Excerpt from Thursday, Sept 20th 2012, New York Post ([email protected]):

“It’s definitely become more desirable,” says Bauman, who performs between three and five such procedures per month, about double the number he did in 2008.

Homemaker Kelly Krauss, 44, of Tewksbury, NJ — a reformed overplucker — cherishes her new, fuller eyebrows and follows a strict maintenance regime of combing and trimming in front of the mirror.

Before her transplants, she used to wear a baseball cap because she was so self-conscious about people seeing her face. “I had bald spots all across my brows and scar tissue from picking at the skin,” says Krauss, who longed to have distinctive eyebrows like actress Brooke Shields.

Krauss’ husband, Charlie, an attorney, worried how much it was affecting her confidence and, after searching on the Internet, encouraged her to go ahead with the transplant.

“Fixing my eyebrows was the best decision I ever made,” says Krauss, who paid about $5,000 for the procedure. “I love the fuller look, and people say it looks very natural.”

Similarly Vinny Sarro, a 41-year-old mom of four, is getting used to her brows being praised after having the treatment in March.

“My eyebrows started thinning when I was about 27, just like my mom and my sister,” she says. “I penciled them in and colored them and did permanent makeup, but I wanted to experiment with something new.”

She calls the $5,500 cost of the surgery “money well spent.”

“It took about an hour and an half per eyebrow, and didn’t hurt at all,” says Sarro, of New Fairfield, Conn. “Now you can’t tell the difference between the natural hairs in my eyebrows and the ones which were transplanted.”

Bauman also believes more women are being drawn to the procedure because the technology has advanced so much.

“We use a minimally invasive technique known as Neograft, where the follicles can be taken out and re-implanted in the skin without the need for stitches,” he explains. “It just feels like you got a sunburn for the day.

“The recovery period is much shorter and, though there is a period of six to 12 weeks where the hairs fall out and reappear as stubble, [as the follicles regenerate] well over 90 percent of the transplanted follicles will grow new hair within six to nine months of the surgery.”

But he offers a word of caution. “People might ask to look like certain celebrities, but we have to work with their hair type and face shape to make sure they get the best possible eyebrow design for each patient,” he says. “A lot of artistry goes into it, and it is very individual.”

There’s also the issue of plastic surgery begetting more plastic surgery.

“I am really happy with my brows right now,” says Jordan. “My boyfriend doesn’t understand, of course, but I can see myself going back to have more hairs transplanted in the future.”

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