It was my 13-year-old daughter who called it. Heading down the escalator at Fenwick last summer, she announced from behind me: ‘My God, Mum, your hair is thinning. I can see your scalp.’
Panicked, I got my husband to take photos of the back of my head, which confirmed a noticeable problem. Hair thinning in middle age – I’m 51 – is a common enough problem among women, as hormones fluctuate and hair-thickening oestrogen wanes.
But for me, the issue has been seriously exacerbated by the use of weight-loss injections. I started taking Ozempic in April 2023 after perimenopause derailed my health.
Fatigued and lacking in energy, I had steadily put on the pounds, despite upping the exercise and keeping a close eye on nutrition until, at 5ft 6in (and shrinking with age), I weighed about 11st 4lb (72kg) – about the same as my first full-term pregnancy weight.
Blood and urine tests flagged up problems including pre-diabetes and high cholesterol.
The solution was clear and, under the supervision of Dr Wendy Denning, a London-based private GP, I took Ozempic for a year, lost more than 1½st (10kg) and started to feel like myself again. What looked and felt distinctly less healthy, however, was my hair.
Hair thinning in middle age – I’m 51 – is a common enough problem among women as hormones fluctuate, says Olivia Falcon
The issue with weight-loss injections isn’t the GLP-1 medication itself – it’s the large and rapidly-occurring calorie deficit.
When the body senses a significant drop in energy intake, it prioritises vital organs over non-essential functions like hair growth. As a result, more hair follicles shift into the shedding phase, leading to hair loss.
Theoretically, this loss is temporary. But in my case, when I switched to microdosing Mounjaro just over a year ago to maintain my healthier weight, and was no longer in a calorie deficit, the hair disaster did not get any better.
Looking back, it didn’t happen overnight, nor as soon as I started taking Ozempic. About nine months after I first began weight-loss drugs, I regularly noticed clumps of hair in my hairbrush and clogging up the shower drain, to the extent that I cut down hair washes from three times a week to just once.
At this point, no one else would have noticed. But I did – and what woman doesn’t covet a glossy, thick head of hair? In women, hair is emotional. It’s so closely tied to our identity, femininity and youth, we can’t help but feel alarmed when it changes.
Thinner hair made me feel older, and this feeling was compounded as people close to me, such as my friend and hair colourist Rebecca Frost at Hari’s salon, who I’ve been going to see every four months for the past 20 years for highlights, noticed. She pointed out that my ponytail was half its usual thickness.
But I didn’t work for 25 years as a beauty editor for nothing. Today, I run The Editor’s List (editorslist.co.uk), a cosmetic concierge service that directs men and women to the world’s top cosmetic surgeons, doctors and procedures. If anyone could solve the hair-thinning catastrophe, surely I could.
But female hair thinning is a more complex issue to solve than I expected. I tried everything – from volumising shampoos, which only gave my hair lift for a matter of hours, to a couple of excruciatingly painful rounds of PRP (platelet-rich plasma) injections in my scalp.
This latter is a regenerative elixir extracted from your own blood, containing stem cells and growth factors to stimulate hair follicles. The catch is that it can be compromised by unhealthy lifestyles or illness, and I was feeling very run down when I did it, so I don’t think my plasma was very potent.
I also tried the topical Regaine treatment containing the drug minoxidil to increase blood flow to the follicles, which was helpful to a point but irritated my scalp.
None of it worked and I felt increasingly self-conscious. I wore my hair up in a high ponytail most of the time to comb over the sparse area at the back of my scalp.
And then came a sudden flash of inspiration – a rather extreme solution but, as it proved, a rather brilliant one.
On a wet Wednesday in September last year, I took a male client of The Editor’s List to see Dr Coen Gho at his Hair Science Clinic on Beauchamp Place in south-west London. The purpose was to discuss a hair transplant which, of course, in men is an almost routine procedure nowadays.
So why not in women, too? After the meeting, I hung back to ask if I might be a good candidate.
After scrutinising my scalp, Dr Gho said he could help. Based out of his flagship Hair Science clinic (hasci.com) in Maastricht in the Netherlands, Dr Gho rotates around clinics in Singapore, Paris and London. I have known him for 16 years and have seen first-hand how effective his hair transplants are.
Back in 2013, he restored my husband’s receding widow’s peak and, since then, I’ve sent scores of men to see him for his signature natural, undetectable results.
In fact, you’ve probably seen a lot of his work, too – while watching Netflix – his name is a closely-guarded secret among Hollywood’s most hirsute-looking actors.
Dr Gho tells me that 60 per cent of men and a very surprising 50 per cent of women suffer from androgenetic alopecia – a genetically determined form of hair thinning, which in women tends to affect the scalp generally rather than the hairline at the front.
Since this type of hair loss is a natural process and medication can only inhibit it temporarily, hair transplantation is the only method to restore hair permanently.
It’s still not a procedure to be undertaken lightly.
The older strip technique – in which a strip of skin containing hair follicles is removed from the back of head, cut into grafts and implanted in the recipient area – is notoriously painful and causes scarring. It also requires significant downtime.
That method has now been largely replaced by follicular unit extraction (FUE) – a more patient-friendly alternative, where individual follicles are extracted with minimal pain and repositioned where needed.
Heading down the escalator at Fenwick last summer, she announced from behind me: ‘My God, Mum, your hair is thinning. I can see your scalp’
After scrutinising my scalp, Dr Gho said he could help. When we were finally finished, I looked like Frankenstein’s bride with a speckled purple hairline
Everyone – myself included – has been suitably impressed with progress. Four months on, I am delighted with the regrowth and new growth
The disadvantage of these techniques, however, is that the extracted hair follicles are removed completely, while the strip method leaves large scars (the FUE smaller pinpoint ones), so the donor area cannot be used for consecutive treatments.
