To some people, an eyebrow transplant may seem like something completely ridiculous as they are so used to the short hairs above their eyes being there, but to others, an eyebrow transplants can seem like a necessity. Our eyebrows make a very important contribution to the symmetry of our faces and how we present ourselves to others and person with very fair, thin or even no eyebrows at all may be very self-conscious about their appearance.
Eyebrow transplants can help renew the appearance of eyebrows and restore confidence by giving your eyebrows a much fuller and more natural look. They can be performed either for medical or cosmetic purposes, some people have lost eyebrows due to medical conditions and/or over-plucking whereas others may have been born with naturally very thin or fair coloured brows and simply crave fuller brows for this reason.
So what happens in an eyebrow transplant?
Eyebrow transplants are usually performed using the FUE method, which has recently surged in popularity to permanently restore hair in both men and women. The FUE process takes a small section of hair, usually from the back or sides of the scalp, and grafting the hair into the eyebrow to augment the existing brow or replace them completely.
The scalp is numbed using local anaesthetic and a small section is removed to be used as the grafts. These are then separated by a technician into single follicle grafts and these grafts are then implanted into the brow one by one. In a typical eyebrow transplant, approximately 300-400 grafts are used per brow, meaning that if you are looking to have both eyebrows augmented or replaced that you are looking at up to 800 individual grafts.
What about aftercare?
It’s not just the surgery itself that you need to focus on when it comes to an eyebrow transplant, the aftercare is just as vital to make sure that you can truly maximise your results. Just like any surgery that is performed, whether its cosmetic surgery or a medical procedure, your body will need time to heal and recover afterwards.
For starters, you will need to start off by completely avoiding touching your eyebrows as this will greatly help to reduce any risk of infection (which nobody wants to have to deal with post-surgery). To promote healing in the brow area, you can spray your brows with a saline solution which will help to keep them moist and aid the healing process.
After the first day, you will be able to gently wash your face and eyebrows using a specialised shampoo and should gently pat them dry. It’s important to make sure that you don’t scratch or rub your brows during this time as it can damage and hinder the potential results of the surgery.
After the first few days have passed, the crusts that have appeared where your follicle grafts were transplanted will begin to fall off and it’s expected that your skin will have some form of redness at this point. The worrying part comes next as the transplanted hairs begin to fall out, but this is completely natural and is just a sign that everything is working the way that it should. Your new hairs will start to grow through from here and you’ll start seeing your eyebrow transplant results in no time at all.
For the first month or so, the best thing that you can do is avoid direct sunlight but if you do need to go outside, try to wear a hat to keep your brows in the shade.
What happens next?
Following your eyebrow transplant procedure, you will notice some immediate differences in the outline of your brow, though it will take a few weeks before the hair begins to grow through as normal. Because the transplanted hair has been taken from the scalp, the hair used will grow just like it would naturally on the head, meaning that you will need to perform regular trims and maintenance to ensure they don’t become unruly. To ensure they blend perfectly, they may sometimes need to be curled to match the existing strands.
The area itself will remain a little delicate and tender for a few days following the procedure but will quickly return to normal, then over the following four to six months your new eyebrows will start to grow and fully settle.
Why choose an eyebrow transplant?
There are many other methods of eyebrow restoration or ways to make your eyebrows look fuller and thicker which can include tattooing or daily makeup application, however both have one major drawback when comparing them to an eyebrows transplant. Both are semi-permanent and therefore will need to be re-applied or topped up on a regular basis. With an eyebrow transplant using your own natural hair, the results are completely natural and permanent and will provide you with a long-lasting confidence.