New Cosmetic Tattoo Diploma Updates

Raising the industry standards

We are only one week away from the launch of the new PMU Conference, Permanent Cosmetic Culture to be held at the Brisbane Pullman Hotel on Sunday 27^th and Monday 28^th February.  If you haven’t registered yet, please do so. 

We are always supportive of education and APAN will be contributing through a lecture entitled Updates, changes and future-proofing the PMU industry presented by Tina Viney.  In this presentation, Tina will be providing a comprehensive update on the Tattoo inks and pigments regulations, as well as the new Diploma, SHB50320 Diploma in Cosmetic Tattooing. 

By way of an update, this qualification will be replacing the previous unit of competency:

The SHBBSKS003 Design and Provide Cosmetic Tattooing was embedded in the Diploma in Beauty Therapy. The new Diploma features nine units and will approximately take 1200 hours to complete compared to the one unit which only required approximately 100 hours to reach competency. 

The new qualification has been developed over the last three years to cover all the important aspects of cosmetic tattoo treatments, including brows, lips, eyeliner, scalp micro pigmentation and 3D nipple-areola. There are four core units, which are compulsory. These are Consultation, pigments and colour theory, skin, and cosmetic tattoo design.

Before any practical training is delivered, it will be a requirement to gain a formal infection control qualification if you don’t already have one. One of the things we were able to change from Draft 1 was that you have a choice of infection control qualification, either the one in the Beauty Package or HLTINF005 Maintain Infection Prevention for Skin Penetration Treatments, which is required in Queensland and increasingly the preferred infection control qualification in other states and territories. This means you only must get one infection control qualification.

The rest of the diploma consists of five electives, so there is a lot of choice.

There are five practical skills units, and all of these are electives. You can choose to do one or more; brows, lips, eyeliner, scalp micro pigmentation and 3D nipple-areola. You can choose to do one or all five. For example, if you just want to perform brow procedures you can get a Diploma of Cosmetic Tattooing (Brows).

You still must do five electives in total, and the other options are business units or a unit on social media.  If someone has completed the government-approved unit of competency they can gain recognition of prior learning for the current competencies, however as there are nine units in the Diploma, they will most like be required to complete a few additional units.

While the Diploma will introduce a new industry standard that is much higher than was previously available, we believe it will take some time to substantially impact and elevate the current standards. However, it will bring the profession into a new era.  We will slowly see unaccredited training phased out, as more people will want to know that their training can provide them with a nationally accredited diploma and not just a statement of attainment.

Good trainers who are not RTOs will have the opportunity to deliver post-graduate training to already qualified cosmetic tattooists, but less and less will be reaching out to them for entry-point training to the industry.