Page 55 - Retail Pharmacy Assistants September 2020

A guide to
brow treatments
By Emily Devon.
All’s fair in love and brows.
For this month’s Retail Pharmacy Assistants magazine, Beauty Buzz features an eyebrow expert who discusses the most popular treatments and who should get what, so that pharmacy workers are equipped for those hard-hitting questions they may receive when working down the beauty aisle.
For last month’s Beauty Buzz, I spoke to Pharmacy Assistant Sharni Rossow on brow trends and how customers can achieve different styles by using products in a retail pharmacy.
“People are always making sure they’re getting them perfectly shaped, tinted, laminated or even cosmetically tattooed,” she said. “In pharmacy, we have a range of brow care products in-store.”
While brow care products are great for day-to-day beauty routines, many people will still opt to receive specific treatments to ensure the longevity of certain brow styles and keep them maintained.
According to nationally recognised Aesthetician and owner of Brisbane Brows, Anna Rai, two or three treatments are especially popular now.
Brows for beginners
Ms Rai says high definition (HD) brow treatments are most suitable for beginners. These include waxing and tinting.
She adds that hairs can be removed from the skin by using either a soft wax or a nylon or cotton thread, with the latter method involving no product, chemicals or additives.
A combination of waxing and tinting will give a cleaner result, she says.
“It’s going to be less irritating on the skin, as you only have to wax the area once, and the cleaner finish will give you a longer-lasting result,” Ms Rai said.
The waxing and tinting combination “hides any minor gaps in the brows, makes the eyebrow bolder, [and] coats the individual hair strands with colours”, achieving the “hyperrealistic look of brows coated with a little bit of extra mascara”.
Ms Rai says HD treatments are semi- permanent and need to be maintained every four to six weeks. Clearly the pros of this option include that if you’re not entirely sold on the end result, the brows will go back to normal within the next few weeks, so fear not.
In terms of how this kind of treatment impacts the skin, Ms Rai said: “There are no real cons with this one. However, for the clients on any active skin medication [such as] retinol, which is a compound form of the medication retinoid, that’s going to affect the skin, so waxing isn’t appropriate for these clients.”
An advanced level
• What is feathering and why
isn’t it a bird?
For those looking for something more permanent, Ms Rai suggests treatments such as feathering or microfeathering, a type of microblading that uses a precise blade to cut and insert pigment into each inclusion minutely. She says the next step, if the customer doesn’t like the end result, is tattooing.
• Laminating isn’t a treatment for paper?
Eyebrow lamination is, arguably, the current trend. The final product results in all brow hairs sticking upwards, creating a more sparse and fluffier look.
“Eyebrow lamination uses three key products,” Ms Rai said. “You have a lifting lotion, a setting lotion, your oil, and a beautiful, nourishing compound to finish the treatment.”
She added: “It’s going to look thick and luscious. However, the issue with this is it can’t be done regularly enough. If someone gets eyebrow lamination, they’ll have to, in my professional
opinion, wait eight to 12 weeks before returning for additional treatments.”
Customers can receive other HD treatments in the meantime, she says, to maintain the brows, but it’s best to be cautious of the great impact that brow lamination has on the natural hairs.
“Essentially, what it does is dehydrates the hair, to make it sit in a certain way. It’s kind of like lash lifting or chemical hair straightening, but for the eyebrow. It’s a diluted amount that they’re doing, so it’s not going to cause any issues.”
Don’t be brow beaten
Ms Rai notes that it’s essential for the client to know what they want and for brow technicians to try to achieve this – in a way that’s not going to harm the client’s skin.
While pharmacy staff are not in
a position to work on customers’ eyebrows, it’s good for them to be knowledgeable on beauty and the treatments available, so they can point customers in the right direction.
To learn more about how customers can achieve such beauty goals without the full-blown brow treatments, head to the August issue of Retail Pharmacy Assistants where you can check out what’s available in the makeup aisle.
RETAIL PHARMACY ASSISTANTS • AUG 2020
BEAUTY BUZZ 53