the answer is that eyebrow tattoo aftercare in an Australian climate comes down to keeping heat, moisture and UV at bay and leaving well enough alone for the first two weeks. What happens in the treatment room is only part of it; it is the unglamorous decisions in the wake of the procedure that safeguard the outcome.
Rhys Parker has a rule of thumb that is easy to recall: leave the brows clean, cool, dry and out of the sun and don’t be too inventive with products. The end result is to allow the skin to heal on its own, be it microblading, ombre or powder brows done at LuxeInk, TattLab, Lartiste Brows, Coastal Skin Clinic, Tanya Beauty Care or any other place.
Frequently Asked Questions
The sort of thing one puts to the mirror back home and wonders about, having come to terms with the fact that aftercare is not as it was made to look in the booking photo.
What should one not do post tattoo?
Soaking, scrubbing, perspiring profusely, direct sun, saunas, steam rooms, swimming, putting on makeup, random skincare or picking at scabs are to be avoided. They are the surest way to upset the healing process and colour retention.
How long must eyebrows be kept dry?
In the first week or so most artists will have you keep them dry, though the method and technique will dictate this. Heed your technician’s advice to the letter, for where some may want limited cleansing, others are for a drier regime.
Washing your hair after an eyebrow tattoo?
As a rule you can get to it sooner than you can let the brows get wet, as long as you see to it that no product or water makes contact with the tattoo. Be sure to lean back with lukewarm water and not have shampoo or conditioner running over your forehead.
Is it alright to wash microbladed brows at day 7?
Only if your technician deems the time right for your skin and how it is healing. There is likely to be some scabbing and peeling going on still and rubbing or splashing the area could be problematic.
When is it safe to go for a swim?
Not until the technician has given the all clear and the skin has healed. You will generally be looking at past the first fortnight, or in some cases more, since sand, saltwater and chlorine are apt to irritate and compromise the work.