When Miche Reeve’s clients walk out of their cosmetic tattooing studio, they walk into a new and better life—one where the newly-tattooed hair on their face makes them feel more at home in their bodies. Cosmetic tattooing—or permanent makeup (PMU)—services such as eyebrow microblading and lip blushing have been used in a gender-affirming context basically since their conception. But in the past year, a new form of gender-affirming cosmetic tattooing has emerged: facial hair.
The very concept of tattooing facial hair onto the skin is nothing new—microblading has been used to help men reinforce their beardlines and hairlines for years. But Reeve combined that concept with a different technique to create a service for trans and non-binary clients who want facial hair but might not be able to grow it in the exact fashion they want. Thus, a new category of cosmetic tattooing and gender-affirming care is here and waiting to be adopted at large.
Meet America’s leading gender-affirming facial hair tattooer
Miche Reeve has been a cosmetic tattoo artist for six years, but that wasn’t always their plan. They worked at non-profits for less than a year after graduating from college. Cosmetic tattooing entered the chat in 2018 when Reeve began encountering it on the internet, at which point they decided rather quickly that a career shift was in the cards. “Once I found out what cosmetic tattooing was…I knew it was what I had to do,” Reeve says.
As a trans non-binary person, Reeve always loved using makeup to play with gender expression. “Until I started tattooing, I always felt my art was best expressed through makeup,” they say. “I loved the transformative nature of it. I loved playing with angles of the face, highlights, and shadows.” That became their approach to cosmetic tattooing, too; off the bat, they catered their services to LGBTQ+ clients who used nanobrow tattoos and lip blushing to help their appearance align more with their identity. “Within the first year of tattooing, I started offering gender-affirming cosmetic tattoos. As the years went on… it just became my specialty,” they recall. “I developed techniques that can alter the face through masculinization, feminization, or a combo of the two.” (More on those techniques in a minute.)
Reeve opened their own shop called Xenith Collective in Richmond, Virginia in 2023, and it’s there that they’ve been able to start providing facial hair tattoos in earnest. “I had this service on my mind for a while, especially for my transmasculine clientele who may not have access to hormone replacement therapy or who have not gotten the results they are wanting from it,” they explain. “I started getting requests from clients from all over the country,” they say, “who had been denied facial hair restoration tattooing because they do not have facial hair.”
Facial hair tattooing in general is already rare, as Reeve points out, but it is especially so in a gender-affirming context. A quick web search for “facial hair tattoo” results mostly in before and after photos of men who’ve used the service to supplement the natural facial hair they already have. When searching for gender-affirming cosmetic tattooers on social media for this story, I was met with a trove of artists who offer microblading, lip blushing, and even services like nipple tattooing and top scar cover-ups for trans and non-binary clients—but I could only find three, including Reeve, who have documented experience with gender-affirming facial hair tattoos. Reeve is the only artist I could locate in the United States who specializes in it. One other artist I located is in Australia and offers all kinds of body and cosmetic tattooing; the other is based in Kansas and primarily does body and eyebrow tattooing (and both of those artists pointed me in Reeve’s direction when I asked them for references to other facial hair tattooers).
How gender-affirming facial hair tattoos work
The process of getting a gender-affirming facial hair tattoo is ultimately similar to that of any other cosmetic tattoo: It requires a significant amount of communication and collaboration between the client and artist, starting with an in-depth consultation about the desired look, what’s possible given how much (if any) natural facial hair or other cosmetic tattoos a client already has, aftercare, and all the other practical elements of cosmetic tattooing. But there’s an additional emotional element to consulting about a gender-affirming facial hair tattoo because gender identities are unique from person to person, and only the client can determine how their gender would be best reflected by their tattoo.
Once that initial consultation is complete, Reeve applies a topical lidocaine cream to the client’s tattoo location for numbing, maps out a border for the tattoo with further input from the client, and then starts tattooing once they and the client are in agreement about the tattoo’s shape, size, and symmetry.
