Celebrity hair restoration has come so far, baldness could be a thing of the past

The prevalence of balding has not changed; the American Hair Loss Association keeps tabs on these matters. By age 35, nearly two-thirds of men have experienced some hair loss. Then by age 55, some 85 per cent of men will have “significant” hair loss. This is known as male pattern baldness (MPB), which is caused by the hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a byproduct of testosterone.

But restoration techniques have. Remember hair plugs? “The days of the old-fashioned hair transplants have largely faded away,” said Dr. Ethan Moritz, a facial plastic surgeon who perform hair transplants at FACE Toronto clinic. Those chunky clumps of hair — which could be a centimetre in circumference — created a straight shelf of hairline that looked obviously fake. “Fortunately, this technique has been left behind.” 

Still, a changing hairline attracts attention. Just like plastic surgery speculation that centres mainly on female celebrities, hair restoration experts and fans alike survey and speculate about male celebs’ hair recession journeys. Many actors — Matthew McConaughey, Bradley Cooper, David Beckham and Tom Cruise spring to mind — have had their hair tracked by tabloids and TikTok commentators, with plenty of speculation about who has travelled to Turkey, an emerging destination for hair restoration.

NFL star Tom Brady has been subject to plenty of before and after hair scrutiny.

And one Jude Law compilation, bizarrely set to the theme song from the classic film “A Summer Place,” tracks the swooping curls of his twenties through deft comb forwards and a bounty of eccentric hats to present day acceptance.

Celebrities rarely speak about their hair loss, but McConaughey has attributed his hairline maintenance to a scalp oil called Regenix — for which he is a spokesman — that he says he massages in for 10 minutes a day.

In fact, there’s an arsenal of prescription pills and topicals on offer. The trick is to start early, said Moritz. “While patients used to inquire about hair transplants later in their hair loss, the more recent trend has been getting ahead of it.” In the early stages, you can start by using topical medication such as Minoxidil (known as the brand name Rogaine) or an oral one like Finasteride (brand name Propecia).

There are also in-clinic treatments such as platelet-rich plasma (PRP), which is used to stimulate hair growth and improve the health of the hair follicles. PRP is created when plasma is separated from your own red blood cells via centrifuge; its platelets, cytokines and growth factors are injected back into the area of treatment, which facilitates supercharged healing.

The idea here is to slow down hair loss, said Moritz. “Still, it is not a replacement for hair transplantation. Most patients who come to us have tried oral or topical medications, but have lost enough hair and have started to become self-conscious.”

Hair transplants are permanent: the surgeon harvests hair complete with follicle from the back of the head and moves it to areas of thinning. Hair from the occipital scalp is not subject to DHT sensitivity, so it will regrow where it is placed.

For the past 15 to 20 years, the go-to method has been follicular unit extraction (FUE), which involves taking a strip of skin and hair from the back of the scalp and dividing it into units of one, two or three hairs, then either individually poked into the scalp at the front or seeded along a small slit in the scalp.

 Now, individual “follicular units” are harvested by hand and applied by the surgeon, who can take into account the direction the hair grows and place them in a natural — i.e., not straight — hairline pattern.

“There are several methods of hair transplantation but the one we most commonly perform involves harvesting individual follicular unit grafts and placing them individually into specific, designed locations in the appropriate orientation and density,” Dr. Moritz explained. This approach is individually tailored to each patient, with the aim to make results “perfectly imperfect.” The artistic focus is on the hairline, where individual hairs are placed; moving back along the scalp, they can add in more density with more hairs per transplant.

As you might imagine, this painstaking process takes quite a bit of time. Most surgeries are scheduled from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., to transfer about 2,500 grafts. Remarkably, Moritz said it’s not painful, that the procedure is done with numbing cream while the patient watches TV.

The next major leap forward in hair restoration lies in artificial intelligence. The AI-driven system Artas iXi recently landed in Canada at FORM Face + Body in Toronto, overseen by hair restoration specialist Dr. Michael Brandt. This is brand new, and the first example of “robotic hair transplantation,” according to an article on The American Society of Plastic Surgeons website that says it “currently” works alongside a human physician to harvest and re-implant hair, assessing and mapping the scalp as it goes. The machine, developed in Silicon Valley, is “an evolving technology,” which means it is actively learning to become faster and more accurate, which is either brilliant or terrifying, depending on your point of view.

Prices for hair restoration are all over the map, from $3,000 to $20,000, with many esthetic surgeons hovering around $6,000. If you’re considering it, know that the first transplanted hairs fall out in two to four months. This is called the “shock phase,” and is something to keep in mind for an actor planning surgery around filming, say, or normal folks attending a big event like a wedding. This hair then grows back, and falls into the natural cycle of loss and replacement. 

So what’s next on the hair replacement horizon? Moritz said follicle cloning is in the research stage, which would mean no more hair harvesting, cutting the procedure time in half. “It would have unlimited potential,” he said.

However you slice it, the stars of today need never accept a bad hair day again.