Permanent vs Temporary (Tricopigmentation) SMP

[hairhairhair456]

This thread was started because of a discussion in another thread, which i felt was taking the thread off topic. (Link to the other thread.)

This wasn't always the case and to be blunt, I'm not paying attention to permanent SMP companies nowadays since most are con artists and thugs.

You're doing the same thing that I unfortunately see a lot of people do... lumping reputable companies in with bad ones, and essentially condemning the entire lot. I'm sure you're aware that there is a tremendous amount of positive feedback concerning permanent SMP on the internet, and it's growing every day. If "most" permanent SMP companies were con artists, then one would expect to find mountains of complaints and a few success stories... but the opposite is true.

Your message should be for people to use caution when selecting a permanent SMP clinic, not to avoid the industry altogether... at least in regards to the 'it's an industry of con-artists' critique.

At the very least, you are impugning the reputation of many honorable technicians when you make such statements.

The downsides of permanent SMP affect buzzcut as well as long hair scenarios respectively. The dots are made differently and if you have dots that are turning blue or spreading and causing a confluence of ink long hair will not hide the problems. If you can see scalp without the dots you'll see the problems that the dots will create in the same space.

I've done a fair bit of research on permanent and temporary SMP, and I have yet to find a convincing argument that one is necessarily better than the other, as long as they are performed by a reputable clinic. This includes reading through your Smpclinics website, which in my opinion, makes some extremely disingenuous (and at times outright false) arguments against permanent SMP.

The one benefit to trico that i agree with, is that it is temporary. A temporary start to SMP is indeed the safer option. The drawback, of course, is that if one decides that they want to keep the look long term, trico requires yearly(ish) touch up sessions.

As far as your comment about blue ink, I've read a report of a tricopigmentation patient who had trico applied to his scalp which had some scarring... he gave it a grade of F and said the ink ended up looking blue in spots, and he received a full refund... so lets acknowledge that trico also carries the risk of unsatisfactory results. Coincidentally, he said that he wasn't very stressed over it because his long scalp hair covered it up sufficiently... which was something you said wouldn't help.

I imagine the rebuttal to that will be 'if it was permanent he would be stuck with it forever, but since he got trico it will just fade away'. Here's the thing about that... if someone has a trico treatment and they hate the way it looks -- whether because of ink issues, technician error, or if they just dont like the style -- i highly doubt they will simply walk around with it on their head for a year (or maybe longer) until it unevenly fades away... they are most likely going to want it removed immediately by laser. With that being the case, permanent and temporary SMP aren't nearly as far apart as they are made to seem, in regards to dealing with an unsatisfactory result.

Based on the amount of positive feedback on the internet for both temporary and permanent SMP, it seems clear that they are both viable solutions, with their own pros/cons. Do we currently have 80 years of data on permanent SMP? No. But we have 5-10 at this point, and a lot of the criticisms you bring up aren't being reflected in the feedback i am seeing on the internet.

If, as you say, it's been a while since you have followed the permanent SMP industry, perhaps you should take another look... especially with so many people looking to you for advice.