Scalp Tattooing - Hair Simulation

Andrea Darby · **Posted:** Fri Jun 06, 2014 7:31 pm

Martin wrote:

hi there

I have been looking around at different websites and I notice that some places say they only use true black pigments and do not use pigments with blue in them and one website ######## said to be careful because permanent makeup artists use indian ink and unsuitable pigments etc can you explain this a bit better for me.

Hello Martin and welcome to the forum.

I have removed the link to the website that you mentioned because there is a great deal of false and misleading information on the site, the content on the site is just an advertising site spruiking various SMP services that pay for promotion. Paid advertising certainly is not independent opinion, operating a web marketing site does not in any way make someone an expert in medical tattooing, you need be very careful about the source of information as there are now people passing themselves off as experts when they have no qualifications of any kind in medical tattooing.

Ironically many of the SMP services who seem desperate to distance themselves from the permanent makeup industry are using PMU equipment to provide their services and some are using lower end devices than our entry level students use during their training, some of the SMP providers have even purchased their equipment from our store and some may have only ever completed a basic tattoo/permanent makeup course.

I do not know of any certified permanent makeup artist that uses Indian ink for any type of client services, and a qualified medical tattooist would think it was an outrageous practice. In fact the only group of technicians that I know of who are experimenting with and compounding their own pigments and not disclosing their ingredients are some of the dedicated SMP services. It should be of great concern to anyone considering undergoing any form of cosmetic or medical tattooing if the service provider refuses to disclose the source of their pigments, the full ingredients list, and the qualifications of person who compounded the pigments.

We have been warning about the risks associated with undisclosed pigments for quite some time, recently a serious health alert was issued and a range of pigments were subject to recall.
See the report below from our Chief Medical Officer Advisory and pay close attention to just how serious the risks to health can be.

Chief Health Officer Advisory - Tattoo ink safety warning

The above report highlights the risks that people may be taking if they accept any form of tattooing with undisclosed pigments, and I stress that some of the dedicated SMP service providers are the only technicians I know of who will not provide full disclosure about pigments to clients. We have no doubt that the regulators will be looking closely at this unethical practice in due course.

The only person qualified to compound pigments is a qualified pigment chemist such as those within our expert advisory.

Expert Advisory Network

I cannot stress this strongly enough if the technician will not provide full disclosure about their pigments you should refuse the service.
There is a lot of complete nonsense being claimed about special 'undisclosed' ingredients in SMP pigments, most often those claims are made by people without any qualifications in pigment chemistry and for those of us in the know some of the claims appear quite ludicrous and they would be humerous if it were not for the fact that patients are potentially being deceived.

In relation to "Pure Black" pigments, actually there is no such thing, black pigments come from a variety of sources such as carbon, concentrated iron oxides and other colorants such as the lakes (sometimes called lac). All black pigments will have an underlying dominant hue that is slightly blue/brown/grey or other variations of those hues, blacks are simply highly concentrated versions of other colours which may be blends of other colour fractions or they are sometimes bound together in a precipitated compound during manufacture.

There are a wide variety of reasons why any pigment may change colour over time which we have covered in detail within our publication on the topic.

Why Do Cosmetic Tattoos Change Colour?

If you ask enough questions you will discover very quickly that those making outrageous claims about SMP pigments versus cosmetic & medical tattoo pigments quite often know very little about pigment chemistry, will be vague about the facts, and will attempt to hide the source of their pigments, that should ring alarm bells very loudly for you.

Jim · **Posted:** Sun Sep 07, 2014 12:05 pm

I have been thinking about having scalp micropigmentation for about the past 18 months I had a good look around at the majority or websites both in Australia and overseas, I have also spoken with or corresponded with 3 other SMP clinics as well as yourself and I received and read your alternative options and pre treatment advice publications.

The first thing I would like to say is that you need to be commended for the level of professionalism and the quality of information that you provide to customers, as a legal practitioner I have to say that the standard of disclosure is excellent and better than is provided by many medical practitioners prior to providing surgery. I consider myself to be a pretty decent researcher so I have no reservations in saying that you are obviously setting the benchmark for your industry in regards to the standards to aspire to.

But what really took me by surprise was the ethical approach, after corresponding via email having two telephone conversations with you and a 45 minute appointment to have you talking about self acceptance, confidence building conversation, and other possible alternatives and suggesting that perhaps SMP was not the best choice in my particular circumstances it really was extraordinary.

It is quite rare these days to come across a professional or business that has a genuine interest in providing good advice without ulterior motives, thank you very much for the benefit of your time and a very enthusiastic well done.

Andrea Darby · **Posted:** Sun Sep 07, 2014 5:11 pm

Jim wrote:

I consider myself to be a pretty decent researcher so I have no reservations in saying that you are obviously setting the benchmark for your industry in regards to the standards to aspire to.

Thank you Jim we do our best, and I appreciate your kind words.

mitch · **Joined:** Mon Feb 15, 2016 3:49 pm **Posts:** 1

i have been researching SMP for quite a while and i notice that some places are advertising Tricopigmentation or another variation of trico something or other and they say its better than smp because of where the pigment is placed in the skin is this honestly something different or is it just smp by another name?

Andrea Darby · **Posted:** Mon Feb 15, 2016 4:39 pm

mitch wrote:

i have been researching SMP for quite a while and i notice that some places are advertising Tricopigmentation or another variation of trico something or other and they say its better than smp because of where the pigment is placed in the skin is this honestly something different or is it just smp by another name?

Hello Mitch welcome to the forum and thank you for taking the time to register.

The short answer to your question is that just like 'SMP' the use of the term 'Trico' it is purely a marketing term, most of the dedicated service providers are desperate to differentiate their services in some way so they use a variety of marketing terms in order to achieve that.

A longer answer would be that many of the dedicated scalp services are relatively new to the micropigmentation industry often with less than a couple of years experience so they are probably unaware that the equipment, pigments and techniques that they have been provided during their very short 1-4 day training programs have been around for a very long time, they probably even believe what they have been told themselves.

Most are using mid range digital equipment and standard needle cartridges that have been in use for at least 10 years or more and have probably only been taught how to use 1 or 2 types of needles as compared to the 20 or more that are used in the full range of medical tattoo services.

As to the depth of implantation, well some of the dedicated clinics attempt to convince clients and others that they have 'discovered' something new in regards to the depth of placement in the skin, some are even making silly claims such as the pigment is only implanted in the epidermis (the non permanent layer of the skin). Apart from being plain silly these claims are completely misleading the leading medical micropigmentation experts have known about this long before any dedicated smp or trico pigmentation clinic ever existed.

What we are talking about is choosing the correct penetration depth for the service being provided to avoid the Depth:Colour/Size effect which in physics is referred to as the Tyndall effect, first described back in the late 1800's by John Tyndall, we teach our students about this in all of our courses even the basic introduction courses, yet apparently some of the dedicated smp / trico training providers claim this is a new discovery. A new discovery that was known back in the 1800's and has been in practice for years.

You will notice that we published the first comprehensive article on the causes of pigment colour change and the importance of needle depth including the Depth:Colour/Size effect a few years ago, I can only presume that after 'discovering' our publication on the topic some of the dedicated smp/trico training providers have decided to leverage off of the information in their marketing.

The fact is that the well educated medical tattooists have know about this for a long time its nothing new.

Why do cosmetic tattoos change colour

Forum rules

Scalp Tattooing - Hair Simulation

Who is online