Nano Brows FAQs

If you are over 18, in general good health, not pregnant or breastfeeding, and your brow skin is intact and unbroken, you are very likely a candidate. Beyond that, the strongest indicators are normal to dry skin, brows that are sparse or uneven rather than absent, and an expectation of a soft, believable brow rather than a bold one. Nothing here is decided from a form — the brow is assessed in person before any pigment is opened.

Oily skin can have Nano Brows, but the strokes soften faster and a combination finish is often the better recommendation. Sebum pushes pigment sideways in the upper dermis, so a crisp line at week one can read as a soft line by month six. Where the skin is genuinely oily with visible pores through the brow, strokes at the front and light shading through the body hold their definition considerably longer. Sensitive skin is usually fine. Redness during the appointment tends to be more pronounced and settles within a day or two. A patch test is used where there is a history of reaction to pigments, metals or topical anaesthetics. Mature skin is treated regularly and there is no upper age limit. Thinner, drier or more delicate skin takes pigment differently, so strokes are placed slightly further apart and the colour is mixed softer, because a dense dark brow on mature skin ages the face rather than lifting it. Where the skin has lost elasticity, it is gently supported during the work so the stroke lands where it was drawn.

Sparse and over-plucked brows are the most common reason people book. Where there is little or no hair, the whole brow is designed from bone structure and eye spacing instead of being traced around what remains, and density is built gradually, with further treatment considered only if needed after healing. Existing brow tattooing is a different assessment. Old work can often be covered when it has faded to a soft, light shadow. Where it is still dark, sits outside your natural shape, or has turned warm or grey, new strokes placed over the top will read as a second brow rather than replacing the first. In those cases lightening comes first — see corrections and removal below. Total hair loss from alopecia or chemotherapy is welcomed, with clearance where relevant. Support for those clients is available through ELKA CLINIC Community Care.

Yes, and it is a regular part of the work at ELKA CLINIC. The technique is identical; the design is not. A male brow is flatter through the arch, wider through the body, and denser at the front. Strokes are placed in more directions and with more deliberate irregularity, because a symmetrical, tapered brow is the thing that reads as tattooed on a man. Colour is usually mixed a shade cooler. There is a dedicated page with its own photographs and pricing: Men’s Nano Brows in Perth.

Nano Brows are not performed during pregnancy or breastfeeding, on anyone under 18, or on skin that is broken, sunburnt, actively infected or currently affected by eczema, psoriasis or dermatitis in the brow area. Also deferred or declined: active keloid scarring, current isotretinoin use or use within the past six months, chemotherapy or radiotherapy without written clearance, uncontrolled diabetes, blood-thinning medication without clearance, and recent cosmetic injectables in the brow region — those need about two weeks to settle so the brow is mapped on its final shape. A patch test is carried out at least 24 hours ahead where there is any history of pigment or metal sensitivity. Medical clearance is requested where appropriate, and the appointment is rebooked rather than rushed.

The difference is the tool and the mark it leaves. Nano Brows use a single needle in a digital machine to place separate hair strokes. Microblading draws the same kind of stroke with a hand-held blade, which cuts a shallow channel rather than tapping pigment in. Powder or ombré brows abandon strokes entirely and build a soft shaded gradient. Combination brows put strokes at the front and shading through the body and tail. In practice the machine gives more repeatable depth, which matters most on skin that tends to blur a manual stroke — oily, thin or previously worked skin. Microblading is also offered as a separate service at ELKA CLINIC. The choice is usually decided by your skin rather than by which technique sounds newest.

Allow 90 minutes to two hours for a first Nano Brows appointment, and around an hour for a perfecting session. Roughly half of that first appointment is spent before any needle is used. The brow is measured and drawn on, colour is mixed and checked against your hair and skin in natural light, and you approve the shape in a mirror. Numbing cream goes on for around 20 minutes. The strokes themselves take 40 to 60 minutes, with a second pass of pigment worked in once the first has settled. Aftercare is explained, and an optional perfecting appointment can be discussed if you would like further refinement after healing. Nothing begins until you have seen the drawn shape and said yes to it.

Shape comes from your face, not from a stencil. Measurements are taken from the bridge of the nose, the outer edge of the iris and the outer corner of the eye, then adjusted for brow bone height, eye spacing and any asymmetry already present. Nobody has matching brows, and forcing them to match usually makes the difference more obvious rather than less. Colour is mixed rather than selected. Skin undertone, hair colour and the shade of any existing brow hair all feed into it, and the mix is held against your skin in daylight before it is used. Pigments warm slightly as they fade, so the working mix is made a touch cooler than the shade you want in year one. You see the drawn shape and the mixed colour and approve both. Bringing a photograph of a brow you like helps — not to copy, but to show what you find attractive.

