PMU in Bulleen: Can Gaming Affect Your Aftercare?
Image source: The University of Queensland News (2024), Excessive gaming causing health issues. Original image credit: Adobe.
Gaming is probably not the first activity that comes to mind when people think about permanent makeup aftercare.
After PMU, clients are usually reminded about skincare, exercise, water, makeup, touching the treated area and following the instructions provided by their practitioner. Nobody normally asks whether playing a football game online or spending an evening on a fighting game could have anything to do with their freshly treated brows.
Gaming itself is unlikely to be the important part of the question.
The more interesting issue is what can happen while we are gaming. Competitive games can generate excitement, frustration, concentration and rapid emotional reactions. People may instinctively touch their face, rub their forehead, put their head in their hands, scratch an eyebrow or make other movements without consciously thinking about them.
That becomes relevant when an area of the face has recently undergone permanent makeup.
So, for clients considering PMU in Bulleen, the question is not really, “Can I play video games after PMU?”
A better question is, “Can the way I behave while gaming interfere with my aftercare?”
Gaming Itself Is Not a PMU Contraindication
We found no research showing that playing a video game directly damages permanent makeup, changes pigment retention or prevents a cosmetic tattoo from healing.
There is therefore no scientific basis for telling someone that they must stop gaming simply because they have recently had PMU.
A controller, keyboard or television screen does not somehow interact with eyebrow pigment from across the room.
The potential connection is behavioural.
Permanent makeup aftercare commonly involves avoiding unnecessary touching, rubbing, scratching or disturbing of the treated area. During ordinary activities, a client may remember this relatively easily. During an intense or competitive game, however, attention can become strongly directed towards what is happening on the screen.
That is where the question becomes more interesting.
Competitive Gaming Can Produce Real Physiological Arousal
Gaming may look physically passive because the player is sitting down, but competitive play does not necessarily produce a passive physiological state.
A 2024 study by Leis and colleagues examined players during competitive FIFA 21 and League of Legends matches. Compared with seated rest, gaming was associated with increases in heart rate and several blood-pressure measures, suggesting a measurable cardiovascular and autonomic response to competitive play.
That study did not examine PMU clients and does not suggest that elevated heart rate during gaming damages cosmetic tattooing.
Its relevance is much narrower.
Competitive gaming can create a state of physiological arousal even while someone is physically sitting still.
Think about a close football match online. The score is level. There are seconds remaining. You concede an absurd goal. Your opponent celebrates. Suddenly the activity is no longer particularly relaxing.
The same may happen in a fighting game, racing game or other competitive environment where winning, losing and rapid decision-making become emotionally engaging.
Frustration and Competition Matter More Than Whether a Game Is Violent
It is tempting to assume that violent games produce the strongest reactions, but the research is more complicated.
Dowsett and Jackson experimentally separated competition from violent content in video games. They found that competitive play increased aggressive affect and that losing in the competitive condition increased it further. Importantly, they did not find that competition increased aggressive behaviour itself.
This distinction is useful for our discussion.
We are not claiming that people become aggressive because they play video games.
A person shouting at a missed penalty or becoming frustrated by losing a match is also very different from clinically meaningful aggression.
The point is simply that competitive gaming can alter a person's immediate emotional state. Frustration, excitement and tension can generate spontaneous reactions.
And some of those reactions involve the face.
Why Do People Touch Their Faces Without Realising It?
This is probably the strongest scientific connection between gaming behaviour and PMU aftercare.
Facial self-touching is remarkably common.
Spille et al. conducted a systematic review of spontaneous facial self-touch and found that these movements occur frequently and often with little conscious awareness. More importantly for our question, the review found that facial self-touch can increase during emotionally or cognitively challenging situations and has been associated with attention, working memory and emotional regulation.
A separate systematic review similarly concluded that face touching is often spontaneous and can occur during activities involving emotions, memory, smartphone use and different cognitive tasks.
This provides a much stronger basis for the PMU discussion than simply declaring that gaming is “bad”.
Imagine someone who has recently had eyebrow PMU.
They are deeply absorbed in a competitive game. They lose unexpectedly. Without thinking, they put their hand against their forehead. Or they lean their face into one hand while waiting for the next match. Perhaps an eyebrow begins to feel slightly itchy and the person instinctively scratches it while their attention remains on the screen.
None of these behaviours necessarily involves a conscious decision to disregard aftercare.
They are precisely the kind of automatic movements that people often perform without noticing.
Touching Your Face Is Not the Same as Intentionally Ignoring Aftercare
This distinction matters to us at Lena Utmost Beauty.
If someone has been told not to unnecessarily touch their freshly treated brows and then touches them once during an exciting game, it is easy to say, “You did not follow the instructions.”
