For decades, aesthetic practitioners have relied on makeup pencils and white liners — tools never built for medicine — to plan some of the most precise and delicate treatments in clinical aesthetics. It’s a curious contradiction. Clinics now use £500+ syringes, £20k+ energy-based devices, and sterile gloves for every patient… yet marking up often means scrabbling around for a half-used pencil from the bottom of a drawer.
It’s time to evolve.
Pencils were never designed for skin. They’re not hygienic, they fade when exposed to moisture, they’re often hard to remove, and worse — they deliver inconsistent lines that compromise precision. And let’s not even talk about the sharpener… tucked into the back corner of the room, hiding shavings and cross-contamination risks in plain sight.
The truth is, marking up is a foundational step in patient care. It communicates intent. It creates symmetry. It supports better outcomes. And it deserves the same respect we give to needles, cannulas, and gloves.
The death of the pencil isn’t just about tools. It’s about mindset. It’s about realising that aesthetic medicine has matured, and the habits we formed early in our careers might now be holding us back.
With tools like Skrybe’s Single-Use and Multi-Use markers, we now have access to instruments that reflect the standards we’ve come to expect in every other part of practice — sterile when they need to be, precise when it matters most, and professional in look and feel.
The pencil had its place. But its time is up.