Most clients describe it as three or four out of ten — a scratchy vibration rather than a sharp pain. Topical anaesthetic is applied before the work begins and reapplied once the skin is open, which is when it becomes most effective. The tail of the brow and the area closest to the bridge of the nose tend to be the most sensitive parts. Sensitivity is generally higher in the few days before a period, so where timing is flexible it is worth avoiding that week.

No, and yes. A consultation is optional and free, with no deposit required. Many clients book the treatment directly and have the full design conversation at the start of that appointment. A separate consultation is worth booking if you have existing brow tattooing, a skin condition or medication that may need clearance, or you are undecided between nano, powder and combination. Where a separate consultation has already taken place and nothing has changed, treatment can follow on the same day if the schedule allows.

For 24 hours before: no alcohol, no caffeine on the morning of the appointment, and no blood-thinning supplements such as fish oil, vitamin E or high-dose aspirin unless prescribed. All three increase bleeding, which dilutes pigment as it is placed. For the fortnight before: no waxing, threading, tinting or laminating the brows, no chemical peels or strong retinol near the area, no fresh brow injectables, and no sunburn or heavy tanning on the forehead. Let the brow hair grow — it guides the design, and it is tidied at the end rather than the start. On the day: come with clean skin and no brow makeup, eat beforehand, and allow two hours without a hard finish time. If you normally fill your brows, bring the pencil so the shape you are used to can be discussed.

Common and expected: redness, mild swelling on the first evening, tenderness, flaking and itching through the first week. Uncommon: prolonged swelling, pigment migration where the work has been placed too deep, an allergic reaction to pigment or to the topical anaesthetic, and cold sore reactivation in clients prone to them. Rare: infection, granuloma or keloid formation, and lasting textural change to the skin. Infection risk is managed through single-use sterile needles, single-use pigment cups, a disposable machine barrier, and relevant treatment surfaces and equipment cleaned and disinfected between clients. A patch test at least 24 hours ahead is used wherever sensitivity is a possibility. Worth knowing before you commit: pigment in the skin can interfere with MRI imaging in very rare cases, and you should mention brow tattooing to the radiographer if you are ever scanned.

Darker for three days, flaking through the first week, pale and patchy around day ten, then the colour resurfaces over the following fortnight. The table below is the same timeline given to clients on the day.

Stage	What the brows do	What to do
Day 1	Fresh, and darker and bolder than the healed result will be. Mild tenderness and a little swelling on the first evening are normal.	Cleanse gently two to three times using warm water and a mild soap such as baby soap or baby shampoo. No scrubbing or rubbing. Blot dry with a clean tissue. Sleep on your back if you can.
Days 2–4	The darker stage. Colour looks stronger and more defined than it will finally heal.	Keep cleansing gently. Bepanthen Antiseptic only if the brows feel dry or tight, as a very small amount rather than a routine coating.
Days 5–7	Light flaking or fine scabbing begins. Itching is common and normal.	Let the flakes shed naturally. Never pick, peel or scratch. Pulling a flake early takes the pigment underneath with it.
Days 8–10	The lighter stage. Colour can look patchy, uneven, and lighter on one side than the other.	Keep protecting the healing brows. Brow makeup, swimming, sauna and steam, and heavy sweating stay off until day ten is complete.
Days 12–28	Colour gradually resurfaces and settles. The shape becomes readable again.	Normal skincare and brow makeup can resume once the area has healed and the ten-day restriction period has passed. Do not judge the result yet.
After healing	The healed result can be assessed. The final colour is softer than it looked immediately after treatment.	Photograph the result. A perfecting appointment is available at roughly four to six weeks and is optional.

Healing runs at slightly different speeds in different people, and often at different speeds in the two brows.

