I had an eyebrow transplant to get the Cara look!

Big eyebrows are the fashion frenzy at the moment and women are increasingly looking for treatments and solutions to the past years of over-plucking their eyebrows. Instead of using eyebrow pencils to get the powerbrow effect, we are seeing a drastic rise in eyebrow transplant enquries.

Our patient, Pernille, tells her story:

“When I was in my teens it was really fashionable to have thin, arched eyebrows. I used to pluck them myself or get my friends to do it. I plucked them so often that unfortunately they refused to grow back.

“Thin brows went out of fashion and I had to draw them on. I’m quite fair and even with a blonde eyebrow pencil they still looked fake. It was ­embarrassing. I don’t wear a lot of make-up but I wouldn’t leave the house without pencilling them on. It was such a pain, especially if I made a mistake and had to rub them out.

“I was on holiday a couple of years ago and as soon as I got out of the pool, I would reach for my make-up bag to get my eyebrow pencil.

“Then, just over a year ago, I was flicking through a tpc_newspaper when I spotted a story about a woman who had an eyebrow transplant. I thought, ‘this is amazing’. I did a bit of research online and found all these before and after photos. I couldn’t believe the results.

“I talked to Rick and he was really supportive but some of my friends asked if I was sure. I’ve never had anything else done as I’m not into cosmetic surgery. I thought about it for a while. It meant using my savings but I thought it was worth the sacrifice.

“A few weeks later, I caught the train down to London for a consultation at the clinic. My surgeon, hair restoration expert Dr Raghu Reddy, warned me it wasn’t without risks – you can get an infection like with any procedure.

“I had the procedure – which is called 3G follicular unit extraction – two months later. First, they gave me ­injections with a local anaesthetic around my eyes and the back of my head. They also shaved some of my hair – a patch about the size of two 20 pence pieces.

“Then, using something called a punch, they plucked around 150 of my hairs from my head, which they then examined under a microscope to check the follicles were healthy, which they need to be for the transplant to work. The injections were the most painful part of the procedure. I felt numb around my brows so I didn’t even feel anything when Dr Reddy inserted the hairs, with the roots attached, into my eyebrows. It’s the same procedure as a hair transplant.

“Before the treatment, I’d spent weeks looking in magazines for the sort of shape that would suit me and went for a natural arch.

“The procedure took about four hours but I had a break halfway through as I felt quite tired. You’re not allowed to touch your eyebrows for 24 hours afterwards to avoid getting an infection.

“There were little bruises around my eyes where the hairs had been ­transplanted. When a friend saw me she said it looked like I was wearing brightly coloured eye shadow! It didn’t look that bad but I went around wearing sunglasses for a few days while the bruises went down.

“It’s not an instant result – the hair needs time to grow – but after a couple of months I could see the hairs coming through. It was a real shock.

“Now I’ve got my brows back for good. I have to trim them every four weeks because they keep growing like the hair on your head. It only takes two minutes. It sounds weird but it’s not.

“I’m really happy with them and I reckon my friends who have over plucked their eyebrows might even have it done.

“Eyebrows really help to frame your face but when I was younger I didn’t see that. I only wish I could go back and tell my younger self to put down the tweezers!”