Societal standards of fashion and beauty are impossible to fully ignore. Even if you’re the type of guy who tends to at least not consciously care about your looks, the fact is that your brain can’t help but to subconsciously assimilate some of these standards. Unfortunately, this is precisely what leads so many people—both men and women—to feel overly self-conscious or generally unhappy with their body or overall appearance. These sort of negative self-image issues are extremely commonplace nowadays, and this helps to explain why more and more people are opting to undergo various cosmetic procedures in an attempt to overcome them.
One only has to take a quick look around to understand that facial hair and beards are definitely in fashion. Not only is it common to see famous athletes, musicians and movie stars sporting various beard styles, but beards are increasingly becoming common everywhere from the board room to your local bar. In fact, beards have become such a normal and often desirable trait that many men are now suffering from self-confidence issues directly related to their facial hair—or in many case, their lack thereof. Therefore, it is worth going into a bit more detail on what beard transplants are and also the numerous benefits that this type of facial hair transplant may be able to provide.
The Basic Facts about Beard Transplants
A shockingly high number of men now report being dissatisfied with the thickness or fullness of their facial hair. Some estimates have even suggested that more than 40 percent of men report that they are unable to grow a full beard, mustache or sideburns or that they experience trouble with bald patches in their beard. These factors combined with the huge popularity of beards in today’s culture help to explain why beard transplants are currently one of the fastest growing cosmetic procedures, but this still doesn’t quite tell the whole story.
Even as popular as beards are today, it is still unlikely that so many men would sign up for the procedure if it didn’t actually work to improve facial hair. Providing natural-looking results is also essential since almost no man will want their colleagues or anyone else to immediately be able to tell that they had a beard transplant. In this sense, advances in surgical techniques have been as big of a factor in the sudden huge rise in facial hair transplants as anything else—similar to how traditional scalp hair transplants only really took off after the old hair plug method was replaced by the follicular unit extraction (FUE) transplant technique.
This same technique is what makes facial hair transplants so easy and effective. As with FUE hair transplant procedures designed to minimize balding, the FUE Neograft beard transplant procedure involves removing individual hair follicles from areas on the back of the head where the hair is thickest. Each of these tiny individual follicles is then transplanted into any bald patches on the face or other areas where the patient’s beard isn’t as thick or full as they’d like it to be.
The Recovery Process Is Quick and Easy
The advantages of using this type of transplant technique are numerous and wide-ranging. One huge advantage is that the procedure requires no incisions or suturing. This not only eliminates any potential issues with visible scarring, but it also ensures that the recovery process is much faster and much less painful.
The procedure is typically performed under local anesthetic in an outpatient clinic, and most patients are allowed to go home almost as soon as the transplant is finished. Better still, the downtime is extremely minimal. This means you should be able to mostly resume your normal activities almost immediately with little to no discomfort. Furthermore, the fact that each hair follicle is transplanted individually generally leads to better overall results and thus much more natural-looking beard growth.
Following the procedure, the transplanted hairs will remain in place for a period of two to three weeks or so. After this time, it is normal for the hairs to ‘shed’ and fall out. Still, there is no reason to be worried as this is a normal part of the process, and you should begin seeing new facial hair growth within three to four months.
The Mental Benefits of a Getting a Facial Hair Transplant
If you’re among the increasingly growing number of men who feels self-conscious about their facial hair or dissatisfied with their beard-growing abilities, a transplant can hold the key to improving your confidence and making you happier with your appearance. In this sense, it could be one of the best things you ever do since there is no doubt that confident people also tend to be more successful. Of course, success is only related to confidence and how you feel about yourself. How other people perceive you is equally as important, if not more so.
Judging by the way that men with beards are often portrayed in popular culture, it is easy to see that most people associate beards with power, strength and masculinity. Obviously, clean-shaven guys can also exude these characteristics, but the fact is that society still tends to associate them more with burly bearded men. This means that you might find your new, thicker, fuller beard helps you to gain more respect at work. Your beard can also help to better define your facial features to give you a more mature, manly and attractive appearance, which could provide obvious benefits to your love life.
The potential benefits that having a thick, full beard can provide definitely make facial hair transplants something well worth considering. In this sense, you might want to check out the Foundation for Hair Restoration which provides state-of-the-art facial hair transplants in Miami and New York. Dr. Epstein is one of the world’s foremost experts in hair restoration, and he and his team have been performing hair transplants and other procedures for more than 23 years.