Short version: gentle cleansing two to three times on day one, light exercise from day three, heavy exercise from day ten, and brow makeup, swimming, spas and saunas from day ten and once the brows have healed. On the first day the brows are gently cleansed two to three times using warm water and a mild soap such as baby soap or baby shampoo, which lifts plasma and blood residue before it dries on the skin. Use warm water rather than hot, do not scrub or rub, and blot dry with a clean tissue. If the brows feel dry or tight in the first few days, a very small amount of Bepanthen Antiseptic is optional rather than routine, and the brows should never be coated or covered in a thick layer. Sweat is the reason exercise waits — salt sitting on healing skin lifts pigment and can irritate the area. Foundation, brow pencil and skincare containing acids, retinol or exfoliants stay off the brow for 10 days and until the brows have healed, though makeup elsewhere on the face is fine from the start. Chlorine, salt water and prolonged heat all pull pigment out of skin that has not closed, so swimming, pools, spas, saunas, steam and heavy sweating wait 10 days, and longer if the area has not healed normally by then. Full day-by-day instructions are in our Brow Tattoo Aftercare guide.

Because the surface layer of pigment has shed and the pigment underneath has not yet become visible through the new skin. This stage lasts a few days and is the point at which most people assume the treatment has failed. Colour typically returns to around 60 to 80 per cent of what you saw on day one, and it comes back gradually rather than overnight. Nothing needs to be done, and nothing should be judged yet.

Allow the brows to heal fully before judging the colour; at four weeks the surface may have recovered while the colour is still settling. If you choose an optional perfecting appointment at four to six weeks, allow a further six weeks for that work to settle. A second appointment is not required if you are happy with the healed result.

Yes, and it is common enough to be planned for rather than treated as a fault. Skin does not take pigment at the same rate across the whole brow, and each side of the face has slightly different circulation, oil production and scar history. One brow healing lighter, patchier or shorter than the other is normal at week two and is the main thing the perfecting session exists to fix. Genuine asymmetry in the underlying face is separate. Brow bones and eye positions rarely match, so the drawn shape is balanced to the face rather than measured to be identical, which reads better than a forced match.

Close enough that most people assume the brow grew that way, provided the shape follows your own bone structure and the colour is mixed rather than picked from a chart. Two things give a cosmetic tattoo away: a shape that ignores the face underneath it, and a colour with no relationship to the hair around it. Neither is a limitation of the technique. Healed Nano Brows keep visible skin between the strokes, which is what stops the brow reading as a block.

Around one to two years before a refresh is wanted, with the first noticeable softening usually somewhere between months nine and fifteen. Six factors move that range: skin type, since drier skin holds pigment longer than oily skin; sun exposure, because ultraviolet light breaks pigment down faster than anything else; skincare, as acids, retinol and exfoliants used near the brow will lighten it; lifestyle, where frequent sweating, swimming and saunas shorten the span; how cleanly the initial treatment healed; and individual metabolism, which processes pigment at different speeds in different people. Sunscreen on the brow area is the single most useful habit for keeping the colour.

A short-term perfecting appointment is optional. If you are happy with the healed result after your initial treatment, you do not have to return. If you would like suitable refinements to colour, density or detail, the current short-term perfecting price is $250 where applicable, charged separately from the initial treatment. Suitability and timing are assessed after healing. After that, a refresh every 12 to 24 months maintains the result. Very sparse brows or oily skin occasionally need a third session in the first year.

Too dark on day one is expected and temporary. Too dark at week six is unusual, and where it happens it is corrected rather than left. The brow looks strongest for the first three days because pigment sits in the surface layer as well as the dermis. Once the surface sheds, the colour drops substantially. Where a healed brow is genuinely heavier than intended, the options are to wait and let natural fading do the work, lighten with a saline session, or adjust the shape at the perfecting session so the weight sits differently. At the other end, complete fading is possible but uncommon within two years. Very oily skin, heavy sun exposure, strong exfoliating skincare and a fast metabolism together can clear a brow surprisingly quickly. More often a faint shadow remains, which makes the next application easier rather than harder.

Strokes soften over time in every skin, and how much depends mainly on oil production and how deeply the pigment was placed. A stroke widens slightly as it heals, which is why crisp lines are not placed shoulder to shoulder. On oily skin the softening continues, and by the second year the brow may read as a soft powder rather than distinct hairs. That is the ordinary lifespan of a hair-stroke tattoo rather than a failure, and it is the main reason a combination finish is recommended for oily skin. Colour shifts as pigment breaks down. Modern pigments are designed to fade cooler and lighter, but sun exposure and some skincare can push a brow warm. Working a shade cooler than the target and keeping sunscreen on the area both slow it down.

Live pricing for every brow service is shown on the ELKA CLINIC booking page, and it is the only figure worth quoting because it updates with the service list. Across Perth clinics generally, hair-stroke brow tattooing is quoted per appointment, with the perfecting session at four to six weeks and any later refresh charged separately, refreshes usually at a lower rate. Price differences between clinics usually reflect practitioner experience, whether the perfecting session is included, and whether correction work over previous tattooing is quoted separately — which it normally is, since it takes longer. Men’s brow work and correction work are quoted individually. Check current pricing and availability before comparing.

