How long it really lasts

Semi-permanent means what it says. The pigment is placed in the upper layer of the skin rather than deep into it, and your body breaks it down and clears it away gradually. That is designed behaviour, not failure.

It is also the main advantage over a traditional tattoo. Faces change, fashions change, and a brow shape that suits you at thirty-five is not necessarily one you want welded on at fifty-five.

The honest range

• Brows: twelve to eighteen months before they want a boost.
• Lip blush: twelve to eighteen months, and often at the longer end — lips tend to hold well.

You will see claims of three and even five years elsewhere. In practice, work that old has usually lost its shape and shifted in tone, and what people mean when they say five years is that they can still see something there — not that it still looks like it did.

Twelve to eighteen months is when it stops looking its best, which is a more useful measure than when it disappears completely.

What makes it fade faster

• Sun. The single biggest factor by a distance. Ultraviolet breaks pigment down. Sunbeds are worse than daylight because it is concentrated.
• Oily skin. More oil turnover means faster pigment loss, and it also softens crisp detail. Oily skin might be closer to twelve months than eighteen.
• Acids and retinol. Glycolic, salicylic and retinoid products are designed to accelerate skin turnover, which is exactly what removes pigment. Keep them off the treated area.
• Exfoliating scrubs on the area, for the same reason.
• A fast metabolism and a young immune system clear pigment quicker. Younger clients often fade faster than older ones.
• Swimming and saunas, chlorine and heat both.
• Iron deficiency and some medications can affect it too.

What makes it last longer

One thing does most of the work: sun protection. An SPF on your brows and lips once they are fully healed will add months, and it is the only piece of aftercare that carries on mattering for the whole life of the treatment.

After that: keep acids and scrubs off the area, do not pick at it during healing, and actually attend the perfecting session — work that was properly finished at four to six weeks starts from a stronger place and therefore lasts longer.

How it fades, and how it does not

Good modern pigment fades lighter and slightly warmer, and keeps its shape as it goes. It should look like a softer version of itself rather than a different colour.

Old work, or work done with the wrong pigment for the skin, is what people are thinking of when they picture brows that have gone grey, blue or orange. That is usually either a pigment that was never right for that skin tone or ink that was implanted too deep, where the body reads it differently.

It is one of the reasons pigment choice at the consultation matters more than the shape does — you can adjust a shape later. Colour that has healed wrong is a correction.

Colour boosts

A boost is a shorter appointment that lifts the existing work back to strength rather than starting again.

• £150 if you come back between six and eighteen months.
• £195 between eighteen and thirty months.

Beyond about thirty months there is usually too little left to work with and it is priced as a new treatment. Coming back sooner is genuinely cheaper than leaving it, which is the opposite of how most people assume it works.

A boost is also the natural moment to change something — go a shade warmer, soften the tail, adjust for a new hair colour.

If you decide you want it gone

It will fade on its own if you leave it, though that takes years rather than months and it will look tired for a lot of that time.

It can be removed faster with saline or laser, over several sessions spaced weeks apart, at a cost that usually exceeds the original treatment. Removal is not always complete.

This is worth knowing before the first appointment, not after — and it is another argument for the free consultation, and for starting softer than you think you want. Colour can always be added at the perfecting session. Taking it away is the hard direction.