Eyelash transplants set to sweep nip tuck world

[[GAFnews] Science Online]

Source:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-10-25T013346Z_01_N23410228_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-EYELASHES.xml&WTmodLoc=HealthNewsHome_C2_healthNews-2

Eyelash transplants set to sweep nip tuck world

Tue Oct 24, 2006    By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Think you've seen it all
when it comes to cosmetic surgery?

Look more closely. Eyelash transplant surgery
wants to become the new must-have procedure for
women -- and the occasional man -- convinced that
beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder as in front of the eye itself.

Using procedures pioneered by the hair loss
industry for balding men, surgeons are using
"plug and sew" techniques to give women long,
sweeping lashes once achieved only by glued on
extensions and thick lashings of mascara.

And just like human hair -- for that is the
origin -- these lashes just keep on growing.

"Longer, thicker lashes are an ubiquitous sign of
beauty. Eyelash transplantation does for the eyes
what breast augmentation does for the figure,"
said Dr Alan Bauman, a leading proponent of eyelash transplants.

"This is a brand new procedure for the general
public (and) it is going to explode," Bauman told
Reuters during what was billed as the world's
first live eyelash surgery workshop for about 40
surgeons from around the world.

Under the procedure, a small incision is made at
the back of the scalp to remove 30 or 40 hair
follicles which are carefully sewn one by one
onto the patient's eyelids. Only light sedation
and local anesthetics are used and the cost is around $3,000 an eye.

The technique was first confined to patients who
had suffered burns or congenital malformations of
the eye. But word spread and about 80 percent are
now done for cosmetic reasons.

For many women, eyelash surgery is simply an
extra item on the vast nip tuck menu that has lost its old taboos.

More than 10 million cosmetic procedures -- from
tummy tucks to botox -- were performed in the
United States in 2005, according to the American
Society of Plastic Surgeons. The figure
represents a 38 percent increase over the year 2000.

Erica Lynn, 27, a Florida model with long auburn
hair, breast implants and a nose job, had eyelash
transplants three years ago because she was fed
up with wearing extensions on her sandy-colored lashes.

"When I found out about it, I just had to have it
done. Everyone I mention it to wants it. I think
eyelashes are awesome. You can never have enough of them," Lynn said.

Bauman, who practices in Florida, does about
three or four a month. Dr. Sara Wasserbauer, a
Northern California hair restoration surgeon,
says she has been inundated by requests.

"I have been getting a ton of eyelash inquiries
... If I had $10 dollars for every consultation, I'd be a rich woman."

The surgery is not for everyone. The transplanted
eyelashes grow just like head hair and need to be
trimmed regularly and sometimes curled. Very
curly head hair makes for eyelashes with too much kink.


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