WHY I GOT AN EYEBROW TRANSPLANT

I would have never thought in a million years I would be getting an eyebrow transplant. But as the saying goes, expect the unexpected! It was five or six years ago, I went in regularly to my Med Spa to get monthly facials. I loved my facials, chemicals peels, and microderms, but my aging skin was hormonal and out of control in my late 30’s. It didn’t matter what I did, I has cystic acne, my pores were getting larger, and my skin was super oily. I went to the dermatologist and they said it was hormones and there isn’t much you can do. They can treat it with meds (which I said no) or ride the wave of hormones out till they calm down. I decide to ride it out. I was vegan so I ate plant-based, took care of my skin, got 8 hours of sleep, changed my pillow case every night, changed my makeup to chemical-free, and the list goes on. Finally after some time, the hormonal skin battle was over. What I was left with was face craters, large pores, and uneven skin. There comes a point in a women’s life that you need more than a monthly facial to have great skin.

The lady who owned the Med Spa I went to told me about an aggressive skin laser that would solve all my skin problems. She said it was new to the Med Spa and she would give me half off in exchange to be her testimonial for her website. When I look back, I was desperate, so I said yes. Anything that would fix my current problem, I was all in. Being a fitness model, I was in front of people all the time, so my skin on my face was my insecurity.

I scheduled an appointment right away and brought my friend to film me. Since it was an aggressive laser, they gave me some drugs to make me sleepy. I was in and out of consciousness while they did the laser. My friend drove me home and put me to bed. When I woke up my face was on fire. My friend Shannon was there to watch me since my husband was out of town and she had a concerned look on her face as soon as I came out of my drug induced sleep.  

“What’s wrong?” I said.

“I am scared to tell you. Look at yourself in the mirror.” She said with eyes so wide I could see all her white around her iris.

Oh man, this can’t be good I thought. What did I do? I looked in the mirror and the first thing I saw was that my face was red and swollen. “Oh, that is normal she said. She said I would be red and puffy.”

“No, not that…look up…look above your eyes.” She said with a squeaky voice.

In that moment, my heart dropped when I looked at my forehead. My eyebrows were plum gone. Between my face being beet red, swollen like a tomato, and no eyebrows, I was sick to my stomach and in shock. I told myself and her that they were going to grow back, to ease my peace of mind in that moment.

The next day when I slept the drugs off, I looked at myself in the mirror and cried and cried. Or maybe I was detoxing from the drugs they gave me, who knows, but the reality was that I had did this to myself all because I wanted smooth skin. My insecurity grew worse than just bad skin, now I had no eyebrows.

I called the lady who owned the med spa who did my laser and cried about my eyebrows. I asked her why did she do that? She said she goes over everyone’s eyebrows with a laser and they will grow back. She said after my skin heals, she will give me Latisse. It seemed like eternity for my skin to heal. It was a long three weeks. She gave me a few bottles of Latisse. Bottle after bottle my hair never grew back. On top of that, the laser didn’t work for my skin either. So there I was crater face and no eyebrows. I looked worse than when I started. I had paid for this out of desperation. For a while I placed blame on her because I was so mad about the situation. But, in the end I had no one to really blame but me. I was even depressed about it for a long time after. It was very traumatic for me because they never grew back. I woke up every day with no eyebrows and cried every time I saw myself in the mirror. Eyebrows frame your face. I had never seen myself without eyebrows before.

I had to learn to draw them in. It was an awful learning curve how to draw them in. I had to try to get the right shape and color. It took me years to get them down. And being a working fitness model, every time I went to get my make up done, the make up artist were a constant reminder of my eyebrows being gone. They would draw them the wrong shape and color every time. It was so different to see me with a million different eyebrow shapes over the years in magazines and TV. I finally had to tell them to let me draw my own in for the shoots. Then on shoots that we had to workout, I had no eyebrows at the end. I had sweated them off.

If you have no eyebrows or very thin ones, you know my pain. It takes 30-40 minutes to draw them in and shade them in every day. I have I have oily skin and drawn on eyebrows always melt off my face in the spring or summer time. If I have to get in water, forget about it, they are gone. Especially salt water in the ocean! Most adults look when my eyebrows are gone and stare, some don’t say anything, but kids (gotta love them!) always ask “How come you don’t have eyebrows?” Or “Why do you draw your eyebrows in with marker?”

Fast forward to today, here I am at 42 and still reminded of it daily. I was on my hunt on how to get my eyebrows back. I was an obsessed eyebrow hunting fool! In the end of my research, I had two choices-microblading or eyebrow transplant.

