Meet the Surprisingly Young Guys Showing Off Their Hair Transplants on TikTok

Anxious feelings about his hairline followed Kegs around from the age of 12. “I remember a few older people in school pointing out that I had a big forehead,” the 25-year-old from Ireland says. “Obviously at that age, it’s going to make you self-conscious.”

In an attempt to mask his insecurity, he started growing his hair out so he could style it in a way that covered his forehead. Then, when he was 22, he started using hair root spray, which makes hair look fuller, sharing a viral tutorial of it on TikTok. “I sprayed where the hairline should be, which created an illusion that my fringe was a lot thicker than it was,” he says. “I definitely wanted a hair transplant around this time, but I just didn’t have the money for it, so I found other ways to hide the hairline.”

Still, it wasn’t a perfect solution, it was messy and could be impractical. Next he tried a hair replacement system—essentially a wig for your hairline—and loved how it looked, but found that it was too much maintenance. “This is when I decided to get a hair transplant, aged 24, just before I went travelling,” he says. “It was one of the best decisions I ever made. I never anticipated how much confidence this whole journey would give me.”

Search ‘hair transplant’ on TikTok, and you’ll be inundated with clips of young men offering warts -and-all updates on their procedures, with combined views totaling over three billion. Some share their year-long journeys in quick-fire 30-second videos, others offer day-by-day or week-by-week updates, and some make longer videos, answering commonly asked questions, offering in-depth retellings of their story, or simply sharing candid conversations about the impact of hair loss on their self-confidence.

It’s a world away from the past media conversation around male hair loss, where the tabloids reinforced the stigma by naming and ‘shaming’ celebrities who may or may not have gotten a hair transplant. This was the narrative surrounding Wayne Rooney, who in 2011 tweeted: “Just to confirm to all my followers I have had a hair transplant. I was going bald at 25 why not. I’m delighted with the result.”

Rooney wasn’t the first celebrity to undergo a hair transplant; he wasn’t even the first to confirm he’d done it—John Cleese had already revealed his in 2008—but the impact of his proud declaration was especially monumental, largely because, at 25-years-old, he was the youngest-ever celebrity to admit to having had one. In the years since, other young stars have followed suit. Calum Best confirmed his hair transplant in 2017; Made in Chelsea’s Jamie Laing did so in 2018; and, when Arsenal’s Rob Holding revealed his in 2021, he also opened up about its transformative effect on his mental health.

In an era of embracing radical vulnerability, young men are reframing the narrative of hair loss being something to hide away. A new generation of young men—for whom discussions of mental health tend to come more naturally—appear to be emboldened by the example set by their celebrity predecessors.

“I had zero hesitation about getting a hair transplant, nor sharing my journey,” says Kegs, who chronicled his procedure and the results to his 155k followers on TikTok. “If you want to do something that’s not only going to make you look better but help you feel better too, then why not do it?”

According to research by London’s Harley Street Hair Clinic, 35 percent of men feel less attractive because of hair loss, while 26 percent say it’s made their confidence deteriorate. This has a direct impact on mental health, with 13 percent reporting increased levels of stress and 12 percent heightened anxiety. Those who aren’t yet balding are also enduring similar effects, with 69 percent of men suffering from ‘hairxiety’ and 30 percent feeling it every time they look in the mirror. All of this is despite the fact that hair loss is incredibly common, with three-quarters of men in the UK losing their hair—and yet a quarter of men still don’t feel like they have anyone to talk to about it.

Dr Greg Vida, a senior surgeon at Harley Street Hair Clinic, says that over the last few years he’s seen a huge demand for the procedure, and resultantly an increase in the amount of procedures the clinic performs. “For a long time people didn’t have an example of a ‘good’ hair transplant, so they didn’t understand the true potential of what the results could look like,” says Vida, citing Rooney’s as the first major example. “By being so open with his hair journey, not only did Wayne show people that a UK clinic could produce such natural results, but it helped to influence public opinion, normalizing the conversation and breaking down taboos about hair loss.”

Vida is pleased to see this radical vulnerability being promoted on TikTok now, too. “This transparency is exactly what’s needed to de-stigmatize hair loss, and show how common it is for men to lose their hair, while also providing hope that successful treatment is available and accessible,” he says.

Thirty-one-year-old Ben Haldon from Chester is one of those documenting his hair transplant journey on TikTok, and even shared an in-depth 20-minute video diary of the procedure and immediate aftermath on YouTube. Although he wasn’t very conscious of his receding hairline, he says he wanted to be “proactive with it”—partly based on the knowledge that his dad lost his hair in his 30s—and knew he’d get better results if he had more hair to play with for the procedure itself. Like many TikTokers including Kegs, Haldon travelled to Turkey for his transplant, where the procedure set him back approximately $3,000, which he says included a transfer from the airport, a hotel stay and food. 

Haldon describes the experience as “streamlined from start to finish”, with mild discomfort, minimal pain, and a manageable recovery. He felt that being surrounded by a group of men going through the same procedure made the experience a lot less intimidating.

“The healing is pretty arduous and I can see why most people are put off by the six weeks of post-op care and medication,” says Charlie Weir, 32, from London, who also travelled to Turkey for his hair transplant and shared it on TikTok. He decided to go through with it after years of hiding his hair under beanies and baseball caps, after it started thinning and receding in his mid to late 20s. “I became very self-conscious and it got to the point that every picture I [saw of myself], I would focus only on how bad my hair looked,” he says. “It was affecting moments of happiness that I should be feeling great about.”

While the aforementioned post-op rules may vary slightly, for Weir they included: sleeping carefully or upright with a neck pillow for two weeks, using antibiotic cream for 10 days and panthenol spray for 15 days, no drinking for two weeks, no smoking, exercise, sex, or haircuts for four weeks, and no sports for three months. You also get given post-op medication, which you need to take stringently.

After one to three months, patients go through what’s sweetly known as the ‘ugly duckling’ phase, where the transplanted hair falls out so it can grow back. “This is all part of the process even though it looks awful and makes you have doubts,” assures Kegs. “I started seeing results around month five, and ever since then, my hair has gotten thicker every month since.”

Kegs, Haldon, and Weir all say they received countless messages from young men after sharing their TikToks. “I had hundreds of DMs from guys who were thinking about it, or even just reaching out for advice and thanking me for transparency,” says Haldon, who cites the particular value of showing the regimented aftercare process. "If you don’t take care of the work that’s been done, it’s like planting seeds and never tending to them—they won’t grow the way you anticipated without some TLC.”

All of them have been honest with their friends and family, too—a marked difference from the mainstream perception that men hide their hair transplants. “I owned it from the moment I made the decision,” says Weir. “I told anyone who would listen; I was proud that I [was doing it] and it was a relief to talk to people about it.”

Of course, sharing stories of hair transplants isn’t fighting the stigma of hair loss completely, as it’s still offering a ‘fix’—but, like all deeply-entrenched beauty standards, it’s a whole other ball game to eradicate the taboo of balding altogether. At least on TikTok there is a space for men to feel able to talk about hair loss and explore possible treatments, if they so desire. This is hugely important for men, who’ve largely been excluded from the body positivity movement—at least outside of neatly-labelled but ultimately ineffective trends like ‘dad bods’ or ‘short kings’.

As far as advice goes, Haldon stresses the importance of taking time to think carefully, do your research, but perhaps most importantly to manage your expectations. “It’s a procedure to help improve your current situation, not make you look like a Beatles member,” he says. If that sounds disappointing, Kegs says his DMs are always open.

This story originally appeared in British GQ with the headline Meet the young guys showing off their hair transplants on TikTok.