Hair transplants have become a common cosmetic procedure in recent years – with famous men like Elon Musk and LeBron James rumored to have had one.
But doctors tell DailyMail.com that the procedure is quietly becoming popular with women.
David Kurzman, who runs the Natural Transplants clinic in Florida, said between 80 and 90 percent of his patients are now women who are either self-conscious about the size of their foreheads or suffer from baldness or alopecia.
Other patients, like Shilpa Cacho, of Dallas, Texas, travel to Turkey, where the procedure costs a fraction of the price — about $2,000 compared to about $12,000 in the US.
Sonja van den Berg, 33, from Amsterdam, got a hair transplant because she hated her huge forehead
She is now the founder of Beauty Gainz, a company that offers all-inclusive hair transplant trips to Istanbul and Turkey. She is pictured on the left before her transplant and then on the right
The International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery in the US reported last year that globally, 87 percent of those undergoing hair transplants are men and only 13 percent are women — and that number is still growing.
Ms. Cacho, 35, was traveling through Istanbul, Turkey in November 2021 when she decided to have a hair transplant at the Este Grande clinic.
She told DailyMail.com, “I’ve always had thin hair, but it kept getting thinner as I got older.
‘When I arrived in Istanbul I started doing some research and found a clinic with good reviews.
‘I’m really someone who says: if I think of something, let’s just try it. I don’t really think about it too much.
So I just decided to do it. They were able to schedule me in within a few days.’
During the transplant, the hair follicles are taken from areas of the scalp where the hair is fuller – usually at the back – and placed in areas where the hair is thinning, where they continue to grow, giving the appearance of fuller hair.
Shilpa said the most painful part was injecting anesthesia into her scalp
But the painstaking procedure is not for the faint hearted.
It takes between five and six hours and starts with drawing the patient’s ideal hairline on the forehead with a pen.
Then part of the back of the head is shaved and the patient is given between 50 and 75 small injections to numb the area.
The surgeon makes an incision and cuts out a strip of tissue that is given to technicians to cut out the hair follicles. The skin is sewn back together.
Small incisions are then made at the front of the head to place the hair follicles.
Ms Cacho, who paid just $1,800 for the procedure, said: ‘They took hair off the back of my head and put it on the front.
‘The the most painful part is where they inject the anesthetic into your scalp. It’s just really painful. That’s probably about 15 minutes of pretty bad pain.”
She added: “They shaved the back of my head before they took the follicles and then they put it on the front. She created a new hairline for me.
“Then I went back the next day. They removed the bandage and washed the area and my hair.”
Vanessa, 31, a patient last year at the Natural Transplants clinic, before her hair transplant (pictured left) and a year after the procedure (pictured right). She started losing her hair in her early twenties. “My father has a very strong bald gene,” she said
Vanessa said, ‘It really is the easier surgery you can do’
She said, “One thing I wish I knew is that you shouldn’t go hoping that if you have thin hair, you’re going to have thick hair all of a sudden.” That’s not what’s going to happen.
“It literally replaces some of your previously thinning hair, but I still have thin hair. It’s not a full head of hair that just magically appeared.
“It just covers what you wanted and it creates a new hairline.” But because I didn’t have a lot of hair follicles in the first place, I’m not going to have magically thick hair.”
When the Natural Transplants clinic opened in 2015, Mr Kurzman said: ‘We happened to be doing a lady and we made a video of her and it went viral. Immediately people came from the UK, from France, Germany, everywhere.
‘Doctor Mehmet Oz [TV personality] even saw the video and he had one of my doctors on the show because he was so impressed with the results.
“Then our phone rang red hot. Before you know it, from that moment on, more than 80 percent of my patients have always been women.’
The majority want to lower hairline or have traction alopecia, he said.
During the transplant, hair follicles are taken from the areas of the scalp where the hair is fuller – usually at the back – and placed in areas where the hair is thinning, where they will continue to grow and therefore give the appearance of fuller hair
Small incisions are made in the front of the head to place the hair follicles. The whole transplant takes between five and six hours and starts with drawing the patient’s ideal hairline on the forehead with a pen
Part of the back of the head is shaved and the patient is given between 50 and 75 small injections to numb the area. Hair follicles are then lifted to be moved forward
‘We give them more density so they don’t look like a man… about 70 percent of the ladies who come to us have already had a failed hair transplant. A lot of them went to Turkey… they have minimal hair and it looks horrible. Many of them were in tears when they came in.’
Traction alopecia happens because of braids and other tight hairstyles and weaves. That tears the hair up at the roots and once the follicles are pulled out, the hair won’t grow back.
The clinic does not treat anyone under the age of 21, while their oldest patient was 81.
How much they charge depends on the amount of hair being removed, but is somewhere between $6,500 and a hefty $12,000.
Dr. Harold Siegel, hair transplant surgeon at Natural Transplants, told DailyMail.com that 90 percent of his patients are female.
He thinks more women are having the procedure done because of social media.
He said: ‘When I do a consultation, my patients often say, ‘I never knew this could be done. I never knew we could do hair transplants.’
“YouTube is incredible as a resource for informing and educating our patients.”
Sonja van den Berg, 33, from Amsterdam, got a hair transplant because she hated her forehead and thought it was ‘huge’. She visited a clinic in the Netherlands to have her hairline lowered.
The procedure cost her more than $3,000 and she was so happy with the results that she decided to start her own company to help others gain the confidence they need.
She is now the founder of Beauty Gainz, a company that offers all-inclusive hair transplant trips to Istanbul and Turkey.
Mrs van den Berg said: ‘It’s funny how something so subtle can make such a big difference. Honestly, I feel a little sad that I didn’t know about the procedure sooner.
“Finally I can wear my hair in ways and styles I wasn’t comfortable with before my hair transplant, and when it’s windy outside, I don’t feel the need to hide my forehead when the wind blows through my hair.”