I almost did the whole microblading trend. I shopped around talking to many different microblading technicians, but one honest tech told me, they would look like 2 shiny tattoo’s on my forehead if I have oily skin. She said it looked best on people who have a little bit of hair. She told me not to get it. “Go for the eyebrow transplant you were talking about. You will be much happier with real hair than two tattoos on your forehead.” She said.

So microblading was out! Then began my search for the best eyebrow transplant doctor in Dallas. I went to six different doctors and interviewed them and they showed me there before and afters. Being such a perfectionist, I was still not 100% sold on anyone is Dallas because it was still so new and many of the Dallas doctors admitted they had only done 3 or 4 of them. I wasn’t just desperate for hair, but I wanted them to be an artist as well. If I was going to drop this kind of money on my eyebrows, they better be DAMN GOOD!

So I expanded my search outside of Dallas and Googled my butt off. Then one day I came across Marc Dauer MD in LA. All he does is hair restoration. He had so many AH-MAZING before and after eyebrow transplants floating on the internet. I immediately made a Skype interview to ask a million questions. After that Skype interview, I knew he was the doctor for me.

Not going to lie, it took me awhile to pull the trigger after our Skype call because I let fear hold me back. In all fairness, I had every right to be scared after them being burned off. Then one day, I decided to go for it. I put my deposit down and was counting down the days. I don’t know why I waited to so long, it was THE BEST THING I have ever done. It immediately restored my confidence the moment I left his office. I left my insecurity in his office that day and have not looked back.

Thank you to everyone who supported me on my journey and watched it live on Snapchat. Here are all the questions you asked about it.

What is an eyebrow transplant? (Main questions you guys asked!)

It is the same procedure like hair restoration on your head but they do it to your eyebrows. They take hair from the back of your head they call this the “donor hair” and this permanent hair is harvested in the form of a narrow strip of hair, which is then meticulously cut up under microscopic magnification to produce hundreds of tiny follicular unit grafts of 1-3 hairs each. They personally put around 325-350 hairs in each of my eyebrows.

How long did your eyebrow transplant take?

They told me it would take about 5-7 hours. Mine personally was around six hours.  It was not bad at all. The time passed by really fast because I slept off and on throughout procedure. You can listen to your favorite TV show or listen to music. I listened to music and dozed off. When I woke up to check the progress, I was on snap chat showing everyone the play by play of it.

Did it hurt?

No. They numbed the back of my head where they took my donor hair and they numbed my forehead where they put the grafts. They gave me valium to relax me during the procedure. It did sting when they pricked the back of my head to numb me, but not anything I could not handle, I still think a paper cut is worse pain than that anyday!

Who did your eyebrow transplant?

After years of research, I found Dr. Marc Dauer on Google, he is a leading hair and eyebrow restoration doctor in the world for men and women. A third of his practice is eyebrows. They do 1 to 2 eyebrow transplants a day. Not only does he have an impressive resume, his before and after pictures speak volumes. They are AH-MAZING! I talked to two of his technicians; one of them had been with him for 17 years and the other 10 years. They love what they do! The office staff was super friendly from the phone calls, emails, and the day I got the procedure done.

What is the downtime?

They told me 3-5 days of swelling and it was exactly that. The day I got them done was it was swollen, but the day after was probably the worse of it. I was bruised and swollen that it looked like I got an eyelid surgery. I actually did not care because I had eyebrows! I snapped the whole day by day healing process. Day two it looked better. By day five, I was back to normal, just needed a little make up to cover the diminishing yellow bruising. So glad I am my own boss and make up my own schedule, I was still doing writing projects and doing client calls. By day five, I had a big event, I just wore a hat. No one knew except those who followed me on social media.

What is the healing process?

I am 7 days out now from my procedure and it has started to scab over. When the scabs fall off, then it will look like my “old eyebrows” (with no hair) till the transplant hair starts to grow. It will take 3-4 months for the transplant hair to grow out. By 8-12 months, I will have full eyebrow hair again. You can go for “touch up” a year later to get more hair to shape them or add more to make it thicker. He said that only 20% of them come back for more hair. That means 80% are happy with what he did the first time.

How much did it cost?

It cost $7000. Yep, not cheap. But when it comes to gaining your confidence back, it is PRICELESS!

To learn more about Marc Dauer go here.

To watch a video on the procedure, go here.

Again, thank you for all your love and support, I will be posting and giving daily updates on Snapchat. Snap name: marzia_prince.
Can you believe this is the only place I WANT my hair to grow? LOL! (Besides my head.)

Time to grow,
Marzia