Enter Dr Gho’s own patented alternative, Hair Stem-cell Transplantation (HST). This differs from traditional methods in that individual hair follicles are partially harvested from a donor area at the back of the scalp, with the original follicle preserved. It doesn’t leave a scar and the hair can regrow in the donor site, so it can be used for consecutive treatments.
The result of HST is natural density, because the grafts are much smaller than the FUE method and can therefore be implanted closer together.
After all, the goal of hair restoration is to make it as natural as possible, says Dr Gho – so that no one can tell you’ve had it. HST is especially good for women because of shorter downtime and natural results that you can build on with additional treatments.
Women often have diffuse thinning, not a defined bald patch, and their donor area is usually weaker and less dense than men, so preserving donor hair is a major advantage.
With HST it’s possible to achieve higher density because the grafts are much smaller and therefore can be implanted closer together.
On October 28 last year, I arrived for my procedure wearing a tracksuit – comfort is key because HST takes seven to eight hours.
I’ve witnessed this procedure many times and was reassured that it wasn’t usually painful, but when Dr Gho’s assistant turned on an electric shaver to shave the donor area at the back of my head, I did start to feel anxious.
And the shock was visceral three minutes later when I was handed a kidney-shaped dish full of my hair. Oddly keen to hang on to it, I asked for an envelope so I could take it home. I guess my emotional attachment to my hair was bigger than I realised.
Next, the shaved patch of my scalp was disinfected with a topical solution and numbed with local anaesthetic injections.
For the hair follicle harvesting itself, I lay face down on the treatment bed for nearly three hours, as the team spliced and extracted 701 hair grafts.
These precious spliced follicles were then left to soak in a Petri dish containing a custom-made, patented preservation solution (while Dr Gho and I ate lunch). Afterwards, he donned a headlight and glasses and began to draw black dots with a surgical pen on the front of my head as a guide for my new hairline.
Using tiny punctures called punch grafts, he then implanted the new hair, one follicle at a time, like a tapestry, on to my temples, the front of my hairline and on my crown. This wasn’t painful but I did feel slightly heavy-headed with all the buzzing around my scalp.
At about 4.30pm, we were finally finished and I looked like Frankenstein’s bride with a speckled purple hairline that I was told would scab and then sprout the precious new hair.
I did find it slightly hard to concentrate as the team ran through the aftercare plan. For the next three days, I was to ice my scalp with a cool compress every few hours. I was also given a course of antibiotics to avoid infection and the steroid prednisolone to reduce swelling, plus Dr Gho’s bespoke antioxidant blend of vitamins to help with new capillary formation. I was also given a packet of paracetamol, although I never needed to take one as there was no pain.
My scalp felt tender to the touch and I did have a few sleepless nights. I was told not to sleep on my side or let my hairline or the donor area of my head touch anything, which proved incredibly challenging and meant sleeping on my back with a blow-up neck pillow lifting the back of my head up.
Olivia says she hopes more women consider transplants as ‘why should men enjoy all the benefits’
Respite came in the form of The Recovery Pillow, a silk covered U-shaped pillow designed for sleeping on your back after surgery, which offers excellent neck support and kept my wounds away from the bedclothes.
On day three, I was relieved finally to be allowed to wash my hair gently. I was expecting some of the hair grafts to fall out but a forensic inspection of the shower drain revealed not a single casualty. To encourage hair growth I was directed to add a spritz of minoxidil spray to my hairline and the donor area, but was forbidden from using a hairdryer for a couple of weeks.
Despite Dr Gho’s aftercare regime, my forehead did swell. I think this was a reaction to all the local anaesthetic. I found my hand-held Lyma device – an at-home, cold laser gadget – really helped reduce the swelling.
In week two – oh joy – the small scabs on my scalp started to fall off and it became incredibly itchy.
Dr Gho had provided a soothing camomile cream, which worked a treat but made my hair look greasy and lank, so I switched to Obagi’s Nu-Cil BioStim Scalp Serum, which claims to encourage hair regrowth and contains a host of anti-inflammatory ingredients. This made my hair much less greasy and crusty.
Over the next month, my hair took on a life of its own. Friends, family and even strangers who have been following my hair transplant journey on Instagram (@theeditorslist) expressed a David Attenborough-like fascination with the flora and fauna on my scalp. I was regularly asked to tilt my head for inspection, which I didn’t mind at all. Everyone – myself included – has been suitably impressed with progress.
Four months on, I am delighted with the regrowth and new growth.
My new hair still has a way to grow to get to shoulder length (maybe another year), but there is enough hair growth at the back of my head for my colourist to start to work with.
My hairline has completely healed and new tufts of hair are growing in strong. Dr Gho has an artist’s eye and had placed the new hairs perfectly, so my new hairline looks completely natural.
He says I won’t see the full results for another six months, but it feels like I have already regained some density and the dreaded area at the back of my head is much improved – I look quite fluffy with all the new growth.
The drawback? At £5,000 to £10,000, depending on how many grafts you go for, this treatment can be very expensive. Plus, women, who tend to have diffuse thinning rather than a defined bald patch, often need a second transplant to build up density and full coverage.
Yet, for a confidence boost, it’s unbeatable. I hope more women are brave and curious enough to consider a transplant. Why should men enjoy all the benefits?
- Follow Olivia Falcon @theeditorslist.
- Hair Stem-cell Transplantation costs from £750 to £11,750 depending on the number of grafts needed. Consultation is complimentary. Some patients may require two treatments.
