Vanity is one trait I’d like to think I share with celebrities, although I’d much rather share a trait like the ability to earn gobs of money or turn the world on with my smile, but I guess I’ll take what I was dealt.
Being the vain creature I am, I have been known to spend too much money making myself look more presentable. I think I’ve single-handedly kept my local nail salon in business and I searched in earnest to find the absolute best place to get my brows done, because I pride myself on keeping my brow game on fleek, as the kids say. I have been known to drop $50 a pop for an arch shaping and dye job, so I can identify with Meagan Good’s quest for the perfect brow – although she had to spend considerably more that $50 to achieve it.
The 36-year-old actress, probably best known for Anchorman 2, abused her eyebrows in her teens. The constant plucking, waxing and even shaving caused her to opt for tattooed brows at the tender age of 19.
I can only assume Megan wanted to go for a more natural look, so six months ago, she decided to undergo an advanced procedure to bring back her brows. She skipped microblading as an option and went for an “eyebrow transplant,” a procedure offered by cosmetic surgeon to the stars, Dr. Jason Diamond. Jason’s celebrity clients include Kim Kardashian and Amber Rose.
The procedure involves harvesting hair from the back of the scalp. According to the doctor’s website, “After hair is harvested, tiny angled incisions are made in the brow area, and the hairs are grafted into the hair follicles.” The whole process takes several hours to perform. People who have had the procedure done generally see results in four to six months, when natural hair begins to grow. Dr. Diamond posted a clip of the procedure to his Instagram which I’m linking to because it might be a little oogy for some to see.
The transplant isn’t cheap, with an estimated median price of $7,500, but the results are pretty impressive. Meagan shared her follicular journey with her Instagram followers, taking them from the day she “got the final shape drawn on” to now, when she said that she’s “over the moon” about her “eyebrow evolution journey.” Her brows look awesome, so that was definitely money well spent.
Thank you to Starcasm for the heads up about this story!
Photos: WENN.com, Instagram
They’re so filled in with pencil that I can’t see the difference
I agree, they still look a little too painted on. She looked fine both before and after. I can’t imagine going through that time and expense, but to each their own.
Yeah I feel like they are too much a block shape. I have no idea how to do eyebrows to be honest but I have seen those girls who fill in their eyebrows with a pen where they do individual eyebrow “hairs” with a special pencil/pen and it looks so much better.
I destroyed my brows from over plucking in the 90s, and after chemo 4 yrs. ago, and menopause (hormones fleeing my body like a war zone lol), I’m left with a some “bald spots” in my brows. I would *love* to do this, though I wouldn’t (pain, $$ lol).
Damn…if I could only go back and tell my younger self: “BACK AWAY FROM THE BROWS!” 😊
@IMQ, I am in the same boat. Over plucked my brows in the 90s and now I’ve got almost nothing. I would for sure get this done if I had the money. Oh to wake up and not have to worry about my brows. My daughter has my original brows and they are amazing, why did I destroy them?!?! My youngest has blonde but nice thick brows and I will do my damndest to keep her away from tweezers, wax and razors.
Yeah, you can see the hairs in one photo, they still look kind of sparse, but some is better than none.
I can’t stand that type of Sharpie marker brow. My daughter did that for the longest time- thick and too dark for her hair & skin. I guess I’m just an old, lol!
Now get off my lawn!!!
She’s in Groucho Marx territory now. Such a shame – a beautiful girl. All these young women are gonna look back like we older ones do at their younger years and go: “why the hell did I go out in public looking like that??”
Definitely. Those brows are a distraction.
Yeah, I think they’re too much.
Yeah, they just look waxy, to me.
She used a really flattering before picture!! I’ve seen her in a few movies and her eyebrows were actually distracting on such an otherwise lovely face. And it was obviously overplucking, not her natural brow so I was always baffled about it. Happy for her that she did this!
I thought it was just me! Her eyebrows were so distracting I couldn’t concentrate on what was going on. Im happy for her! I wish I could afford it.
I wish celebs (black women specifically) would eschew the need to get their noses donE.
Her nose her biz. Besides, she didn’t go crazy.
Right. I don’t like the comment, especially Black women should not get nose jobs. Why? If that’s what a person wants to do, then let them do it as long as they don’t go overboard with the surgeries.
Good is so beautiful she makes me think of the other Meghan (Fox). You have a Meghan Good and a Meghan Fox.
Did she have it done? Just from that photo I assumed she had a nose like mine that widens when I smile. (Am white, but my nose looks like her “first” one)
A lot of black women in Hollywood have the bulbous tip narrowed.
Halle, Tyra, Naomi.
Makes me sad as a Black woman that we have to surgically modify ourselves to fit into a mold.
I’m wondering, too- the first photo shows her chin tilted down, the second appears in the opposite direction, and you can see obvious contouring. Not sold on the nose job suspicion.
@V4Real because of the pressure some black women feel to “anglicize” themselves to conform to the western beauty standard. Including but not limited to slimming their noses, curtailing or straightening their natural hair, and skin lightening. Yes there are some women who do it simply because they want to but I understand what yeahright is saying, let us not pretend that there are not often deeper implications as to why woc may want or feel the need to do these things. The pressure is real and not just in Hollywood.
I am looking at you, NeNe.
How long before thin eyebrows are the trend again and she’s plucking each transplanted hair out at $100 a hair?
I was just wondering the same thing!
That’s one trend I will never follow. Very very few people look good with skinny brows. Some people look great – but it’s the exception not the rule. I stay in the middle lane, honestly. It’s a safe place. I’ve only started really paying attention to my eyebrows in the last year or so. I always would pluck or wax and trim them – but pretty minimally. Now I fill them a little bit and use a brow gel, and man. It makes suuuuch a difference. I don’t have crazy full brows, and I’ve never had super thin ones. But filling them in a little bit really makes a difference for me.
But I’ve seen some horrors where people have filled them in WAY too much and it’s looked like a marker. Just as bad as unflattering barely there brows.
I was a teen in the early 2000s when thin eyebrows were in. I overplucked mine and now they are tiny. But I fill them in for this same reason. Give it another two years and thinner brows will be back in. Why? Because I never thought I’d see the day trends myself and others were picked on (growing up poor y’all) are back in style. Thick eyebrows, high water pants, and ‘mom’ jeans (LOVE the high waisted tho), the graphic shirts that were $5 at the state fair.
This. Eyebrow standards change a LOT in beauty. She will regret it when it swings back the other way.
Good for her since she seems pleased with the result. But not for me. I bit of dye does well enough. I buy a product and do it myself actually. Very simple. Thirty dollars of product keeps me in perfect eyebrows for 2 years.
How do you stop it from dying your skin? I want to try this, but I’m very pale, and worry that more than just the eyebrows will stain.
I’m out of town right now. I promise to post the name of the product tonight. There was some trial and error at first 😬 Some dye the skin horribly, like tattoo/sharpie horrible. Those went in the trash. The brand I use does very lightly stain the skin so you do have to be neat but the cream is thick so that’s easy. It looks great, especially on fair blondes with weak eyebrows that need a tiny boost. But even that slight skin coloration is gone in a couple of days. It comes in a light brown for blondes and a darker shade. I’ll post back this evening.
Thanks, LadyT. I look forward to your recommendation.
I have darkish brown hair and light skin; I bet it’s easier not to stain as much with blonde hair.
Which dye do you use?
RefectoCil Color Kit from Amazon. 24.85 It comes in light brown and natural brown. I would personally call it medium and extremely dark brown. Since you’re fair skinned I’d go with the light brown. It’s enough and you can always experiment with how long you leave it on.
Wait, where do you live where you can get brow shaping and tinting for $50?! I’m paying in the $90-$110 range.
Wow! I live in Atlanta, and go to the best brow place in town (it’s been in Allure a few times). Mind you, I don’t go to the top brow artist, but I couldn’t imagine spending more than $50. I actually just do threading anymore. It’s far more affordable and delivers pretty much the same results.
Wow! I have such thick eyebrows that I wish plucking & waxing would destroy them. LOL
She could have had all of mine. I don’t like the new look. Too thick & dark – but I could be biased because mine are like that and I don’t like them. It seems the thick eyebrow look is coming back but I will continue to wax & pluck.
I don’t like the thick look either. It works for some people but not everyone. If you have deep set eyes you need a thinner brow, it opens the eyes up.
This thick brow trend is all Cara Delavignes fault. She looks good with them because they are natural like how Brooke Shields’ were that young. People look best just tidying up what they’ve already got than going to extremes to be trendy.
To me they still look tattooed. I’m assuming maybe they look more natural up close? I thought she looked fine before, I have seen much worse.
I follow brow stories with greater interest these days because I have developed a vexing habit in mu middle age, pulling them out! I have it mostly under control and I’m sure it sounds bizarre but the urge is real. And stress related, I think.
It’s called trichtillomania. The urge to pull out hair. I think it’s more common when it comes to regular hair, brows, eyelashes. My urge started when I was 7. Back then I didn’t know what was wrong. I don’t think research has been able to pinpoint the exact reason(s) people start doing this. But, like you, I watch these kinds of stories with a great deal of interest.
Yes, I’ve been reading up on it and it’s a relief to know I’m not alone. But it’s still baffling how I can go for weeks mostly fine then suddenly become triggered. I have not been able to pinpoint the source of the triggering, it could be so many things, I guess. Best to you!
Same thing happens to me, and I’m in my 40’s now. It’s tough for me to know when it’ll be triggered, but I can go for some time without pulling. The damage has been done. Obviously over that many years you don’t get by unscathed. I wish there were the perfect natural solution that would work for those of us with the disorder.
My sister suffered terribly from trichotillomania when she was a teenager. She’s recovered but the damage she did to her brows and scalp was massive. She had a restoration procedure on her brows and head a few years ago and she tells me it was one of the best things she did – she got her confidence right back up again.
Khadija- I’m glad that your sister was able to find something that worked to help restore her confidence. 🙂 My problem areas are my brows and lashes, but I think there are more who suffer from the disorder who pull from their scalp. At least. for a while, I could blame the sparseness on chemo, but no more. LOL.
Trichtillomania is a type of self-harming OCD and it can become an addiction. There are psychologists/therapist who help people by using behavior therapy to help them stop. (Hypnosis, teaching to use a rubber band or ice cube to distract with other sensations, etc. Be aware that using a rubber band or ice cube can become its own addiction to that kind of pain for some people.)
I used to pluck my leg hairs with tweezers and then switched to unfortunately “picking” my face – known as dermotillomania now. It’s an addiction and some days are better than others. (Things got better when I started using extraction tools rather than my fingernails.) Best wishes y’all.
A weird symptom of Hashimoto’s disease is losing the outer edge of the eyebrows. After having Hashimoto’s for more that 20 years my eyebrows are now short and look strange. If I could come up with the money, I would like to do this someday. It looks good.
I have Hashimoto as well. I am experiencing the brow loss as you described. I barely touch my brows these days.
Same, I just found out this was a symptom of Hashimotos a few years ago. That’s why I don’t like to have my eyebrows waxed. They always yank off the few stray hairs I can grow on the ends and then I have muppet brow.
Yep. Like Fozzy the bear. 🙂
Same, bruh! Diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in my late 20s, and five years later I’m already seeing the eyebrow loss. I don’t even pluck my eyebrows anymore and they used to be really bushy. Now I use a brush and fill them in.
Still, it could be a lot worse. A lot of people with thyroid issues lose the hair on top of their head, not just their eyebrows.
I’ve actually lost a lot of hair on my head. My thyroid never seems to stabilize and they increase my dose every 2 to 3 years. Every time they do, I lose more hair. It’s supposed to grow back after your body gets used to the new dose, and some of it does, but not all of it. I’m lucky though. I started out with a lot of hair, so it still looks okay.
Her eyebrows were far from destroyed in that 19yo photo, they looked delicate and feminine and made her eyes stand out.
Yeah. I didn’t see what was wrong with them when she was younger.
Her eyebrows got thinner than that early picture, like, line drawn on thin. She has such a beautiful, sultry face, her eyebrows sometimes looked cheap on her, if that makes any sense. Thinner brows suit her delicate face, but not that thin! I think her eyebrows aren’t this thick, I think she’s still lining them and filling them in.
In her movies, she always looked surprised with those eyebrows.
I thought the thin brows suit her more. She has delicate features.
How does a transplant of head hair to eyebrows work though? Do you end up with six inch long eyebrow hairs that need constantly to be trimmed???
I am wondering the same thing!
You do have to trim them. I mentioned in another comment above that my sister had this procedure (due to trichotillomania). She had to “train” the hairs with a strong gel as well as trim them about once a week or so to the proper length. Now a few years on they’re properly “trained”, so to speak, and she doesn’t have to trim them as often. I’m not sure why but about 6 months ago she noticed she didn’t have to trim them as much as before for some reason.
That’s fascinating. I will look into this option.
Happy to have provided some info!
MY exact thought too!! Who is going to cut the eyebrows?
Love Meagan so much! Goddess before and after lol. Her acting is unfortunate but I put her up there with Dorothy Dandridge, Sophia Loren and Liz Taylor as far as unmitigated, traffic stopping natural beauty.
Best known from Anchorman 2…to white audiences! 😆 She’s an actress that has worked really consistently since the 90’s. Cousin Skeeter, anyone? 😆 This eyebrow transplant thing is interesting, though.
I came here to say the same thing! Best known for Anchorman 2…I didn’t even know she was in that movie. SMH
How about Think Like A Man or hell even You Got Served?!?!?!
FWIW the new brows still seem too fresh to judge.
Hell, I didn’t even know she was in it either till I read this! Thanks, Celebitchy! 😀 Those are good movies, including Love By the 10th Date (one of her more recent ones).
To me it just looks like she had microblading done…I had it done and they can shape your brows and fill in as much as you’d like. I think she had the transplant along with some microblading or tattooing. The color eventually fades into a more natural color.
Have you been happy with the microblading result? I want to do it but I’m scared they will turn out too severely dark looking.
Someone once suggested microblading to me, but I don’t want them looking too dark. What’s funny is that, growing up, I had brows like Brooke Shields before trich told a hold of me. I don’t think I’d want them that thick now.
I personally don’t like the big, thick, furry or painted-on-looking brow trend that’s in fashion now. I just think about how, down the road, we’ll all be looking back at this time of giant caterpillar brows and laughing, when thinner brows are in again. (As I’m sure they will be; trends always change & end up doing a 180.)
Meagan has always been the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She looks good. I prefer her smaller brows but her new ones look just fine.
I think she looks good, idk if I’d drop over $7k but I guess not my money, not my problem. I have very naturally arched, naturally thick (like lots of hair in one place, rather than spread out thickness, if that makes sense) brows. I’ve been told I have very nice eyebrows, on the regular, and I credit that to my mother as we basically have the same brows.
I was 13 when I started getting my brows done, and I got them done pretty thin, as was the trend back then (I’m 26 now). I have a scar on my left eyebrow, that runs parallel to my nostril, from a fall as a child. I guess many eyebrow technicians took that as license to pluck and shape the lack of hair around the scar so the start of my eyebrow began to shrink significantly. About two years ago, I was seeing this woman for electrolysis on my jaw, chin, and neck (I’m a pretty fuzzy Latina) and she offered (unsolicited) to shape my brows for me. She told me that I was over-plucking/over-threading/over-waxing my brows and it was totally throwing off my face and that I was really likely to lose the hair permanently if I kept it up. She told me I had to grow out my brows for 6 months (only pluck underneath the brows for clean-up) and that when I saw her each month she would shape my brow, little by little (I was skeptical, but she offered to do it for free, so I had nothing to lose).
The woman was a damn near miracle worker. It took A LOT of will power to not pluck (why does it feel so satisfying, lol) and I was walking around looking all **woof** with my bushy brows but eventually she shaped them to match my face and not the trend. I don’t see her anymore, but I do all my eyebrow upkeep myself — once a week I brush my brows upward with a brow brush, trim the excess with brow scissors and do a little plucking here and there. My face looks subtlety different.
Basically what I’m trying to say is find a brow that matches your face and not the trend because trends are not one size fits all.
“naturally thick (like lots of hair in one place, rather than spread out thickness,”
I would die for that. As I’ve tried to grow my brows back they’ve gotten more spread out, which I’m pleased with, but there are lots of fairly patchy parts, so I definitely envy you that thickness!
Excellent point. Work with what matches your face, not the trend. That’s really the golden rule for style anyway – work with your body type.
That said, she’s pretty either way. I don’t care much for the new look but if it was an issue for her, I’m glad she got it resolved.
Looks like a sharpie filled them in. I honestly think the before photo showed a more natural looking brow that suited her face.
My brows have thinned considerably since menopause kicked in and I mourn their loss so much. They’re thin and I never pluck because they’re shaped well (what’s left). I absolutely hate having such thin brows. I’d give anything for them to be fuller and thicker. Not crazy thick which they never were anyway. Just thicker. Sigh.
Compromised with Microbladding $500 affordable and less drastic.
Never picked thank God. I.always thought the thin brows looked like ants crawling in a line. And permanently surprised.
Brow talk: I was also a teen in the late 90’s and plucked the hell out of my brows and so have spent the last 5 or 6 years trying to grow them back. I can’t afford a brow transplant, but I’ve done plenty of other things to help grow them back. I like a natural, boyish brow so I don’t wax, but I do dye them at home (one of the best ways to fill out a brow in my opinion) just using mustache dye for men (there are many tutorials on youtube if you’re interested) and I use a lash rejuvenator on my brows. My biggest issue is many of the brows have grown in curly or even sticking practically vertical from my face, it’s been a real challenge to get those suckers to lay flat. I’ve heard there’s such a thing as brow perming to straighten them out but so far have had no luck finding it in my area (Seattle). And of course I use a rotating cast of pencils, brow mascaras and powders on them. What do others here do for a fuller brow?
Her new brows look awful…too thick and drawn in. She looked better before. I guess I’m stuck in the 2000’s because I like arched eyebrows.
They look huge and painted-on, like most brows today…..it’s just another trend people are going to end up regretting- like overplucking.
I over plucked mine as a teenager. They did not grow back. I spent so much time and energy trying to fill them in daily. I got them microbladed. Best decision I ever made.