What it costs, and what that includes

Semi-permanent make-up is priced per treatment, not per hour, and the number you are quoted should cover the whole course of treatment rather than the first appointment on its own. That distinction is where most of the confusion — and most of the unpleasant surprises — come from.

Here is what it costs here, in full, with nothing held back for later.

The prices

• Powder brows — £295. A soft, diffused brow with a lighter front and a defined tail. The most forgiving finish and the one most people mean when they say they want their brows done.
• Ombré brows — £295. The same technique worked to a stronger gradient, pale at the front and deeper through the tail.
• Combination brows — £325. Shading with hair strokes worked through the front, for people who want texture rather than a solid shape. It takes longer, which is the whole of the price difference.
• Lip blush — £195. A wash of colour through the lip that evens out tone and gives back a definite edge.
• Brows and lips together — £450. Done across two appointments rather than one, because four hours of needle work in a single sitting is too much for most people's skin and most people's patience.

A consultation and patch test costs nothing and commits you to nothing.

What the price includes

Every price on this site covers the same five things, and you should expect all five wherever you go:

• The consultation, and the patch test that has to happen before any pigment goes near you.
• Mapping and shaping — the pencil-drawn shape you look at in a mirror and approve before a needle is picked up.
• Colour matched to your skin, your hair and your undertone, in daylight.
• The treatment itself, however long it takes on the day.
• The perfecting session at four to six weeks. This is not an optional extra and it is not an upsell. Semi-permanent make-up is a two-appointment treatment and the second appointment is where it is actually finished.

If a price you are comparing does not include the perfecting session, it is not a cheaper price. It is half a price.

What it does not include

Colour boosts. Once the first course is done, the colour will slowly fade, and topping it up is a separate appointment at a later date — £150 if you come back within six to eighteen months, £195 if you leave it between eighteen and thirty months.

Leave it longer than that and the work has usually faded far enough that it is priced as a new treatment rather than a boost. That is not a penalty, it is just how much work is involved.

Corrections and cover-ups of somebody else's work start at £250 and genuinely cannot be quoted without seeing them. Old work that has healed grey, blue or orange, work that is too dark, or a shape that sits wrong on the face are all different jobs with different amounts of work in them.

Why the range across the UK is so wide

You will find brows advertised anywhere between about £150 and £600 in the UK, and the spread is not simply London against the North.

At the bottom of the range you are usually looking at somebody recently qualified building a portfolio, a training academy where a student does the work under supervision, or an introductory offer. None of those are automatically bad — everybody starts somewhere, and a supervised student in a good academy is often a perfectly sensible option if you go in knowing that is what it is.

At the top of the range you are paying for reputation, for a long waiting list, and in London for rent.

In the middle, where this sits, you are paying for somebody who does this every week, holds the licence and the insurance for it, and will still be trading when you need your boost in a year and a half.

Worth thinking about before you compare

This is the part worth being blunt about. Semi-permanent make-up that goes wrong is expensive to put right and slow to remove.

A correction costs more than the original treatment, because working over existing pigment is harder than working on clean skin. Removal — saline or laser — runs to several sessions spaced weeks apart, costs several hundred pounds, and does not always come back to a blank canvas.

So the arithmetic on a bargain is not £150 against £295. It is £150, plus £250 or more to correct it, plus a year of not liking your face, against £295.

What to ask before you book, anywhere

• Is the perfecting session included, and what happens if I need a third?
• Are you licensed by the council for semi-permanent skin colouring, and can I see it?
• Are you insured specifically for this treatment?
• Who does the work — you, or somebody else on the day?
• Can I see healed photographs, not just fresh ones?

That last one matters more than people realise. Everything looks good an hour after it is done. Healed work at six weeks is the only honest portfolio.

Paying

A deposit secures the appointment and comes off the total. The balance is paid on the day of the first appointment, and the perfecting session four to six weeks later has nothing further to pay.

Everything starts with the free consultation, so you will know exactly what you are having done, and what it costs, before anything is booked.