What happens when eyebrow tattoos go wrong, Very wrong.

Images: Endemol

The internet is full of spectacular tattoo disasters – misspelled quotes, misinterpreted Chinese symbols and portraits that look like nightmare mutations of the original subjects.

But while cosmetic tattooing is often more subtle than its body art equivalent, it can still go wrong. Just ask 24-year-old Sarah, whose quest for Cara Delevingne-style brows has left her with a permanently surprised expression on her face.

You can tattoo your eyeballs now. But that doesn’t mean you should.

The English student was sick of having to fill in her sparse, light eyebrows with a pencil every day.

“Every morning was daunting – drawing them on and feeling depressed if they didn’t look right,” the Bath resident recalled during an appearance on UK TV show Bodyshockers.

That’s an incredibly sad admission, but it’s also not overly surprising – thick, full eyebrows are to 2015 what spindly, spidery brows were to 1996. Everyone’s after the natural look, so demand for eyebrow-plumping products like gels, pencils and even wigs (really) has markedly jumped in the last few years. (post continues after gallery)

However, Sarah decided to fight her brow-induced dissatisfaction with a more permanent solution. She paid a visit to a tattoo artist and requested a pair of black brows – a questionable choice given her hair was naturally blonde.

“Having the tattoos was excruciating,” she recalls. “I told the tattooist I wanted black eyebrows but I didn’t think they would be this black.”

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Are you as baffled by this comment as we are? Surely there’s only one real shade of black, right…?

But what Sarah possibly meant was that she hadn’t expected the brows to be completely inked in with a solid colour. These days, eyebrow tattoos are usually created using a ‘feathering’ technique to mimic natural hairs.

Sarah was mortified by her new eyebrows, and resorted to dying her hair dark brown and cutting in a long, blunt fringe to disguise them.

"It was supposed to be a quick fix so I didn't have to do all this plucking, shaving and painting them on, but now before I leave the house I have to spend ages doing hair to make sure they can't be seen," she says.

How to find the right eyebrow shape for your face.

To make matters worse, the ink has since faded to a blue colour. Sarah says she rarely goes out now because she feels people are always looking at her, and she is looking to have her brows removed with laser surgery.

Obviously, this is an example of eyebrow tattoos going spectacularly wrong - but that's not always the case. When done right, the procedure can give women incredible-looking full brows.

Mamamia's Shelly Horton gave inked-on brows a try back in 2013. Although the result was dramatic at first ("massive cartoon brows", in Shelly's words), she came to love them as they faded over a few weeks.

"I got home and couldn’t stop staring at them in the mirror. I felt numb and it wasn’t from the anaesthetic cream. My fiance arrived home and recoiled in horror when he saw them and then he burst out laughing ... I was on the point of tears. I was madly googling ‘‘eyebrow tattoo removal’’ and drinking scotch," Shelly wrote for Fairfax at the time.

"Now I love them. Even without make up I feel like I have a ‘‘face on’’, when I work at Channel Seven the make-up artists all comment on what a great shape they are and how they suit me. Even my fiancé likes them now."

So there's no need to write eyebrow tattoos off completely - as with almost any beauty treatment, the success often comes down to the person performing the procedure. Do your research, and ask for examples of a beautician's previous work to make sure they don't butcher your brows.

On the other hand, if you're after a thicker look but don't want your eyebrows inked permanently on your face, follow our easy brow-filling tutorial below. It's simple to follow and there are no painful needles involved. Win win.

Would you ever try eyebrow tattoos? Have you?