The techniques and tools Reeve uses are ultimately where facial hair tattooing differs from other forms of cosmetic tattooing. Whereas microblading, for instance, is done with a specialized bladed tool that allows a technician to draw on hair-like strokes by cutting into the skin, Reeve uses a rotary tattoo machine with a needle cartridge that punctures the skin, which they say is lighter and quieter than coil machines that are often used for body tattooing. This technique creates small dots that look like single hairs that are just starting to grow past the surface of the skin, creating the illusion of “five o'clock shadow rather than full hair strokes like you would see in an eyebrow.”
This contributes not only to the realism of Reeve’s facial hair tattoos but also to how well they age. According to them, the hair-like lines that are cut into the skin with microblading can expand over time, meaning the pigment can bleed outward and create one solid shape rather than individual lines (as someone who has their own poorly-aged microblading, I can personally attest to this). That’s why beard microblading might work for someone who is trying to fill in sparse patches between otherwise full facial hair but not someone who has sparse or no natural facial hair at all; it could wind up looking like a Lego block of beard rather than realistic hair.
Although this procedure is called a “tattoo,” it does not use traditional tattoo ink, which is permanent and, as Reeve points out, can change in tone over time and can react with skin’s undertones. Instead, they use pigments that are specific to cosmetic tattooing, which aren’t totally permanent. “A facial hair tattoo will fade faster than a traditional body tattoo and will require touch-up appointments more frequently,” Reeve explains. “That timeline truly varies from person to person.” To account for this, Reeve usually recommends that new clients book two tattooing sessions that are at least eight weeks apart; the second session provides the opportunity to build density where it’s needed post-healing and make any other desired adjustments.
“After the second session, it is dependent on the client and how quickly their body metabolizes pigment,” Reeve says. “Sun exposure and the use of retinoids and some skin care products can make the tattoo fade faster.” But generally speaking, clients who take Reeve’s two-session approach should enjoy a few years of facial hair bliss before a touch-up is necessary. The somewhat fleeting nature of these tattoos might seem like a lot of maintenance, but Reeve considers it a plus: “The fact that this will fade… allows for fluidity in gender expression.”
One similarity these facial hair tattoos have to traditional body tattooing is cost—not all services are priced the same. Reeve sets an hourly rate of $200, a standard practice in the tattoo industry, which “allows for pricing to be consistent with how much surface area we are covering.” A mustache, for instance, can usually be executed in under an hour, whereas full beards take much longer. Reeve also offers sliding scale pricing, with up to 50 percent off for transgender clients seeking gender-affirming services.
How gender-affirming facial hair tattoos help clients
Chances are, if you felt compelled to read this story at all, you’re already well aware of the emotional and psychological benefits of gender-affirming care at large, as proven time and again by research. Facial hair tattoos can provide the same benefits, which reach far beyond the surface. “I have had clients say the impact from these services is greater than surgery,” Reeve says. “This service allows for people to see themselves in the mirror and feel at home in their body; it allows for potential erasure of gender dysphoria that may be related to the face or facial hair… it can eliminate insecurities and help our guests to feel more confident.”
Ask Reeve’s clients and they’ll tell you the same. “Receiving this service has been very affirming as far as my gender identity,” says Finnley Foxthorn, a client of Reeve’s. He had his mustache area tattooed in 2023 and says the results are still visible roughly a year down the line. “I feel very lucky to have had this done, and I’m excited it’s becoming an accessible service for trans and queer folks.” Foxthorn received the tattoo when he was “more on the gender fluid side” and appreciated that its semi-permanence allowed him to explore his gender identity even though, “spoiler: I went full boy eventually anyway.”
Another of Reeve’s clients, Sam, also received an upper lip tattoo nearly a year ago and has a touch-up planned soon. “These tattoos have opened my eyes to how I truly see myself inside,” they say. “I finally feel as though the person on the inside matches how I want to present myself, and I think it’s really special to slowly fall in love with myself again… I think it can help a lot of people.”
