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LASER PMU REMOVAL · LANCASHIRE
Almost every clinic advertises eyebrow tattoo removal with a per-session price and nothing else. That number tells you very little, because the thing that determines what you actually spend is not the price of one session — it is how many sessions your particular brows need, and nobody can tell you that from a price list.
This guide sets out the real cost picture: what a session costs at Alex James SMP, what makes one person's removal three sessions and another's ten, where the hidden costs sit, and how to read a quote that looks too cheap. Dawn, our laser specialist, performs all PMU and eyebrow tattoo removal at the clinic, and the figures here are the ones she works to.
If you want the technical side — how the laser breaks down pigment, why brow tattoos turn orange, blue or grey as they age, and what the healing looks like week by week — that is covered properly in our complete guide to microblading removal. This page is about the money.
IN THIS GUIDE
And why any clinic quoting a flat total before seeing your brows is guessing
When you book something like scalp micropigmentation, you are quoted a total. The practitioner can see the area, knows how many sessions the technique takes, and prices the whole thing up front. Removal does not work that way, and the reason is straightforward: nobody knows what is under your skin.
A brow tattoo is not one substance. It is whatever pigment your original artist used, at whatever depth their hand and technique put it, layered with however many top-ups you have had since, partially broken down by however many years of sun exposure it has seen. Two clients can walk in with brows that look identical and respond completely differently to the same laser settings.
So removal is sold by the session. You pay for each treatment as you have it, you see how the pigment responds, and the plan adjusts. It is less tidy than a package price, but it is honest — and critically, it means you are never locked into paying for sessions you turn out not to need.
The one number that matters
Your total cost is the per-session price multiplied by your session count. Clinics compete loudly on the first number and stay quiet about the second. A clinic charging less per session but needing four extra sessions to get there is the more expensive clinic, and you will not find that out until you are six appointments in.
This is why the consultation matters more than the price list. A practitioner who has looked at your brows under proper light, asked what technique was used and how many times it has been topped up, and given you a realistic session range, has told you something useful. A website quoting a headline figure has not.
Transparent per-session pricing, confirmed at your free consultation
Eyebrow PMU removal at our Rossendale clinic starts from £60 per session. Sessions are shorter than body tattoo removal because the treatment area is small, which is what keeps the per-session cost lower than you might expect.
EYEBROW PMU REMOVAL
From £60
per session · final rate confirmed at your free consultation
Because the number of sessions is what drives your total, it is more useful to budget by outcome than by session. Most clients fall into one of two brackets.
LIGHTENING / CORRECTION
£60 – £180
1–3 sessions. For clients wanting to lighten or correct existing work rather than achieve full clearance — usually because new PMU is going over the top.
FULL REMOVAL COURSE
£300 – £720+
5–12 sessions depending on technique and pigment. Exact estimate confirmed at consultation.
The gap between those two brackets is the single biggest decision you will make about cost, and it is covered properly further down — because a lot of people book full removal when lightening is all they actually need.
Fine, faded microblading on a small brow shape sits at the lower end of whichever bracket applies. Dense, heavily saturated powder or ombre brows that have been topped up several times sit at the upper end, because there is more pigment to work through and each session takes longer. The £720+ figure has a plus on it for a reason: a small number of cases, usually heavily layered corrective work in stubborn pigment shades, run past twelve sessions.
We will confirm your session estimate at the consultation rather than over the phone, so you can budget against a real number before committing to anything. It is free, and so is the patch test that goes with it.
Every one of them affects session count, and session count is the cost
Microblading deposits pigment relatively shallow, using a manual blade. Machine work — powder brows, ombre brows, traditional cosmetic tattooing — generally goes deeper and packs in more pigment. Shallower and lighter usually means fewer sessions, which usually means a lower total. If you genuinely do not know which technique you had, bring any paperwork or messages from your original artist to the consultation; it changes the estimate.
This is the factor clients most often forget and the one that most reliably pushes a total upward. Every top-up adds another layer of pigment, frequently at a slightly different depth, sometimes in a different colour to correct earlier fading. Brows that have been refreshed four times are not one tattoo — they are four, stacked. Removal has to work through all of it.
