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The quest for model-like eyebrows has hit the masses as more beauty fiends opt for “eyebrow lamination.”
Sales of the service, which promises fuller and better-shaped brows, have surged 2,500% on Square Inc.’s SQ, -0.21% platform over the past six months, a company spokeswoman said. Bookings have grown 2,300% in that span.
The drive to laminate one’s brows comes as more people look for an affordable way to get full brows without filling them in with makeup every day, said Katya Dmitrenco, a Square merchant who runs KD Brows in Studio City, Calif. Brow lamination is the cheaper, less permanent cousin of microblading, another trendy procedure in which stylists use semipermanent makeup on the eyebrows that looks like real hair.
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Dmitrenco said that consumers are increasingly trying to get the sort of brows they see on magazine covers, when makeup artists brush a special “brow” soap into models’ eyebrows to make them look fluffy. “People love the look and now the secret is out,” she said.
Dmitrenco uses her own lamination kits to perform the service, lifting the brows to make them softer and easier to style, before “fixing” them to close the hair follicles and applying a nourishing solution at the end. The growing trend has had a “huge impact” on her business, which also offers things like microblading and face waxing. Lamination can take up to 45 minutes and lasts up to six weeks, according to Dmitrenco.
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Square economist Felipe Chacon said that the average price point for lamination is roughly $70, about 6 times less than one would typically pay for microblading. “It’s opening up the same brow look for a fraction of the price to a new consumer who felt microblading was out of reach,” he said in an email.
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The biggest states fueling the lamination trend are California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Washington, according to Square. The company has seen sales of microblading procedures hold steady even as lamination picks up steam.
