By Logan B. Anderson

MILFORD — Ericka Passwaters’ passion is helping people feel good about themselves. Her new business in downtown Milford can make those good feelings permanent.

Following her passion, Ms. Passwaters recently opened a permanent makeup studio in a small makerspace above the Mispillion Art League on Park Avenue in Milford.

“I absolutely love making people feel good about themselves. That’s why I got into this in the first place. Also, the artistry of makeup itself is something I’ve been very passionate about,” Ms. Passwaters said.

Before breaking out on her own, Ms. Passwaters worked for more than a decade in traditional makeup for some large beauty brands.

While working in the beauty industry, Ms. Passwaters recognized that permanent makeup was a growing trend.

Permanent makeup is the perfect solution for the “I woke up like this look,” and is part of the growing “less is more” ideal, she said.

“We want to enhance natural beauty and we want to wear less makeup; we want our natural skin to show through. A lot of the times when women wear makeup, they want to cover something. My philosophy is instead of covering, let’s enhance what we already have there. Make the brows a little bit more perfect and symmetrical and give your lips a little bit more of a glow,” Ms. Passwaters said.

Her appointment-only studio, Ericka Passwaters PMU, offers a full makeup bag’s worth of services.

She can enhance brows with microblading, combination brows and ombre brows. She can enrich a client’s eyes with lash-enhancement which places pigment all along the upper or lower lash line, resulting in the illusion of darker and fuller lashes.
She also offers lip blushing which adds pigment to a client’s lips to make them appear more youthful and fuller.

Ms. Passwaters has been a licensed permanent makeup artist since 2019. She offers free consultations either on the phone, in person or virtually. She offers event and bridal makeup services, too.

The term permanent makeup isn’t exactly accurate, but calling what Ms. Passwaters does tattooing isn’t correct either.

“The services are considered a semi-permanent service, meaning they typically last one to three years. But the entire industry as a whole is called permanent makeup because the definition of permanent is if you, you know, cut into skin and implant pigment, it’s permanent. It does not wash off,” Ms. Passwaters said.

The technology behind permanent makeup is designed to be only semi-permanent. Traditional tattoos use inks created to last a long time. Ms. Passwaters uses pigments that are made to fade over time. Traditional tattoos also go deeper into the skin layers where permanent makeup stays in the upper layer of the skin.

“We wouldn’t want to do a very permanent eyebrow on a 20-year-old and then 20 years down the road, when the face inevitably starts to sag a little bit, we wouldn’t want to have her have droopy brows for the rest of her life. So as the pigment lifts over time, it’s easy enough for us to go back in and then lift the brows a little bit and lift the brows a little bit more,” Ms. Passwaters said.

The Milford native is about to add a new service that will go a long way in helping women feel good about themselves.

Ms. Passwaters said she will soon offer areola reconstruction.

“That is for those who have undergone a mastectomy or for various cases where a woman may lose the areola entirely or the color of the areola. It’s very, very intricate and there’s a lot of artistry that goes into creating a very realistic looking areola but I’m so excited for that. I mean that right there takes the cake in helping women feel beautiful again. I am so super excited for that,” Ms. Passwaters said.

There are not many artists in the region that provide areola reconstruction services, Ms. Passwaters said.

Though she has been working on and learning more of the permanent makeup craft for many years, the COVID-19 pandemic is what led her to open her own shop. Last year, restrictions related to the virus forced the company she was working for to shutter their doors.

“It was the first time in my life I was without a job, a steady paycheck, the health insurance, the benefits, and I said, ‘I can either spend this time looking for another full-time job that inevitably could close its doors or I can try to just spend this time and build something for myself,’” Ms. Passwaters said.

“I’ve always wanted to create something that I was proud of that kind of inhabited my passions and my thought process and how I wanted to portray myself without having to stand behind a company or a company stand behind me. I, honestly, put every last dime I had into everything here.”

Ms. Passwaters has lived in Milford most of her life and starting her business here was an easy choice.

“I love what Milford is about now, just building people up and helping each other as much as we can. It’s just a great town,” she said.

Ericka Passwaters PMU is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit  for more information or find her on Instagram @erickapasswaterspmu.