What Price Beauty: Eyebrow Implants

Finally something to do with your excess back hair! One plastic surgeon says facial hair transplants – eyebrows, moustaches, even beards – are all the rage, especially with his Hollywood clientele.

Dr. Antonio Armani, whose Alvi Armani clinics are located worldwide, says crafting becoming brows is increasingly common cosmetic procedure. When he began doing hair transplants in 1999, the doctor said he performed 10 to 15 brow transplants per year; lately, though, brow transplants have increased to 4 to 5 per month. Why the uptick? Dr. Armani thinks it’s because thicker brows are more popular in Hollywood right now: Women tell him they’d prefer their brows to look like those on Brooke Shields or Jennifer Connelly.

But women aren’t the only one going for bushy brows: Men are getting eyebrow transplants, too! In fact, the split is 50/50 at his offices, Dr. Armani says. (Men more often ask for a flatter line while women request a small arch.)

PROCESS
First, Dr. Armani draws brows on you, both so he can assess how many follicles the area will need, but also so you can check out how your new brows might look. The actual transplantation process is typically a two- to three-hour-long procedure not requiring hospitalization. Dr. Armani says he uses local anesthesia to freeze an area of the body with fine hair, which works best for brows, in order to remove 50 to 400 follicles. For ladies, he removes scalp hair from above the ears; for men, he often removes back hair. Each follicle is microscopically taken from the original site and transplanted individually to the new site. Fiber implants are against the law in the United States and Canada so no hair implants are “fakes,” says Dr. Armani.

UPKEEP
Keep those nail clippers handy! Hair growth is specific to the part of the body it originated from, Dr. Armani says. Therefore, hair from the top of your head will grow long—perhaps even grow curly!—even if it is transplanted to the skin above your eyes. (Hopefully this won’t be a problem if you had a back hair transplant.) In addition to trimming your brows regularly, you may need to check in with a plastic surgeon again for a touch-up procedure after 10 years or so, Armani says.

MOUSTACHE and BEARD TRANSPLANTS
What if you’re an actor who was just cast in Pirates of the Carribean 4, but you can’t grow a Johnny Depp-style beard? Don’t walk the plank just yet—you can get facial scruff transplanted, too. Beards and moustache transplants are “much more common than you would think,” says Dr. Armani, especially for “younger stars on the C/B level.” He says he performs about 10 per year. In fact, two days before he spoke to MainStreet, Dr. Armani said he performed a beard transplant on a “B-list actor in major competition with other boys” at the actor’s home.