Greetings,

Today I would like to discuss Facial Hair Transplants. Many people of varying ethnicities have varying amounts of facial hair due to hereditary factors or even due to facial scarring secondary to trauma or surgical intervention. Facial hair transplants are also beneficial in female to male transgender patients to allow the individual to grow more of a full beard. It is possible to take hair from the head and transplant it to areas of the face where the patient may desire more hair. It is possible to harvest the donor hair for facial hair transplantation by either the strip harvesting method or follicular unit extraction. The hairs placed on the face are almost entirely single hair follicles and they are placed in receptor sites that are created with a custom size blade that measures between .5mm-.7mm depending on the caliber of the individuals hair. It is imperative that the receptor site angles are created almost parallel to the skin to make the new hair grow in as naturally as possible. Is it also very important to follow the changing directions of facial hair as you move along to different areas of the face. The growth timeline is very similar to other areas where we perform hair transplantation in that most of the transplanted hairs initially stay for about 2-4 weeks and then fall out. The new hairs then begin to grow in at 3-4 months and about 50% growth is seen at 6 months and full growth is seen at around 12 months. Below I have shown an example of a patient with almost no hair in the goatee region. The first photo shows the patient before the procedure with the transplanted areas marked out. The second photo is immediately after the procedure and the third photo is 10 days after the procedure with many of the transplanted hairs still present and appear to be growing. Most of these grafts will fall out in the next few weeks and they will begin to grow back at 3-4 months post operatively. I hope to post a follow up photo at 9-12 months.

All the best,

Marc Dauer, MD

This is a pre op photo of a beard transplant.

This Photo is 2 weeks post operatively after a beard transplant.

Immediately Post Op Beard Transplant