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I had no idea this was a thing
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Of all the teenage anxieties that can take root, beard growth – or the lack of it – was the one that really got to Vikram Arora.
His facial hair was patchier than a drought-hit lawn and by the time he went to college he was very self-conscious.
“You’d have older guys coming in with a bit of stubble and it was almost this guilty secret where I’d be thinking: ‘I wish I could have that,’” he says.
It was the 90s and George Michael’s sculpted goatee was everywhere. Arora, who is 47 and lives in Essex, remembers being racked with envy as he admired Tom Ford’s designer stubble in a photo in a clothes shop. At one point, he took to stealing his sister’s mascara wand in an attempt to fill in the gaps…..
I feel as if I almost don’t need to ask Arora what triggered the decision to do something about his facial hair deficit. For millions of people, the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 created the compelling combination of spare time and disposable income, along with the harsh mirror of endless video calls. Demand soared for a whole gallery of aesthetic tweaks and surgical interventions.
Arora had heard about beard transplants a few years earlier. As much as he longed for facial hair, he also feared what might go wrong and that he would be judged for having had surgery.
Come lockdown, which also prompted a surge in bigger, fuller beards, he was researching them obsessively. “Eventually, I said: ‘I’m going in for a consultation.’”
Arora ended up meeting Nadeem Khan, whose Harley Street Hair Clinic in central London has been doing hair transplants for more than 15 years.
Beard procedures follow the same principle: surgeons use a needle to pull hairs, or “follicular units”, typically from thicker areas of hair at the back of the head. These grafts can then be inserted into less hairy areas of the scalp or face via tiny cuts in the skin.
Khan, the clinic’s chief executive, says follicular unit extraction was initially used only for beards on victims of trauma, such as soldiers with shrapnel wounds. His clinic would have half a dozen such patients a year.
But as awareness of hair transplanting grew, thanks in part to celebrities such as Wayne Rooney, who restored his hairline in 2011, interest in beard restoration started to rise, before booming in the pandemic.
There are no industry stats, but Khan says inquiries from beard patients have tripled since 2020. His surgeons now do up to 100 transplants a year, 90% of which are aesthetic (the rest are fixes for scars or burns).
Costs at his clinic range from £3,000 to £7,000, depending on the number of grafts. “I think there’s this new form of masculinity where the beard has become important and now every man wants to be like Gerard Butler in 300,” he says, citing the 2006 film……..
“It’s still a wild west, this industry,” says Spencer Stevenson, a prominent mentor for balding men, who is known online as Spex. Stevenson says beard transplants are technically challenging.
Head hair can be finer and softer than facial hair, requiring careful blending of hairs in thin or patchy areas to achieve a uniform look. The stakes are higher.
“You can have a bad hair transplant and sometimes get away with it, but with a beard it’s a whole new kettle of fish because it’s on your face,” he says. “You can’t put a hat on it.”…..
www.theguardian.com
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Of all the teenage anxieties that can take root, beard growth – or the lack of it – was the one that really got to Vikram Arora.
His facial hair was patchier than a drought-hit lawn and by the time he went to college he was very self-conscious.
“You’d have older guys coming in with a bit of stubble and it was almost this guilty secret where I’d be thinking: ‘I wish I could have that,’” he says.
It was the 90s and George Michael’s sculpted goatee was everywhere. Arora, who is 47 and lives in Essex, remembers being racked with envy as he admired Tom Ford’s designer stubble in a photo in a clothes shop. At one point, he took to stealing his sister’s mascara wand in an attempt to fill in the gaps…..
I feel as if I almost don’t need to ask Arora what triggered the decision to do something about his facial hair deficit. For millions of people, the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 created the compelling combination of spare time and disposable income, along with the harsh mirror of endless video calls. Demand soared for a whole gallery of aesthetic tweaks and surgical interventions.
Arora had heard about beard transplants a few years earlier. As much as he longed for facial hair, he also feared what might go wrong and that he would be judged for having had surgery.
Come lockdown, which also prompted a surge in bigger, fuller beards, he was researching them obsessively. “Eventually, I said: ‘I’m going in for a consultation.’”
Arora ended up meeting Nadeem Khan, whose Harley Street Hair Clinic in central London has been doing hair transplants for more than 15 years.
Beard procedures follow the same principle: surgeons use a needle to pull hairs, or “follicular units”, typically from thicker areas of hair at the back of the head. These grafts can then be inserted into less hairy areas of the scalp or face via tiny cuts in the skin.
Khan, the clinic’s chief executive, says follicular unit extraction was initially used only for beards on victims of trauma, such as soldiers with shrapnel wounds. His clinic would have half a dozen such patients a year.
But as awareness of hair transplanting grew, thanks in part to celebrities such as Wayne Rooney, who restored his hairline in 2011, interest in beard restoration started to rise, before booming in the pandemic.
There are no industry stats, but Khan says inquiries from beard patients have tripled since 2020. His surgeons now do up to 100 transplants a year, 90% of which are aesthetic (the rest are fixes for scars or burns).
Costs at his clinic range from £3,000 to £7,000, depending on the number of grafts. “I think there’s this new form of masculinity where the beard has become important and now every man wants to be like Gerard Butler in 300,” he says, citing the 2006 film……..
“It’s still a wild west, this industry,” says Spencer Stevenson, a prominent mentor for balding men, who is known online as Spex. Stevenson says beard transplants are technically challenging.
Head hair can be finer and softer than facial hair, requiring careful blending of hairs in thin or patchy areas to achieve a uniform look. The stakes are higher.
“You can have a bad hair transplant and sometimes get away with it, but with a beard it’s a whole new kettle of fish because it’s on your face,” he says. “You can’t put a hat on it.”…..
The sudden, surprising rise of beard transplants: ‘This industry is a wild west’
Demand for facial hair surgery is soaring – despite the dangers that lurk in an unregulated industry. Are the risks worth it for the chance of a thicker, fuller beard?
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at beard transplants.
