A Surgical Eyelash Solution

With age, our eyelashes can become weak and brittle, making them appear short and prone to breakage. Lashes can also become thin and skimpy from allergies, excessive curling and rubbing, as well as exposure to heat. But thanks to a new crop of products and treatments, you can get mile-long lashes.

For seriously sparse lashes that don’t respond to other treatments, talk to your doctor about eyelash restoration surgery. Similar to traditional hair restoration, individual hairs are taken from around the ear area and implanted into the upper eyelids using an oral sedative and a series of local anesthesia injections. During the two- to two-and-a-half-hour procedure, nearly 300 hairs (and follicles) are transplanted. “The donor site is less than an inch long, and once it heals, it’s often very hard to find the scar,” says hair transplant surgeon Gary Hitzig, MD, of New York City and Rockville Centre, NY. As for the transplant site, some bruising, swelling and scabbing may be noticed post-surgery, but your lashes will immediately look fuller. “About four to six weeks after the procedure, the transplanted hairs will fall out. But in 12 weeks there will be new hair growth,” says Dr. Gary Hitzig.