A beauty lover who over-plucked her brows as a teen has undergone an eyebrow transplant using hairs from her head – but she has to get them cut every month because they ‘don’t stop growing’.
Isabelle Kutxi, from Tetbury, The Cotswolds, would spend 30 minutes every morning carefully drawing on brows and even tried a few sessions of microblading but was unhappy with how they looked.
The 36-year-old was desperate to have ‘thick and fluffy’ brows that celebrities like Cara Delevingne sport, so decided to go under the knife and have an eyebrow transplant.
The beauty brand community manager travelled to Poland to undergo a £1,500 three-hour procedure where individual follicles were taken from the back of her head and inserted in sparse areas of her eyebrows by hand.
Looking into the mirror after they were first done was an emotional moment for Isabelle who admits bursting into tears when she saw her new full brow line.
Now 12 months after her procedure in June 2021, Isabelle is delighted by her new look claiming it’s ‘changed her life’ and that she no longer hides when being photographed.
Although she now needs to get them trimmed every month, Isabelle says it’s worth it to have the brows she’s always dreamed of.
Isabelle Kutxi, from Tetbury, The Cotswolds, spent £1,500 on an eyebrow transplant in Poland last year, after overplucking her brows for years and growing unhappy with how they looked
Isabelle documented her journey on social media and explained how the team took a strand of hair from the back of her head and transplanted it to the brows
Isabelle said: ‘The fun fact is that the hair is still growing like real [head] hair. They don’t stop growing like eyebrows, they can grow really long if you don’t cut them.
‘Every month I go to have my eyebrows cut like hair by a friend, because I don’t want to do something bad.
‘It’s worth it to have the eyebrows that I want.’
As a teenager, Isabelle said there was a trend for having thinner brows but she over-plucked them so much that it then left them not growing back normally anymore.
Isabelle would spend 30 minutes each morning to shape and tint her eyebrows, but she was unhappy with how they looked
Isabelle said: ‘I dreamed of fluffy eyebrows for so long. I over-plucked my eyebrows when I was a teenager because it was the trend to have really thin brows.
‘The trends changed and then thicker brows were fashionable like Cara Delevigne had. I saw celebrities with bigger eyebrows and wanted that.
‘I tried to draw on eyebrows with pencil but it didn’t work, it would take 30 minutes every morning.
‘Microblading worked the first time but I was quite disappointed with how it looked the second and third time.’
The beauty lover took several pictures of her brows soon after her transplant to document the process
The team took hair from both sides of Isabelle’s scalp in order to source the strand of hair used for the transplant
Before the transplant could take place, the team marked Isabelle’s face with how she wanted her brows to look after the transplant
Frustrated by the time and money she spent on temporary solutions, Isabelle discovered eyebrow transplants while watching a US cosmetic surgery show.
After finding that clinics in the UK were outside of her price range, Isabelle looked at clinics abroad and opted to get hers done in Poland.
Isabelle said: ‘I was watching a TV show about plastic surgery in the United States, I’d never heard about it [before that].
‘I started to do a lot of research on the internet about how much it cost, it was super expensive.
The beauty enthusiast took a picture of her brows one hour after the transplant to show how much volume had been added to her eyebrows
An hour after the procedure, Isabelle couldn’t wait to see how the transplant would turn out. She explained she went to Poland because it was cheaper there than in the UK, where the procedure cost £5,000
‘I decided to go to Poland because I’m Polish and everything in Poland is cheaper and well done.
‘In England, it was £5,000. I paid £1,500, the difference was huge. I had the eyebrow transplant in June 2021, it’s just been the birthday of my brows.’
Isabelle jetted over to Poland and underwent the three-hour procedure – minutes after it was over she burst into tears of joy at seeing her fuller brows. Isabelle said:
‘I showed the doctor some pictures of celebrities and influencer Jess Hunt and said I’d like something like that.
‘I said to her “I’d like them thick and fluffy, but would this be ok with my face? What do you think?” I trusted her.
As her skin healed, Isabelle became increasingly satisfied with her bows, pictured. She said the procedure was pain free
A year on, Isabelle said she loves her brows. She said she cried after she saw the result of the transplant
‘She drew the shape on in pen and then shaved some hair from the back of my head and used those individual hairs in my eyebrows.
‘The procedure was pain-free, the only thing that hurt was when they gave me two anaesthetic injections, one in my scalp and eyebrows, this was the only pain I felt.
‘When I looked in the mirror and saw my new eyebrows for the first time I cried, I was so emotional because I’d waited for them for so long.
‘I went back to them [the clinic] the next morning to check everything was ok, the doctors were happy with my transplant.’
A year on after the procedure, Isabelle is loving her brows. She revealed that she couldn’t sleep on them, wash them or touch them for two weeks after the procedure
It took four to five months for Isabelle’s new brows to start to grow back permanently, she explained
Then Isabelle had to play a waiting game while the transplanted hairs grew, dropped out and grew again.
Isabelle said: ‘For at least two weeks after the transplant I couldn’t sleep on them, wash them or touch them, it was super hard.
‘You have tiny hairs there for the first time and then two months after they fall out. It took four or five months for them to start to grow back permanently and they’d fully grown back by eight months.
‘You have two or three months with nothing and you think it’s failed but it hasn’t, the doctor told me not to panic.
The beauty lover said it took eight months for her new eyebrows to reach their full potential afterthe transplant
Isabelle admitted she has to ask a friend to cut her brows like she would her hair, because they won’t stop growing, but she said it is worth it
‘I just put make-up on like I did before the procedure. After they grew back they stayed, I was super excited to see the first tiny little hairs.
‘I wanted to tell people about it so they don’t freak out, because I freaked out [when they dropped out].’
As her eyebrows grew back, Isabelle said her confidence has skyrocketed.
Isabelle said: ‘It’s definitely given me more confidence because I would never take pictures too close to my face because I always hated my brows.
‘I was always hiding, when anyone would take a picture I would put my hand on my brows.
‘I look younger, it’s also made my make-up routine quicker in the morning, it just changed my life.’