Industry: Cosmetics

Additional Information

Sandi Hammons began her career in the cosmetics industry, working as a makeup artist for such high profile clientele as the Miss America Pageant and several Hollywood actresses. In 1987, Hammons was introduced to the concept of permanent makeup and was instantly intrigued. Unfortunately at that time, permanent makeup was still a relatively new field and needed some tweaking, but nobody seemed willing to step up to the plate and fix the problems. That is, until Sandi Hammons came along. Fascinated by this new frontier in cosmetics, Hammons began studying permanent cosmetic techniques and tattoo pigments, trying to perfect the flawed system that was currently in place. Sandi Hammons’ goal was to find pigments that were not only natural, but also long-lasting with no danger of fading out. As history has shown, Sandi Hammons was successful at this venture, and today she is the founder, president, and CEO of her own company Premier Pigments, as well as The American Institute of Intradermal Cosmetics (or AIIC).

Premier Pigments and the AIIC are truly the gold standard in the permanent cosmetics field, and Sandi Hammons is considered one of the pioneers of the permanent cosmetics movement. In fact, she is known to many as the “new” Mary Kay Ash (the eponymous founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics). Chances are if you’ve received permanent makeup, the person who applied it was trained by Ms. Hammons and the AIIC. Today, Hammons still trains technicians at the AIIC and runs Premier Pigments and often acts as a keynote speaker at the AIIC’s annual expo, the International Intradermal Cosmetics Expo—the only permanent cosmetics exposition in the entire world! In addition to her work with Premier Pigments and the AIIC, Sandi Hammons is running her own non-profit organization, The Sandi Hammons Charitable Foundation, which was founded in 2001. The SHCF works with women and children who are victims of abuse, providing them education, support, and inspiration. Hammons is also the founder of Sandi Hammons Seminars, an organization that Hammons created to help organize her many motivational speaking engagements throughout the year.

Sandi is also the President of The Alliance for Safe Practice, a professional organization for permanent cosmetics application safety. In 2005, she released a series of DVDs entitled “The Permanent Cosmetic Apprentice,” a take on the popular NBC hit reality series. In Sandi Hammons’ version, however, technicians compete in permanent cosmetics challenges, hosted by Hammons herself.