Human behaviour is not quite that tidy.
One of the important findings from research on spontaneous facial self-touch is that people may have limited awareness of when these movements begin.
That makes aftercare partly a problem of habit and attention, rather than simply obedience.
A client may fully intend to protect their PMU and still perform an automatic movement before remembering what they have done.
Gaming is interesting in this context because an absorbing game redirects attention towards the screen, the competition and the immediate problem being solved.
The aftercare instruction has not disappeared.
It has simply stopped being the person's primary focus for a moment.
What About Intense Reactions During Gaming?
People respond differently to games.
One player can lose five matches and barely react. Another can lose one and look as though civilisation has collapsed.
Experimental studies suggest that competitive gaming can influence short-term emotional and cognitive responses, although findings are not completely uniform across the literature.
For example, a 2023 experimental study comparing competitive and solo gameplay found differences in measures associated with aggressive responses following competitive play. The researchers themselves noted important limitations, including the use of a single game and a relatively small sample.
Other experimental research has also linked frustration during gameplay with increased state hostility, while some studies have produced weaker or null findings.
So we should resist the cartoon version of this argument.
We are not saying:
“Competitive games make people lose control and damage their PMU.”
The evidence does not justify that.
A more reasonable interpretation is that some competitive games can produce short-term frustration and emotional arousal in some players. When combined with ordinary spontaneous behaviours such as face touching, this gives PMU clients a practical reason to remain aware of what their hands are doing.
The Problem May Be Absorption Rather Than Emotion
There is another side of gaming that may matter just as much as frustration.
Gaming can be extremely absorbing.
A player may sit down intending to play for 30 minutes and discover several hours later that the original plan has undergone the sort of mysterious disappearance usually reserved for New Year's resolutions.
Extended gaming sessions have been associated with physical complaints such as eye fatigue, hand or wrist discomfort and back or neck pain, particularly when sessions extend for several hours.
Those findings are not directly relevant to PMU healing.
What is relevant is the duration and absorption involved.
Aftercare instructions are easiest to follow when they remain consciously present. During a long gaming session, a client may stop actively thinking about the treated area.
They may touch their forehead.
They may adjust their hair across the brows.
They may scratch an itch.
They may wipe perspiration from their face.
They may rest their head in their hand.
None of these movements has anything inherently to do with gaming. The same behaviours can occur while watching television, studying or working at a computer.
Gaming simply provides a particularly interesting context because attention can remain intensely occupied for extended periods.
Does Staying Up Gaming Matter?
This should not become an article about sleep because sleep and PMU deserve their own discussion.
However, prolonged gaming introduces one additional practical consideration.
A systematic review published in 2024 found that ordinary or casual gaming was not consistently associated with poor sleep. The relationship depended substantially on factors such as gaming duration, frequency and arousal. Excessive gaming and highly arousing games close to bedtime were more consistently associated with later sleep timing or poorer sleep-related outcomes.
Another experimental study published in 2024 found no significant deterioration in sleep duration or quality after two-hour evening gaming sessions compared with watching a documentary, despite gaming producing greater short-term alertness.
That is an important reminder not to exaggerate.
Gaming does not automatically destroy someone's sleep.
For our PMU article, the practical concern is much simpler.
If gaming turns into a very long session, someone may become tired and less attentive to an unfamiliar aftercare routine. We do not need to claim that gaming-related sleep changes affect pigment retention. There is no evidence establishing that.
The concern remains behavioural.
Can Gaming Affect PMU Healing?
There is currently no direct evidence showing that playing video games changes PMU healing.
We found no study comparing gamers and non-gamers after microblading, Powder Brows, Nano Brows, Lip Blush, eyeliner or other permanent makeup procedures.
Therefore, we cannot reasonably claim that gaming causes pigment loss, delayed healing or poorer cosmetic outcomes.
What we can identify is an indirect pathway.
Competitive or highly engaging gaming can involve physiological arousal and emotional reactions. Spontaneous facial self-touch is common and appears to increase under some forms of emotional and cognitive demand. Long sessions can also absorb attention for extended periods.
If those behaviours result in repeatedly rubbing, scratching or touching freshly treated PMU, then the behaviour conflicts with normal aftercare principles.
That is very different from saying that the game itself harms the tattoo.
Do You Need to Stop Gaming After PMU?
We do not think the evidence supports such a rule.
At Lena Utmost Beauty, we would not tell a client to abandon gaming for several days simply because they have had permanent makeup.
Instead, we would recommend awareness.
If you are playing after a PMU appointment, remember that the treated area is still fresh. Try not to touch, rub or scratch it unconsciously. If you know that you become extremely animated during competitive games, it may be sensible to choose something less intense for a short period or simply be more conscious of your movements.
