Powder brows or microblading?

Both put pigment into your skin to build a brow. After that they have almost nothing in common — including who they suit.

Microblading uses a hand tool with a tiny blade to cut individual strokes into the skin, one at a time, each meant to look like a brow hair. Powder brows use a machine to lay down soft shading instead, so you get the look of a beautifully filled-in brow rather than drawn-on hairs.

Your skin decides this, not your taste

This is the bit that catches women out, so it is worth saying plainly. If your skin is oily, or you have open pores through the brow area, microblading is a poor buy however much you love it in somebody else's photos.

Oil spreads a fine cut. Within months those crisp little strokes blur into each other and you are left with something soft and slightly smudged — which is a powder brow, except you paid for microblading and it aged badly getting there.

If your skin is dry to normal with small pores, microblading can look wonderful. Alison still does not offer it, because on the skin that actually walks through her door in East Lancashire, powder work simply holds better and longer.

If you already have microblading

You are not stuck with it. Faded microblading can usually be shaded over with powder work, which softens the old strokes and gives you an even shape back.

How much can be done depends on how much old pigment is left and which way it has faded — blue and grey undertones need working around, not covering. Send Alison a photograph in daylight, without make-up, and she will tell you honestly whether it is a boost, a correction, or a case of letting it fade a bit longer first.