London’s top hair doctors

There are are all sorts of options for thinning hair but, as Christopher D’Souza, one of London’s leading hair transplant surgeons and President of the British Association of Hair Restoration Surgery, explains: “Once the follicle has gone, it’s gone for good.”
Which is where hair transplants come in. The two most popular techniques are FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction or Excision) and Strip FUT (Strip Follicular Unit Transplantation). The FUE technique involves extracting working follicles from where hair on the head is thicker, usually the back and sides, and the Strip version is similar but works with larger “strips” of skin rather than individual follicles. Both have you in and out of the clinic in a day — but not swiftly. “It’s a long procedure, so you’ll be in the chair from morning till mid-afternoon,” D’Souza says, “but local anaesthetic makes it comfortable. You can just watch Netflix while we work. Lots of people have visions of it being a lot worse than it is.”
Potential pain aside, one aspect that used to put a lot of people off was the idea of weeks of downtime, or the shame of having “work” done. But both of these worries are diminishing, says D’Souza. “The idea of ‘shame’ has widely been replaced with ‘I couldn’t care less’,” he adds, “and a good hair transplant — with the appropriate hairline design and angulation of the grafts — should be undetectable.” After a week (sometimes less) you can be back to work, and after 2-3 weeks, apart from the length of the hair that’s been shaved pre-treatment, the procedure will be barely detectable.
As with any aesthetic treatment, choosing a reputable clinic and practitioner is key to the best results, but also to keeping yourself safe. “There’s a big black market in the hair transplant world that we’re trying to crack down on,” D’Souza says of clinics in London and around the UK. These places speed through patients (“sometimes four to six cases per day”) by illegally delegating unlicensed technicians to undertake surgical steps in the procedure, instead of surgeons. “Patients need to make sure they know who will be undertaking the entire procedure when booking,” he adds, directing them to the British Association of Hair Restoration Surgery for further advice.
Alongside D’Souza (who offers hair transplants from £5,000), see below for some Times Luxury recommended experts and clinics.
Since the early 1990s Dr Bessam Farjo and his wife Dr Nilofer Farjo have been offering hair expertise via transplants and non-surgical treatments. Their Manchester clinic is home to the UK’s first hair transplant training and research academy, alongside luxury facilities that equal their Harley Street clinic in London.
One of their newest treatments uses a technology called HairClone, “effectively an ‘insurance policy’ to future-proof against further hair loss” says Bessam Farjo. “It is essentially a ‘banking’ tool. Under local anaesthetic, or as part of your hair transplant, we extract around 100 follicles from the back of your head that are placed in a solution to cool and preserve them, ready for storage. Once they’ve reached the required temperature, minus 180C, they’re then transported to a licensed tissue bank ensuring their quality is preserved for 20-25 years.” After that time, the follicles can ‘“come out of storage ready for reinsertion when someone is experiencing hair loss later down the line”.
farjo.com
Having experienced hair loss himself, Somji understands the emotional impact of male pattern baldness (and other forms of hair loss). He has undertaken training in various techniques of hair restoration around the globe and offers hairline lowering alongside FUE and Strip FUT, as well as other hair loss treatments. He also finds the time to manage YourHairDoc, an online hub featuring treatment options and advice to those suffering from hair loss.
drmedispa.com
Although Nicoloso isn’t a hair specialist, he is a leading voice in the aesthetics and skin fields, and where does your hair grow from? Your skin. This procedure, which isn’t a full transplant but a great preventive treatment (making it a good choice for women suffering from thinning and loss, not just men with pattern baldness), uses micrografting technology with very minimal downtime to prevent hair loss and thicken what’s there.
Nicoloso explains: “The most important type of hair loss is one that very commonly women suffer from and is very hard to treat, called Androgeic Alopecia. Our Hair Regeneration Treatment can help [protect] against this.” Micrografting uses our own skin tissue to help slow down hair loss and stimulate existing follicles to grow longer and thicker, taking tiny skin grafts from the hairline area where the strongest follicles are located (often the nape of the neck).
These are placed in a special device to extract growth factors and progenitor cells — all of which act as a repair system for the body — and the mixture is injected back into the part of the scalp where hair is thinning. A local anaesthetic helps with any pain, and in about an hour you can be back to normal activities (but nothing too strenuous like intense exercise for a day or two).
Micrografting won’t create new hair on your scalp. But it will encourage existing follicles to grow, so sparse areas on the scalp will become thicker and fuller, making it a cost-effective and safe way to help prevent hair loss.
ouronyx.com