Different pigments respond to laser at very different rates, and PMU pigments are far less standardised than body tattoo inks. Some clear readily. Others are stubborn, and a few behave unpredictably on the first pass. This is the single least predictable variable in the whole process, which is exactly why sessions are priced individually. The chemistry behind it is covered in detail in our microblading removal guide.
Time helps you. Pigment that has already been partially broken down by your immune system and years of UV exposure has less left to clear. Brows tattooed eight years ago and never refreshed typically need fewer sessions than brows done last spring, all else being equal. It is one of the few situations where waiting has genuinely saved you money.
Full clearance is the most expensive outcome and it is not what most clients need. If you are removing old work to make room for new brows, you usually need lightening rather than removal — and that is a materially smaller number of sessions. Being clear about your goal at the consultation is the most effective thing you can do to control the cost.
Want a realistic figure for your brows?
Send a photo and Dawn will give you an honest session estimate before you book anything. Consultations and patch tests are free, and there is no obligation to proceed.
WhatsApp Us for a Free ConsultationFree consultation and patch test · Rossendale, Lancashire · No obligation to book
Two different goals, two very different budgets
A lot of people arrive assuming they need every trace of pigment gone. Most of them do not, and the ones who realise it early spend considerably less.
If your plan is to have new brows once the old work is dealt with, your PMU artist does not need a blank canvas. They need the existing pigment faded enough to work over cleanly without the old shape or colour showing through. That is typically 1–3 sessions, so £60 to £180, and it is the most common reason clients come to us.
Worth knowing: your new PMU artist should be the one who confirms the skin is ready. Coordinate between the two of you rather than deciding alone that you have lightened enough, because going back over pigment that has not faded sufficiently is how people end up needing removal a second time.
If you want your natural brows back with no tattoo remaining, you are looking at 5–12 sessions — the final traces are always the slowest to shift, and the last stretch of any removal is the least efficient part of it. Some pigments, particularly certain lighter and corrective shades, may never clear completely. An honest practitioner will tell you that before you start rather than after your seventh session.
The difference between the two routes is stark: at the extremes, a lightening course can cost £60 and a full removal course £720 or more. Same clinic, same laser, same practitioner. The only variable is what you decided you wanted at the outset.
The cheapest decision you can make
Decide whether you are lightening or removing before your first session, not halfway through. Clients who switch goals mid-course almost always spend more than clients who committed to one from the start, because the treatment plan and the spacing between sessions are built around the target.
If you are unsure which you need, that is a perfectly reasonable thing to bring to a consultation. It is a five-minute conversation and it can change your total meaningfully.
The costs around the treatment, not just the treatment
Comparing clinics on session price alone is misleading if one of them charges separately for the things another includes. Here is what sits inside our per-session figure and what genuinely sits outside it.
Your consultation and patch test are free. Every client has both before a first session — the patch test lets us see how your specific pigment reacts before committing to a full treatment, which protects you from an unpleasant surprise on a visible part of your face. Aftercare guidance is included as standard, and so is the assessment at each subsequent session where we review how the pigment has responded and adjust the plan.
New PMU afterwards is a separate treatment with a separate cost, whether you have it with us or elsewhere — budget for it if a re-tattoo is your end goal, because it is often the larger half of the total spend. Basic aftercare products such as a gentle cleanser and a high-factor sunscreen are not supplied, though nothing exotic is needed and you may well own both already.
Travel is worth a thought too. Removal is a course, not a single appointment, so you are making the journey repeatedly over several months. We are in Crawshawbooth, Rossendale, which is a straightforward run from Manchester, Burnley and most of Lancashire — but if you are weighing us against a clinic much further away, factor the repeat journeys into the comparison honestly.
Deposits are non-refundable
Deposits taken to book initial appointments are non-refundable. This applies across all our treatments and it is worth knowing before you book rather than after.
Full details of the treatment itself, including suitability and what happens on the day, are on our laser PMU removal service page.