The quoted brow package covers the design consultation on the day, brow mapping and shape approval, colour mixing, and the treatment itself. Aftercare instructions are published on our website, and an aftercare cream is provided for brow tattoos. Charged separately: the perfecting session or touch-up at four to six weeks, refresh appointments after the first year, removal or lightening sessions, correction of tattooing done elsewhere, and any treatment on a different area such as lips or eyeliner. A deposit between $50 and $100 secures the appointment, is deducted from the total, and is refundable when the appointment is changed with at least 48 hours notice.

Yes. Afterpay is ELKA CLINIC’s payment-plan option. It splits an eligible purchase into four interest-free instalments, and eligibility, available spend and transaction approval are determined by Afterpay rather than the clinic. Gift vouchers can be bought through the booking page in any amount. Clients affected by cancer, alopecia or medical hair loss may be eligible for $300 off through ELKA CLINIC Community Care. Full details are on the payment plans page.

Book online at any hour through the ELKA CLINIC booking page, call 1300 216 456, message 0478 910 443 on WhatsApp, which is the best way to reach us, or email contact@elkaclinic.com.au. Two to four weeks ahead is typical, and longer for a specific evening or weekend slot. Plan the timing around your life rather than the calendar: allow two clear weeks before a wedding, holiday, formal event or beach trip so the brow has resurfaced, and allow for an optional perfecting appointment four to six weeks later if you choose one.

Yes, with at least 48 hours notice, in which case the deposit is refunded or moved to the new appointment. Inside 48 hours the deposit is generally retained, because the time is difficult to fill at short notice. Illness and genuine emergencies are handled sensibly — get in touch rather than not showing. Changes can be made through the booking confirmation email or by phoning the clinic. Full deposit and cancellation terms sit in the general ELKA CLINIC FAQ.

Often, yes — provided the old work has faded to a light shadow, sits within the shape you want, and has not turned strongly warm or grey. Where all three hold, new strokes can be placed over the top and the old pigment simply becomes background. Where the old brow is still dark, extends beyond the new shape, or has shifted colour, covering it produces a heavier and muddier brow rather than a fresh one. Lightening comes first in those cases, usually one to three sessions with eight to ten weeks between each. Correction work is assessed in person or from a clear photograph in daylight, never from a description. Two brows that sound identical over the phone routinely need opposite treatments.

Small changes are made at the perfecting session. Larger changes wait until the brow has faded enough to work over. Making a brow slightly fuller, darker, or longer through the tail is straightforward, because it means adding to what is there. Making it thinner, lighter or shorter is not, since pigment cannot be removed with more pigment. Those changes need saline or glycolic acid lightening first, then a fresh design once the skin has recovered. If something about the healed shape is not sitting right, raise it before the perfecting session rather than after it. That appointment is the natural point to change direction.

Tell us before the perfecting session. That appointment exists to change things, and shape, density and depth of colour can all be adjusted at it. If you dislike the drawn shape on the day, say so before any pigment is opened. Nothing starts until you approve the drawing, and redrawing costs nothing but time. If a healed brow is genuinely wrong rather than simply new to you, the pathway is saline or glycolic acid lightening followed by a fresh design. Send a photograph in natural light rather than under bathroom lighting, which distorts brow colour more than any other light in the house.

Yes. Saline removal and glycolic acid removal both lighten cosmetic tattooing, and neither is instant. Expect several sessions spaced eight to ten weeks apart, and expect lightening rather than a guaranteed return to blank skin. Older, faded work responds faster than fresh, dense work. Complete clearance is realistic in some cases and not in others, which is why the goal is usually to lighten enough to rework rather than to erase.

Saline suits lighter or newer work and shape corrections where only part of the brow needs lifting. It draws pigment upward through a controlled healing process, is gentler on surrounding hair, and works more slowly. Glycolic acid works on the same lifting principle, and the two are chosen case by case. Laser removal is not offered at ELKA CLINIC. It is available at laser clinics, suits darker, denser and cooler-toned pigment, and generally clears more in fewer sessions. It carries a risk of paradoxical darkening with pigments containing iron or titanium oxides, so a test patch is done first there, and skin needs four to six weeks to recover between sessions. Removal and correction are assessed case by case at ELKA CLINIC. Send photographs of your existing brows in natural light and the realistic pathway will be set out before anything is booked.