Machine Shading Techniques

Pendulum movement

The Pendulum is one of the most used and taught techniques. With this movement we should be holding our Permanent Make Up device/pen in a loose position. If you have a tight grip you will naturally apply more pressure, so we want to hold our device as lightly as possible, of course while being in control at the same time.

While holding your device, it should be held closely to the top of the hand-piece with 3 fingers , the thumb, the pointer and the middle finger. Your pinky should be used to stabilize your hand. When using this movement , your pressure is mostly in the middle of each stroke. You dive into the skin lightly and come out of the skin lightly.  Think of it the way an airplane takes off and lands on the runway, it touches down smoothly.  The color deposit should be in the middle, so when you are overlapping each section, there should be no lines of demarcation or visible transitional areas.

Small circular motion

When you need to get pigment in areas where the saturation can be challenging (corners of the mouth, fatty part under the Cupid’s bow), your shading would be in small circular movements. This movement when used to blend lip liner will also give you that definition at the vermillion border and give your clients lip a shaper and clean appearance. This motion helps to tie the lip line together with shading so there are no gaps in coverage. Tight overlapping circles are used for fully saturating areas with pigment.

For manual shading, tap in tight circular patterns overlapping 1/3 like the Olympic Rings.