The honest cost comparison, including the option where you do nothing
Laser removal is not automatically the right answer, and we would rather tell you that than take a booking you did not need.
Sometimes a skilled PMU artist can work over existing brows without any removal at all. This is cheapest in the short term and it genuinely works when the old pigment is light, the shape underneath is close to what you want, and there is no unwanted colour shift showing through. It fails when the old work is dark, badly shaped, or has gone noticeably orange or grey — covering those tends to produce a heavier, darker brow than anyone intended, and you end up paying for removal anyway on top of what you have just spent.
Brow tattoos do fade. If yours is recent, still a reasonable shape, and only mildly darker than you would like, doing nothing for a year or two is a legitimate option that costs nothing. Fading is uneven and slow, so this only makes sense if you can genuinely live with the brows in the meantime — but if you can, it is money not spent.
Avoid these. Saline and acid-based home removal products applied to the face carry a real risk of scarring, and scar tissue on the brow line is a considerably worse and more expensive problem than the tattoo you started with. Any saving is illusory.
A consultation will tell you which of these routes actually fits your situation. If the answer is that you do not need laser at all, we will say so.
This is your face, and the corners being cut are not always visible
Eyebrow removal attracts low pricing because the treatment area is small and the appointment is short, which makes it easy for an inexperienced operator to undercut on headline rate. A few things are worth checking before that number persuades you.
This is the clearest warning sign there is. Patch testing takes one short appointment and it is how you find out that a particular pigment reacts badly before that reaction happens across your whole brow. A clinic skipping it is saving its own time at your expense.
Either they are guessing, or the number will change once you are committed. Neither is good. A session range after an assessment is the honest version of this answer.
Nobody can promise this, because nobody can know in advance exactly what pigment is in your skin or how it will respond. A guarantee here is a sales tactic rather than a clinical statement.
Your body needs time to clear broken-down pigment between treatments, and the skin around the eye is delicate. A clinic willing to treat you every fortnight is prioritising throughput over your results and your skin. Properly spaced sessions are slower and they are not optional.
Body tattoo removal and PMU removal are not the same job. Facial skin is thinner, cosmetic pigments behave differently from body inks, and the margin for error beside the eye is small. Ask how much brow work specifically the practitioner has done. Dawn is our laser specialist and also trains other professionals in laser removal through our academy, which is the level of specific experience worth looking for wherever you go.
Cost, payment and practicalities
No. You pay per session as you have it. A deposit is taken to book your initial appointment and that deposit is non-refundable, but you are not committing to a full course of treatments in advance.
Yes, and so is the patch test. You will get an honest assessment and a session range with no obligation to book anything afterwards.
Because the number would be meaningless. Session count depends on pigment depth, density, colour, age and how many top-ups you have had, and none of that is visible over a phone line. Sending a clear photo of your brows lets us give you a much better indication before you travel.
No. The laser targets pigment in the skin rather than hair, so your natural brows are unaffected by the treatment.
Some pigments do temporarily darken after a first session before they begin to lighten. It is a known reaction rather than a sign anything has gone wrong, and it is one of the things a patch test helps identify in advance. Our microblading removal guide explains why it happens.
Yes, and it is why most of our removal clients come to us. The area needs to be fully healed first, and your PMU artist should confirm the skin is ready before they work on it.
Sessions are spaced to give your body time to clear the broken-down pigment, so a course runs over several months rather than weeks. The exact spacing is set at your consultation based on how your skin responds.
Our clinic is at 538 Burnley Rd, Crawshawbooth, Rossendale BB4 8NE — in the countryside but an easy run from Manchester, Burnley and across Lancashire.
ALEX JAMES SMP · ROSSENDALE, LANCASHIRE
Send us a photo of your brows and we will give you an honest session estimate — including telling you if laser removal is not the right route for you. Consultations and patch tests are free, and there is no pressure to book.
WhatsApp Us for a Free ConsultationPHONE
LOCATION
538 Burnley Rd, Crawshawbooth, Rossendale BB4 8NE
Mon–Fri 9AM–4PM · Sat 9AM–12PM
