The PMU Insider: PhiAcademy Master Meetup, May 2024
5 min read
If you’re in PMU, you know about the Phi brand and academy. It’s one of the biggest networks, strongest communities, and most powerful trendsetters in the industry. It unites so many amazing PMU artists and educators you truly get star-struck when you go to one of their events.
PMUHub had the opportunity to visit one such event – the May 2024 PhiAcademy Masters Meetup & Workshop.
May 10-11, 2024
Belgrade, Serbia
It was a closed-door, exclusive event for PhiAcademy educators, dedicated to breaking down barriers between microblading and machine PMU. Here are the highlights.
Original Image by PMUHub
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Insights from Industry Leaders
What we love the most about live PMU events is being able to sit down and speak to all those faces we see on Instagram – face to face.
This time, we had some amazing conversations. Branko Babić, PhiAcademy founder, revealed his interpretation of the ongoing market shifts and offered some advice on how to succeed in PMU today, expand your business and increase your profit
Watch the full interview & find out!
We also spoke to experienced artists and trainers Yomaira Alcala, Cinthia Holguin and Andy Chavarria about the status of the industry, their beginnings, and their perceptions of success in PMU.
Subscribe to PMUHub’s YouTube channel so you don’t miss any of the chats – they’re coming really soon!
2024: The Year of the Hair Stroke
Some of the most famous microblading patterns came out of PhiAcademy. That’s where they dominate and what they’re best known for. Perhaps less famous but no less effective and appealing are their machine PMU treatments.
Well, artists within the academy have been developing and perfecting their machine hair strokes for years, and since 2023 was such a pivotal year in terms of turning to machine strokes, it was time for a meetup dedicated to this new standard.
This Masters Meetup gave center stage to artists whose machine strokes impress and inspire.
Yomaira Alcala, Freya Vera and Jasna Liverios presented their ways of doing hair strokes. A big topic was the adaptability of the hair stroke technique for damaged and sensitive skin, which is where the advantage over microblading is really obvious.
But what we gathered from artists was that they really love and appreciate the space for creativity machine hair strokes give them – you can cross strokes and create more elaborate patterns, the strokes can be as solid or as airy as you want, and you can do things microblading never could.
Just look at some of the stunning hyperrealistic brows the guests created right there on the spot!
As our host Branko Babić says, machine hair strokes are not a trend per se. Yes, it has exploded in popularity in 2023, but nano brows have been around for at least 5 years, and they will not become outdated as they will follow a natural timeline of new artists learning, mastering and offering it – which will definitely take years.
All that said, microblading is not going anywhere anytime soon, either.
There are still so many artists who do amazing manual work, with a skin-safe technique and sustainable results. So our prediction – microblading and machine hair strokes will become equally popular at some point, really soon. And as Branko claims, a truly successful PMU artist has to know both.
Success Is Waiting Outside of Your Comfort Zone
Nobody has ever achieved any success within their comfort zone, says Branko.
What we’ve been witnessing in the past months is a wave of discouragement among microblading artists who fear that the upsurge in machine hair stroke artists and trainers will threaten their business. Yet instead of taking the opportunity to learn a new technique and expand their business, many are feeling stuck.
According to PhiAcademy’s founder, the fact that machine strokes are not an easy thing to master is one of the reasons. But all of us in the PMU ecosystem have to accept the fact that the industry is a living thing – it changes and evolves, and staying successful means evolving with it.
Luckily, there are communities that will stand behind you and help you through it. PhiAcademy is one. PMUHub is another!
New Ideas, New Products
PMU can’t be done right without the right products. And if you want to do great machine strokes, you need an advanced device that can place strokes with perfect precision, without damaging the skin any more than necessary.
PhiAcademy knows this, so they took this opportunity to present their most advanced machine to this day and a brand new machine-optimized pigment formula – both launching really soon!
General Takeaway – Take Control of Your Career
There’s no use running from the fact that the market is tough right now – success takes a lot of time and dedication. Does this mean you should give up? Definitely not!
But if you do want to expand and improve your PMU business, picking up machine hair strokes seems to be a must. It will be a challenge, but as long as you choose the right trainer, invest in the right equipment, and set your mind to it, you’ll get there.
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