Also called hair refurbishment, hair grafting, or hair implants, a hair transplant is a cosmetic procedure that involves taking donor hairs from one or more areas of your body—most commonly the back or sides of your scalp, or even your beard, back, or chest—and moving them to an area of hair loss, where they continue to grow. The hairs are transplanted as “grafts,” each of which contains one to four hairs apiece. A 2,000 graft procedure, for example, can contain 4,000 or so hairs. Hair transplants were once done almost exclusively on the scalp, and that’s still the most common procedure.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology, more than 80 million men and women experience hair loss. It’s normal to lose 50–100 hairs a day, but bald spots, a thinning part, and a receding hairline may indicate a bigger issue. Most commonly, the cause is genetic—a type of hair loss known as androgenic alopecia. Also called male- and female-pattern baldness, it commonly begins in men as a receding hairline or thinning in the crown, while women usually experience recession near the temples and a widening partline. Fortunately, a hair transplant can usually restore what you’ve lost (provided your hair loss hasn’t progressed too far).
