That smoothness you feel on your freshly shorn cheeks is the crushing weight of evolution correcting your existence. Lacking facial hair in 2014 is akin to lacking an opposable thumb on Bone Fight Night at Monolith Gulch. Beards tickle latte foam, ward off disease, and yank the levers of power. For the follicularly challenged there is but one reliable option: a beard transplant.
"Whether you are talking about the Brooklyn hipster or the advertising executive, the look is definitely to have a bit of facial hair," a facial plastic surgeon tells DNAinfo. The procedure can cost as much as $7,000, but cheating nature is priceless.
Another doctor who performs the transplants further describes her clientele:
"I get a lot of detail-oriented people — artists, architects," the doctor said, noting that beard-centric neighborhoods such as Williamsburg, Bushwick and Park Slope have each delivered four to five clients to her practice in the past year.
In addition to beardless hipsters, doctors said their clients include men who have struggled since adolescence to grow a beard, those undergoing a gender transition from female to male, men with with facial scarring and Hasidic Jews who hope to achieve denser payot, or sidelocks. A greater awareness of facial hair transplants has also fueled the popularity of the procedure, doctors said.
The procedure involves moving hair from the patient's head and filling in the gaps in his face. One 39-year-old success story tells the reporter, "Knowing the results, I wish I hadn't wasted so much time deciding."
Are you on the right side of history?
