What should I do after scalp micropigmentation?
The answer to this is twofold. The first part is the aftercare that you need to do immediately following your procedure, and then the aftercare that you need to do long-term in order to maintain or optimize the results that you get from scalp micropigmentation.
So scalp micropigmentation is essentially a hair follicle replication tattoo. They’re very tiny. There are thousands of these tattoos all over your scalp until you have basically a recreation of stubble or a density treatment in the case that you have more hair or an existing hairline.
Aftercare for Short Term or Right After Your Appointment
So after you have scalp micropigmentation, as with a traditional tattoo, there is an amount of aftercare that needs to be followed to get the correct healed results. This is even more true in scalp micropigmentation because it happens in three appointments and each one is dependent on the one before it. So the way this works is the first appointment is foundational. It’s the one that does basically the reframing of the hairline or concentrated framing of the area of concern that needs to be filled in a little bit, and then there’s going to be a seven-day period of healing time.
Scalp micropigmentation actually has no downtime
You can walk right out of the studio and no one will know that you had scalp micropigmentation done aside from a little bit of redness that goes away within a couple of hours, there’s no need to take time off work. You don’t have to stay away from any events, so it’s very low maintenance in this way.
However, after you do have it done for the first four days following each treatment, this is going to be true of the first treatment, the second treatment and the third treatment. You are going to need to be very careful with your scalp for those first four days.
- Stay out of gyms pools, saunas, lakes, oceans, anywhere where there’s going to be a warm environment or bacteria can thrive
There’s just MRSA at gyms and that’s really one of the only risk factors associated with scalp micropigmentation is a very low risk of infection if you don’t follow these aftercare instructions.
So during your four initial days of scalp micropigmentation healing following an appointment, you need to stay out of gyms pools, saunas, lakes, oceans, anywhere where there’s going to be a warm environment or bacteria can thrive, and then you also need to not wash your hair for four days. This seems like a tall order but after your final appointment and healing process, you’re never going to have to worry about this again.
It’s a small upfront investment of time to get a lot of time back from your everyday hair loss routine. So you’re going to need to stay out of places where bacteria will be.
- Don’t wash your hair for the first four days
On the fourth day, you can wash your hair with baby shampoo. It’s best to avoid products with cetyl alcohol in them, which is in most shampoos and can irritate your scalp and affect the healed results. It’s also important during this time just to treat your scalp really gently because you have tiny scabs. These tiny scabs are attached to the pigment underneath your skin before your scalp heals completely, they’re really delicate and they need to be treated gently. Otherwise, they can fall off pretty maturely before they’re ready and pull the pigment out with them. That would undo all of the hard work that was done in your initial session, and it’s going to be hard to recreate that and to get the best results.
- Stay out of the sun
Now, the sun is going to come back into play when I talk about long term care, because, as I’ll say here, tattoos, as a rule, are faded the most by the sun. The sun does the most damage to any type of tattoo, and this is true of paramedical or cosmetic tattoos like scalp micropigmentation, microblading, lip blush, tattoo, or eyeliner. This matters. When you’re in the sun, the sun causes damage and that damage will slowly reach your scalp micropigmentation, even though it’s healed under your scalp.
Now, this is really important. When you’re in these first initial four days of healing, it’s very important to keep your head out of the sun, either with a hat or with sunscreen or just staying indoors and not sweating too much. This is all going to help your scalp heal the best.
Aftercare for Long Term
Now, Let’s imagine you’ve gone through each session of your scalp micropigmentation appointment. After your first appointment, 4 days of healing. On the seventh day, you have your second appointment, four days of healing time. On the seventh day you have your third appointment and then seven days and you’re completely healed.
- Stay out of the sun
Now that you’re completely healed, you can resume your lifestyle as it was. However, during this time, if you want to keep your scalp micropigmentation as fresh as possible, it’s wise to avoid the sun. There is only one carryover point from your short term aftercare to your long-term aftercare and that is the sun. The sun damages your skin, the sun damages your scalp and the sun damages your scalp micropigmentation. So it’s very important to be mindful of applying sunscreen and wearing a hat and never possible. That said, scalp micropigmentation is not intended to run your life. So once you’ve had it done, the whole goal of it is to reclaim having to constantly worry about your scalp. So while scalp micropigmentation will fade more quickly if you are in the sun a lot, that’s okay. Because it’s your scalp micropigmentation, and it’s very easy to go and get a touch up.
- Get a touch up
People get them all the time and most people only get them when they want them. So if your scalp micropigmentation is looking a little faded, just go in and get a quick touch-up. Your scalp micropigmentation is going to last for years. That said, if you want it to last even longer, which would add about a year or two to your foundational scalp micropigmentation, you’re going to want to stay out of the sun.
If you don’t mind getting touch-ups a little more frequently than other people, then go for it. You can go on in the sun as much as you want and not worry about it and the thing is you can do that anyway because you can always get a touch-up.
That service is always available to you, and it’s something that’s easily done with existing scalp micropigmentation. The equipment is much quicker and much less expensive because the foundational work is already done. The hard part is out of the way and now it just needs a little bit of a refresher treatment. So really, this is a completely customizable solution and it really gives you back the freedom to live your life how you want to because the long-term maintenance comes down to just keeping your scalp healthy and out of the sun.
If you want to get in touch with me for a consultation, then fill out the contact form below. Let’s see what scalp micropigmentation can do for you!