Why gender-affirming facial hair tattooing should be more common
Though the service may be rare, Reeve calls it a “no-brainer,” given that any form of cosmetic tattooing can be used as a gender-affirming tool. Reeve’s educational efforts, however, will hopefully create a ripple of next-gen cosmetic tattooers who can provide specialized care to trans and non-binary clients via facial hair tattoos and all other forms of permanent makeup. In addition to Xenith, Reeve founded a business called PMU in Transition, an educational coalition they created with fellow tattoo artist Sam Guthrie. It “is centered around education on gender affirmation, inclusivity training, and consulting for PMU artists and business owners,” Reeve explains. “We are planning on releasing our trainings on gender affirmation later this year.” Businesses can hire PMU in Transition for in-person inclusivity workshops or consulting, but its teachings will also be available via E-book and video trainings down the line.
At the end of the day, any artists looking to start providing this service simply need to approach it with knowledge and compassion, as Reeve explains, whether it’s under their tutelage or not. “These are not services to wing,“ they say. For cosmetic tattoo artists to be aware that such services exist and to know how to technically execute them is only one part of the equation. “It is important for artists to set up a safe space for clients to truly make the experience a gender-affirming one,” they say, and that requires cooperation from the artists themselves and the businesses in which they operate. Having gender-neutral bathrooms on site and making it standard practice for artists to confirm client pronouns are ways this can be done alongside having gender-inclusive marketing tactics and even tattoo shop aesthetics, Reeve elaborates. “True gender affirmation comes from the environment, language, and bedside manner of the tattoo artist.”
Awareness and education about burgeoning gender-affirming services such as this is arguably more important than it has ever been in America—I don’t need to give you the whole spiel about where this country currently stands on trans inclusion as far as our legislation efforts go. It can be painfully difficult for a trans or non-binary person to get the gender-affirming medical care they need, and it all comes down to factors out of their control: how old they are, how accepting their parents are if they are a minor, if there are trans-friendly doctors in their area, and whether or not the state they live in even allows the type of care they seek by law. In the event someone does get access to that care, it can cost a pretty penny—pennies many people simply don’t have.
Gender-affirming facial hair tattoos and gender-affirming PMU as a whole offer solace in the fact that they do not require the supervision of a doctor or the approval of state legislators. Because there are so few artists currently offering these types of tattoos, it’s not exactly accessible in terms of breadth of service. It is, however, far more affordable than your average gender-affirming medical procedure such as HRT or top/bottom surgery. Its impacts are also immediate; facial hair tattoo clients might have to deal with a brief healing period, but they can walk out of Reeve’s studio feeling instantly more at home in their own body as opposed to enduring months of painful recovery or seeing gradual results through a potentially years-long hormone replacement process. Of course, someone who needs gender-affirming medical care might not want or need a facial hair tattoo and vice versa. But having alternatives to said medical care that are more accessible in terms of price and the ever-changing law are necessary at a time when people’s right to it is up for debate and under attack in our country’s courtrooms.
Facial hair tattoos could never serve as a replacement for gender-affirming medical procedures; they should certainly not be treated as such, but they can be “life-changing and life-saving” nevertheless, as evidenced by the experiences of Reeve and their clients. “There are few things in this world that compare to the joyous euphoria that gender affirmation can bring. I don't have words to express my gratitude for the ability to help provide that ease, solace, and euphoria that gender-affirming care brings for the gender-expansive community,” Reeve says.
As they point out, the more licensed technicians offer a service, the more normalized it becomes, the more accessible it becomes, the more people seek it. Thanks to the presence of artists like Miche Reeve, I see a future in which cosmetic tattooing’s gender-affirming applications are endless—and, I hope, endlessly accessible. But, of course, that future won’t come without a willingness to learn and raise awareness from cosmetic tattoo artists and anyone else who cares about the accessibility of gender-affirming care. I think Reeve summarizes it best: “Some may see these procedures as minor changes, but the impact is life-altering for those who seek it.”
More on gender affirmation:
- Where Are All the Doctors Who Can Provide Gender-Affirming Care?
- Finding Gender Euphoria at an Affirming Makeup Class
- The Complicated Process of Undergoing Facial-Feminization Surgery, and Why I Did It
Now, watch the Drag Race All Stars cast react to viral beauty trends:
