ABSTRACT
Full thickness grafts are used to cover a defect in the skin when it is not possible to repair it simply by primary closure. Depending on the site it may be quite a small defect, such as on the nose where there is very little spare loose skin. It may be possible to close a much bigger defect on the cheek without recourse to a graft. Sometimes people are disappointed with the result of their skin graft at an early stage. It will rarely be helpful to interfere at this stage. Time is the greatest healer and as the months go by grafts tend to become less conspicuous. They flatten and the colour normalizes. Occasionally, with shrinkage a graft begins to pull on a free edge. Meshing, or cutting multiple parallel slits in the graft, allows it to expand when stretched, rather like a fish-net stocking.
