Eyebrows make an important contribution to facial symmetry and our presentation to others. A person without eyebrows may feel very self-conscious about his or her appearance.
An eyebrow transplant or reconstructive surgery can often help to restore eyebrows to a appear natural and full. This can help those with low self-confidence or concerns about the condition of their eyebrows.
We have done eyebrow transplants on lots of patients, for both medical and cosmetic purposes. Some patients had lost their eyebrows due to medical conditions or through over-plucking; others were born with thin brows and craved a much fuller brow for cosmetic reasons.
Why have an eyebrow transplant?
There are many different reasons why you may be thinking of getting an eyebrow transplant. These can range from previous or current medical conditions or for cosmetic reasons, in order to boost confidence and self-esteem.
Some of the reasons our patients choose to have an eyebrow transplant, range from the following:
- Physical trauma: Facial injury and scarring resulting from events such as road accidents, industrial accidents, thermal and chemical burns.
- Medical and surgical treatments: Surgical treatment of injury or tumour that results in removal of eyebrow follicles and tissue scarring. Radiotherapy or chemotherapy for cancer can also result in loss of eyebrow hair.
- Compulsive plucking of eyebrows and other body hair, termed Trichotillomania.
- Absence of hair on all parts of the body as a congenital condition, can also be a reason to consider eyebrow surgery.
- The vast majority of our patients were either born with naturally thin brows or have permanently damaged their brow in their beauty regimes, most commonly through over-plucking to achieve pencil thin brows, which were very fashionable in the 1980s.
Eyebrow transplant
Follicular Unit Extraction eyebrow transplants (FUE) are surging in popularity, as women and even some men, seek ways to permanently restore or establish hair in the area. The process typically involves removing a section of hair from the patient, most commonly from the back of the scalp, and grafting the hair to the eyebrow. This augments the existing brows or replaces them completely if a patient has lost all their natural brows.
An area of the scalp in the back of the head is numbed with a local anesthetic. Then we extract Hair Follicles from the “donor area”. those extracted hair follicles will be given to a technician who separates the hair tissue into single hair follicular grafts. The grafts are then implanted into the brow, one by one. The procedure typically involves 400 grafts transplanted into each brow – around 600-800 in total. the operation usually takes approximately 3-4 hours.
The eyebrow transplant is performed under local anaesthetic and many patients are so comfortable, they are able to fall asleep while the grafts are implanted. The results are permanent and you will see some immediate differences with a new outline.
What’s the best way to maintain the new eyebrows following the transplant?
The transplanted eyebrows come from head hair and therefore the new eyebrows grow just like they would on the head. This means that they need to be trimmed regularly, just like head hair. They also need to be curled so that they blend perfectly with the existing natural eyebrows.
Trimming and curling is easily done and Hestanbul provides patients with a beauty kit to do this. Patients find that with this simple maintenance, their new brows blend perfectly with the existing strands.
After-care
The eyebrow area will be a little delicate for a few days after the procedure, before quickly returning to normal. It takes around six months for the new strands to fully settle and be seen at their best.
