The UK PMU Conference & Awards celebrate the talent, hard work and success of Permanent Makeup Artists who have excelled in producing consistently outstanding PMU treatments and setting high levels of service standards, whilst adhering to industry safety.

Judging is a painstaking task over which you must spend good time. We are lucky that there are so many offerings of styles even within a single category. As a judge this can make deciding the rankings difficult in some categories.

Judges use this briefing and criteria when assessing entries. However, as with any creative competition, experienced judges may place different emphasis on different strengths within an entry, which is one of the reasons multiple judges are used in each category.

HOW TO RANK

Each Judge will be be provided with a spreadsheet of entries. Entrants personal details have been removed and replaced with a unique code to retain anonymity.

Judges should carefully review the entries, and then complete a number in the ranking column as follows:

• 1 = 1st Place / Your favourite
• 2 = 2nd Place / Your second favourite
• 3 = 3rd Place / Your third favourite

…and so on, in order of your preference, until each entrant has a rank/number. 

The lowest number is your favourite/winner, the largest number is the least favourite.

To help remove bias, each category will have more than one Judge.

As a Judge you will also remain anonymous on the categories you Judge. 

These rankings will be combined and winners will be awarded on the average of their rankings.

JUDGING GUIDANCE

As a Judge please consider the following, in no particular order of preference (these may not be relevant to all categories)

Symmetry, shape, colour/tone, technical skill & end result: Applicants should be aware that some of these are subjective.

As well as taking into consideration the holistic factors below:

Photography

Photography of work can make a big difference to the appearance of skill and outcome. 

Edited work is seen by many artists as an unrealistic portrayal of the real and raw results of day-to-day PMU. The industry is trying to resist the move toward this, as editing applications become more widespread and easy to use.

For these reasons pictures that appear to have been edited with Photoshop or other editing (lenses with soft focus/highlights/skin smoothing/detailing) are not preferred and should automatically attract a lower placed ranking. Higher placing should be given to those submitting raw and unedited images.

Higher ranking should be allocated to those showing work in close-up, where the pictures are consistently lit and well-focused in all areas.

If the entire work can not be seen from the selection of pictures submitted, this would lead to lower ranking.

Hygiene

Beautiful work should also be safe. Consider use of makeup/concealers, makeup, ungloved hands on skin, and unsanitary items in the background as grounds for downgrading the rank.

Collages

Brow/Lip/Liner/Artist Categories:
Collages of 3 “after” images – front, left & right views. These images may be directly after treatment or healed.

Collages with more than 3 images per submission for Brows/Liner/Lip/Artist categories will be removed from your entries.

Medical/Areola Category:
Collages of 2 images “before and after”. Showing the work front on/or in its best represented aspect.

Collages with more than 2 images for Areola/Medical categories will be removed.

For All Categories: After images may be directly after treatment or healed.

Style

Execution and diversity of style need to be considered. Each artist will have their own style/outcome even when applying for the same category, rarely you will be judging exactly the same techniques.

Where relevant, has the artist shown they can produce work with varying styles?

EG: An artist showing more than just one technique should rank higher than one that submits just one style.

EG: Someone that produces excellent work showing 3 differing kinds of brow styles or liners and or a mixture of work in categories such as the Areola | Medical Category, Newcomer or Established Artist category can possibly be considered more skilful than someone who just submits one style.

Skin

The variance of skin type can show additional skill. Different skin types with submissions should increase rankings. The skin should show little to no trauma or redness.

Young skins often show work in their best light, so try and see past factors of skin – where possible/relevant, has the artist submitted work on a range of skin types, not just young fresh skin. Work carried out on more difficult skin types can attract a higher ranking.

Symmetry

Where symmetry is relevant this should be good. These entrants that show good symmetry with pictures should be ranked higher

Choice of colour

The choice of colour must be complimentary to the client, technique and skin type. Work that is overly dark/heavy or appears as though it may not age well should receive lower ranking.

Saturation & Potential Ageing

Following on from colour choice, work must not be heavy or over-saturated. Additional points to be given to work which appears as though it will age well typically this is work which is lighter in saturation.

Healed Vs Fresh Work (Final Results)

Artists can choose to submit after images that are healed OR work that is fresh from the needle. We do not specify healed images as “after” images. In situations where you consider two artists to be equally skilled, the artist that has included healed images as their ‘after’ pictures should receive higher ranking – as excellent results in not just fresh by healed work should be considered.

Personal preference

You can use your own personal discretion in your judging. This may be based as simply on the work which you prefer as a judge, or what you think other people may prefer.

Any queries regarding submissions, rules, and T&Cs should be directed back to the organisers.

GDPR

We do not currently ask for applicants to have GDPR-compliant models. This is because some of their work may not be agreed to be shared by their models. Please do not share posts/photos outside of the judging panel unless you have express permission from the artist to do so, and their GDPR policy has been signed off by the event.