SMP is a form of cosmetic tattooing developed from ‘permanent makeup’

As far back as 1902 well known tattoo artist Sutherland MacDonald starting using ‘permanent makeup’ at his parlour, boasting of an ‘all year-round delicate pink complexion’ on the cheeks. This look was extremely popular, and the idea took off. Fast forward a few decades and the craze from London skipped over the ocean to the USA in the 1920s and throughout the 1930s tattooists began developing and refining implementing pigment for cosmetic reasons.

Did you know…

In the 1930’s when it started to become more popular, one of the major developers of the permanent pigment technique, tattooist George Burchett discussed in his memoirs how there were many beauty salons tattooing women without their knowledge. Offering a…“complexion treatment” …

Micropigmentation of the scalp was developed and received the tick of approval as a hair loss solution

In the early 1990’s at the Hair Transplant Clinic of Sacramento, Dr. Alvaro C. Tranquina developed ‘dermal micropigmentation’ technique and for 7 years Dr. Tranquina conducted trials with 62 patients that had scalp scarring from hair transplants, using his new dermal micropigmentation technique to camouflage the scars for a better ‘look’.

The results were unanimous!

All his patients were ecstatic with their new look and much preferred this technique over the time consuming and expensive use of makeup, powders, or wigs they had used previously to hide their scarring.

The results of the patients were published in the medical journal for the American Society for Dermatologic Surgery, and concluded that:

“The results proved that Micropigmentation of the Scalp is a safe and effective technique in camouflaging scalp scars” (Tranquina, 2001).

All in all, the study answered a lot of questions regarding micropigmentation of the scalp and paved the way for the SMP we know and love today!

2002 The beginning of the Scalp Micropigmentation (SMP) we know today!

In 2002 one of the original SMP clinics in the industry began operating as the world’s first clinic specialising in SMP. This clinic introduced the world to SMP and contributed greatly to refining the ‘hair-tattoo’ methods, producing many of today’s top SMP artists who have further developed the technique of SMP, moving away from it being a cosmetic tattoo to its own specialty industry.

Leaders in the industry like Foli Sim™ have used their expertise and artistic flair to help artists provide clients with their perfect hair line design and pigment placement, to look natural and seamless.

Foli Sim™ have also made a sharp turn away from the iron oxide-based pigments (the ones with the blue/green/red undertone like those still used in various cosmetic tattooing i.e., eyebrows) and moved to very natural-looking carbon-based pigments that can blend into majority or hair colours and skin tone.

It is important to be aware that these perfected techniques and improvements that excellent clinics like Foli Sim™ use are not adopted in every clinic around Australia and globally; and in poorly trained hands can be a large contributor to “bad SMP”.

When you select your clinic and artist you choose your results, whether good or bad

In this case it is incredibly important to do the research into a clinic’s history: where artists have trained, what methods they use, artist experience and the reputation of the clinic.

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