Many hair transplant patients worry about whether their hair transplant will look natural. It’s an understandable concern — when you’re investing money and hope in hair restoration surgery, you want to know your hair will look good at the end of it.
So do hair transplants look natural? And how can you increase the chances of getting a discreet, natural-looking hair transplant? In this article, we’ll show you how to make sure your hair transplant looks natural in five steps.
When they’re performed by a qualified, skilled surgical team, hair transplants look completely natural. In fact, you won’t be able to tell the difference between your transplanted hair and your natural hair once the grafts have healed and grown.
Rob Holding’s hair transplant is known as one of the best in the Premier League. Performed by Wimpole Clinic surgeon Dr. Luciano Sciacca, Rob’s hairline transplant is now full, natural-looking, and indistinguishable from his natural hair.
Left: old-fashioned hair plugs placed along the hairline [1]. Right: FUE scars following overharvesting of the donor area [2].
Results like these are very rare in UK clinics, where safety regulations are strictly adhered to and technicians are generally highly skilled and qualified. However, it’s not so rare in overseas hair transplant clinics, where healthcare requirements aren’t followed as closely and there’s more variation in clinic quality and surgical skill.
Fortunately, failed hair transplants are the exception rather than the norm in the UK. Most hair transplant surgeons here can help you get transformative results that look completely natural.
Natural-looking hair transplants aren’t just for footballers and celebrities. Quality hair transplant surgery is more affordable and accessible than many people think. Dr. Sciacca says:
“What we have been able to do with FUE and FUT techniques in recent years is really amazing, and it’s not as expensive as some clinics would like you to believe. I would really recommend to anybody considering a hair transplant to read our hair transplant costs analysis conducted early in 2022 where we examined UK prices nationwide.”
Procedure: FUEGrafts: 2,400Time: After 10 months
Procedure: FUEGrafts: 2,500Time: After 15 months
Procedure: FUEGrafts: 700Time: After 8 Months
Procedure: FUTGrafts: 1,500Time: After 12 months
Procedure: FUT/FUEGrafts: 6,200 over three hair transplant procedures
Having multiple hair transplants may help you achieve more natural results, especially if you need a substantial number of hair grafts. If you need 8,000 hair grafts, for example, it’s usually recommended that you spread these over several sessions, as the patient above has done to achieve a fantastic result.
Maximise your chances of getting a natural-looking hair transplant with these steps.
Choosing a skilled, qualified hair transplant surgeon who has experience working with your hair type is the number one way to ensure your hair transplant looks natural.
Hair transplants aren’t just about harvesting hair grafts and planting them in your balding areas. Surgeons need to consider the natural growth pattern of your hair, as well as managing the number of hair follicles in your donor area and extracting them safely. This takes a lot of skill and experience, which you generally won’t get with a cheap overseas hair transplant procedure.
Choosing a cheap hair transplant from a cheap surgeon is a high-risk strategy. That’s why there are far more stories of hair transplants going wrong that come out of Turkish hair transplant clinics. It’s easier for unlicensed and untrained technicians to circumvent safety regulations there, and it’s much harder for you to go back and complain.
That’s why we always recommend doing plenty of research with several UK clinics to find the best UK hair transplant surgeon for your budget.
There are two modern hair transplant types: FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) and FUT (Follicular Unit Transplantation).
While both offer natural-looking results when performed by a skilled surgeon, there is an important aesthetic difference: hair transplant scarring.
FUT is more likely to leave a visible scar on the back of the head. If you wear your hair long, this probably won’t be noticeable, which is why FUT is a popular type of female hair transplant. However, the scar can often be seen if you get a buzzcut after your hair transplant.
Getting a FUT transplant doesn’t mean your hair growth will look less natural. In fact, there are benefits to FUT: the graft survival rate is slightly higher, and you may be able to extract more grafts and therefore get more coverage [3]. Unfortunately, though, you may be left with a thin scar that shows you’ve had a hair transplant procedure.
Your surgeon will help you design a hairline that suits your face shape and age. While you can have some input into your hairline design, ultimately your surgeon should have the final say.
These images show the difference between a natural-looking hairline design and a poorly designed hairline [4]. The first two images show good hairline design both immediately after hair transplant surgery (A) and one year after the procedure (B):
Hairline planning isn’t just important for ensuring your newly transplanted grafts look natural. It can also impact your donor area.
Skilled surgeons know what results are possible based on the availability of hair in your donor area. Be wary of surgeons who overpromise results, as they may overharvest your donor hair. This can result in patchy hair loss at the back or side of the scalp, which doesn’t look natural.
Aftercare during the hair transplant recovery phase is also very important when it comes to creating a natural-looking hair transplant. It’s important that you take all prescribed medications to avoid hair transplant infection and other complications that might compromise the look of your hair transplant.
In addition, consider taking hair loss treatments such as Finasteride after a hair transplant to maintain your hair. Finasteride can prevent ongoing hair loss, so the hair around your new grafts stays thick and natural.
Yes, a hair transplant grows the same way as normal hair, unless you use a synthetic hair type like Biofibre for an artificial hair transplant. Most people have enough hair in their donor area to avoid the need for these synthetic fibres.
It takes a few months for your transplanted hair to grow, so your hair transplant may not look especially natural at first. However, when your grafts heal and your hair begins to grow, you’ll soon find you can’t tell the difference between your existing hair and your new hair grafts.
The amount of time it takes for your hair transplant results to look natural depends on the length of your hair growth cycle. People with shorter cycles may see results sooner than those with longer cycles.
In general, it takes around six to 12 months to see sustained results from your hair transplant.
Whether you’re ready to book your hair transplant or you’re still in the research stages, the Wimpole Clinic team can help. Our advisors can share their own experiences of getting a natural-looking hair transplant, including tips and tricks for getting the best possible results.
Our hair loss treatment plans have seen us win hair transplant clinic of the year in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Our natural-looking hair transplants make our patients feel confident:
“Since having the hair transplant it’s made such a positive impact on my life. Those insecurities that just used to creep into everyday life. You don’t realise, the eating out, the wind blowing, the hair getting wet, the hairdressers, the things we have to do. I am much more confident in how I look, how I feel, being a dad, being a husband, it’s just made a really positive impact!”
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