The aim is not to make your life revolve around your eyebrows.
It is to prevent ordinary habits from interfering unnecessarily with an area you have just paid someone considerable time and money to treat.
What If You Play Football Games or Fighting Games?
There is no scientific reason to create separate aftercare rules for different game genres.
A football game is not inherently dangerous for Powder Brows, and playing a fighting game will not somehow disturb pigment through the television.
What varies is the player's response.
For one person, a competitive football match may be completely relaxed. For another, conceding in the final minute produces enough emotional theatre to qualify for its own television series.
Similarly, someone may play a fighting game calmly, while another player physically reacts to every win, loss or unexpected move.
The question is therefore not which game you play.
It is whether your own gaming habits include frequent facial touching, rubbing, scratching or other spontaneous movements that could involve the treated area.
Aftercare Needs to Survive Real Life
This gaming example points to something broader about permanent makeup aftercare.
Clients do not spend the healing period sitting motionless in a room thinking about their cosmetic tattoo.
They work.
They cook.
They exercise.
They use their phones.
They watch television.
They play games.
They sleep.
They become distracted.
Good aftercare advice therefore needs to survive ordinary human behaviour.
Telling someone “do not touch your brows” is useful, but understanding why people sometimes touch their faces without noticing can make the instruction more meaningful.
The research on spontaneous facial self-touch is particularly valuable here because it reminds us that these behaviours are not always conscious choices.
Sometimes the challenge is simply remembering that, temporarily, an automatic habit needs to change.
PMU in Bulleen and Gaming Aftercare
For clients considering PMU in Bulleen, Lena Utmost Beauty is located nearby in Balwyn and provides permanent makeup treatments for clients throughout Melbourne's eastern suburbs.
Gaming itself has not been shown to damage permanent makeup.
The evidence does not justify telling clients that they cannot play video games after PMU, nor does it demonstrate that gamers experience worse pigment retention or healing.
The more interesting evidence concerns behaviour.
Competitive gaming can produce measurable physiological arousal. Some forms of competitive play can also produce frustration and other short-term emotional responses. Most importantly, research shows that spontaneous face touching is common, often occurs with little conscious awareness and can become more frequent during emotionally or cognitively demanding situations.
That provides a sensible aftercare message without inventing a medical rule.
Play your game if you want to.
Just remember where your hands are.
Freshly treated brows probably do not need to participate in the match.
Read our other post on PMU aftercare.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I play video games after PMU?
There is no evidence showing that gaming itself damages PMU or reduces pigment retention. The practical consideration is avoiding unnecessary touching, rubbing or scratching of the treated area while you are absorbed in the game.
Can competitive gaming make me touch my face more?
Research on spontaneous facial self-touch suggests that touching can increase during emotionally and cognitively challenging situations and often occurs with limited conscious awareness. However, studies have not specifically tested whether competitive gamers touch fresh PMU more frequently.
Do stressful games affect PMU healing?
There is no direct evidence demonstrating that psychological arousal produced by gaming changes PMU healing. Competitive gaming can produce measurable cardiovascular and autonomic arousal, but this has not been shown to alter cosmetic tattoo outcomes.
Should I avoid competitive games immediately after PMU?
There is no universal requirement to avoid them. If you know that competitive games make you repeatedly rub your forehead, touch your eyebrows or become physically animated, being more cautious during the early aftercare period is sensible.
Does staying up gaming affect my PMU?
No study has demonstrated that staying up gaming specifically damages PMU. Very long or late gaming sessions may influence fatigue and attention, while research on gaming and sleep shows that effects vary considerably according to gaming duration, frequency and arousal. The relevant aftercare issue is remaining attentive enough to protect the treated area.
References
Dowsett, A., & Jackson, M. (2019). The effect of violence and competition within video games on aggression. Computers in Human Behavior, 99, 22–27.
Klier, K., Alesi, A., Herhaus, B., Keller, M., Hardt, J., Brixius, K., Froböse, I., Wagner, M., & Petrowski, K. (2024). Does gaming keep subjects awake? Subjective and objective sleep parameters following gaming in comparison to a passive control. Physiology & Behavior, 287, 114714.
Leis, O., Lautenbach, F., Birch, P. D. J., & Elbe, A. M. (2024). Heartbeats and high scores: Esports triggers cardiovascular and autonomic stress response. Frontiers in Sports and Active Living.
Spille, J. L., Grunwald, M., Martin, S., & Mueller, S. M. (2021). Stop touching your face! A systematic review of triggers, characteristics, regulatory functions and neuro-physiology of facial self touch. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 128, 102–116.
Wu, J., et al. (2023). Short-term effects of competitive video games on aggression: An event-related potential study. Brain Sciences, 13(6), 904.
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