The eyebrows are a very important aspect of our faces. The eyebrows have a way of framing the face like no other facial feature has. They have a huge impact on how we look. People don’t normally lose their eyebrow hair with age. These hairs are simply not susceptible to the working of DHT, the balding hormone. When you lose your eyebrows due to some freak accident, you’re going to look a whole lot different all of a sudden. People never give their eyebrows a lot of conscious thought. But should you ever lose them and you take your first look in the mirror, you’re going to notice pretty quickly. Most people agree that a face without eyebrows looks ‘off’.
It can happen to anybody. You may have a dysfunctional thyroid. Or you got a tattoo in the vicinity of your eyebrow hairs. Or you have a hair killing disease such as alopecea areata. But the most common causes of people losing their eyebrows is either through a burning accident or a wound followed by an infection. Only a very small group of people have the unfortunate genetic makeup that sets them up for losing eyebrow hairs naturally.
Eyebrow Hair Transplants
Because of advanced technology, it is possible for hair transplant clinics to perform eyebrow hair transplants. These are done using the exact same technology that is used with regular head hair transplants. But there are a lot of differences between doing a transplant on an eyebrow area and doing one on a scalp area.
Firstly, the hairs that make up your eyebrows grow in all sorts of directions. Have you ever noticed this? They’re all over the place, as opposed to your head hair, which changes direction much more gradually.
Secondly, eyebrow hairs have a completely different angle than your head hair. Head hairs grow upwards, while eyebrow hairs grow sidewards. They’re almost completely parallel to your skin.
Thirdly, the hairs of your eyebrow only grow for a very short period of time. The hair on your head can have cycles of up to 7 years. Eyebrow hairs have a cycle of only a few months. This is only a small fraction of your head hair’s growth cycle.
Fourthly, your eyebrow hairs grow in single strands only. Your head hairs naturally occur in groups of 1, 2, 3 and 4 hairs. This allows for thicker hair in a smaller area. But you don’t see these groups of multiple hairs in eyebrows at all.
Eyebrow Hair Transplant Surgery
These factors make an eyebrow hair transplant much more complex than a regular hair transplant. The direction and angle issues alone make this task hard enough that a highly skilled surgeon is needed to perform the surgery. If you’re going to have your eyebrows restored, you want them to look natural.
Because the surgeon will have to place the hairs at a very precise angle and in the right direction, this is a very labor intensive chore. That also makes it costly. But thankfully, the eyebrows only cover a very small surface. So overall, this treatment is still cheaper than body hair transplants or regular hair transplants!