Celebrity beauty secrets: Eyebrow transplants
Chrissy Teigen recently made a splash on social media when she revealed she had undergone an eyebrow transplant procedure.
After a visit to the clinics of aesthetic facial plastic surgeons, Dr. Jason Diamond and Dr. Jason Champagne, the TV personality showed off the results on Instagram and gushed over how much thicker her arches appeared already.
"This is right after the surgery!! Crazy!!" she wrote, before adding: "A little dark from the pencil but it's so cool to have brows again! Teens: do not pluck them all off like I did!!"
Chrissy's endorsement will no doubt lead to a surge of interest in the procedure, so what exactly is an eyebrow transplant?
"An eyebrow transplant or reconstructive surgery can often help to restore eyebrows. However, it requires a lot of precision and knowledge regarding anatomy, designing of brows, extraction and implantation techniques, in order to achieve a natural look," explained Dr. Nilofer Farjo, hair restoration surgeon and co-founder of the Farjo Hair Institute. "Why? Because eyebrow hairs do not all sit in the same direction i.e. some face slightly upwards, some down, all combining into a herringbone pattern."
Typically, the process of a follicular unit transplant involves removing a section of hair, most commonly from the back of the scalp, and grafting the individual hairs to the eyebrow. On average, a procedure involves 400 transplanted grafts, although this can vary between patients.
"During the procedure, follicles are inserted at specific angles to ensure that, overall, the natural herringbone pattern is preserved," she continued. "We take into account both the direction of hair growth (towards or away from the eye) and the angle of lift of the hair as it grows away from the skin. Such precision is needed to ensure a natural finish that will not be noticed and will enhance the face."
Eyebrow microsurgery can often be completed in one session, which can take approximately three to four hours, from start to finish.
And while the eyebrow area may be a little tender for a few days, it should soon settle, with it taking around six months for them to look their best.
