A beauty counter worker from Manchester has shown off the results of her £5,000 EYEBROW transplant after damaging her brows through years of overplucking.
The woman now has the ‘designer eyebrows’ she has always craved after under-going the four-hour procedure with Dr Asim Shahmalak at Crown Clinic in Manchester.
She said: “I am glad that I corrected the damage caused by years of overplucking.
“Brows are so important as they frame your face. It is especially important to me that my brows look good because I work in the beauty industry in a high end department store.
“All eyes are on you! You want to look your best.
“It took several months for my new brows to grow back but now I can go make-up free and feel confident going out. You can’t put a price on that.
“Thanks to Dr Asim for giving me back my confidence and making me feel feminine again. I have the designer eyebrows I have always wanted.”
The woman from Manchester had the same FUE (follicular unit extraction) transplant procedure used by stars such as Coronation Street star Jack P Shepherd, who has had two procedures with Dr Shahmalak.
The donor hair is extracted from the back of the scalp and then replanted in the gaps in the eyebrows, blending in naturally with the remaining hairs.
It takes between six months and nine months for the new brow hair to grow back – after which patients have the ‘designer brows’ of their favourite stars.
Because the hair is extracted from the scalp, it grows like ‘head hair’ and the new brows need trimming every few weeks.
Dr Shahmalak also provides a beauty kit so patients can curl the new brow hair to help it to match the natural brow hair.
The patient, who preferred to remain anonymous, said: “The actual procedure was surprisingly stress free.
“I opted to have the FUE technique, which didn’t really hurt – it just felt like pin pricks.
“I took around eight days off work to allow the bruising and swelling to disappear around the eye area.
“As the brows grow back, you need to brush them so they flow in the natural direction and trim them regularly. That way, you are on your way to show off your gorgeous designer brows.”
The woman, aged 50, has used her beauty training to create her perfect brows now they have fully grown back.
She explained: “I came across many brow gel mascara wands with various shades to suit. That really sets your new brows in place and gives them that wow effect!”
Dr Shahmalak is best known for his work with celebrity male hair patients such as Corrie’s Jack (David Platt in the soap), model Calum Best, Homes Under The Hammer presenter Martin Roberts and former Liverpool and Man City footballer Didi Hamann.
He is one of the few surgeons in the UK with the expertise to carry out more unusual transplant procedures such as eyebrow, eyelash, beard and sideburn transplants.
Of these, eyebrow transplants are by far the most common because so many women like this patient have damaged their brows permanently by overplucking.
Many other women have naturally thin brows and want a much fuller brow like the Duchess of Cambridge and supermodels such as Cara Delevingne.
A small proportion of patients have previously had a psychological condition called trichotillomania where sufferers rip out their body hair including their eyebrows, causing permanent damage which needs restoring.
Dr Shahmalak said: “Women come to me from all over the world to get their eyebrows restored after losing their natural brows for a number of reasons.
“This latest patient had damaged her eyebrows through overplucking and understandably wanted to put them right because she works at a beauty counter and feels under pressure to look good.
“I took some hairs from the back of her scalp and replanted them in the gaps in her brows. It is exactly the same procedure as a normal hair transplant except the transplanted hairs are replanted in the brows rather than the scalp.
“It takes between six and nine months for the transplanted hair to grow back in their new home and after that patients have full eyebrows with no gaps.
“It saves them hours on their beauty routine and gives more symmetry to the face, framing the eyes perfectly.
“This patient got a fantastic result, as you can see from the picture of her with her new designer brows. I was delighted to be able to help her.”
Dr Shahmalak has seen a 25% rise in the number of eyebrow transplants over the last five year because of the fashion for fuller brows.
In January, Dr Shahmalak was honoured by Prime Minister Boris Johnson with a Points of Light Award for his humanitarian work in Pakistan.
He arranged mercy missions to give 27 patients horrifically scarred in acid attacks free eyebrow, eyelash and hair transplants.
His clinic is operating normally post-Covid and he has never been busier because many patients are finding it easier to have surgery while working from home.
He said: “You can work from home the day after surgery without facing lots of questions about the change in your appearance.
“The Covid crisis has allowed people to have hair transplant surgery with a little more anonymity.”