At the Crowne Plaza hotel on the outskirts of Istanbul, breakfast is generous but diners are encouraged to keep it light: the marble walls, the polished fruit, the cereal dispensers, the blood-soaked crown of a recently-operated man – all gleaming.
I sit at a corner table, take a bite of strained yogurt, and stare. At least half the crowd are post-op men; two with their partners, with patient expressions; a trio wrapped in horseshoe-shaped bandages as they heal; and one man, alone, devouring a smorgasbord and staring at his reddened scalp in selfie mode. At the restaurant’s entrance, a woman stops, mouth agape, to meet my gaze. I smile apologetically, by way of apology. Because I, too, am part of the cult. A born-again. A seeker of second chances. I pat my breast pocket for the umpteenth time. It’s still there: the biggest wad of bills I’ve ever carried: £4,800 I’d withdrawn from an east London ATM on that bleak December morning three days earlier.
I haven’t been seen in public without a hat for the last 10 years. In that time, only about five people outside my family have seen the top of my head. My hair started falling out at 18, thinning by 28, and now at 34, it’s a horseshoe shape. I’ve used a variety of smokescreen techniques to hide it. I don’t swim. I don’t share bedrooms. I avoid high winds, big fans, and head massages. Of course, there are also the risks of a hat slipping out of place that can’t be budgeted for. That’s the risk of a stranger snatching my beret at a party, or a braked taxi knocking my fedora upside down and fatally injuring me in public. Dating? It boils down to anxiety, fumbling in the dark, and awkward exposure. I wear a trucker cap to fancy dinners with my partner’s parents. My regular job is working from home, and I paint on a flashy wig and Groucho mustache when I perform as a musician.
But why is it so fatal for someone to see my head? My world won’t end, of course. But maybe it will. I love hair. And somehow, after a decade of follicular shame, I still can’t accept being bald. So I keep the top of my head covered, and hold on to some half-baked fantasy of being as hairy as my 20-year-old self.
Over Turkish coffee, I was given a detailed explanation of how to wash my hair and was warned not to let anything touch my head.
Of course, I’d heard about hair transplants for years, but I felt like the opportunity had long since passed for me — it was too late, I couldn’t afford it, and I’d avoided Googling anything hair-related because I knew the algorithms would quickly turn it into an ad-induced obstacle course.
But six months ago, a close friend suffering from the same ailment recommended I consult a company in Istanbul over WhatsApp. The company he visited was a third of the price of their UK counterparts. Jamie has done a ton of research. Unlike me, he tackled the problem head on and now sports a shiny mop. I trust him. The consultation convinced me my situation could be improved, so I got a quote and thought it through. It’s now or never. Hiding is exhausting. Accept what you have or take a chance on the Turks. I booked.
Istanbul’s status as Eurasia’s plastic surgery capital becomes clear the moment I step onto the skybridge, where the first thing I see is not the Hagia Sophia, but advertisements for nose jobs, dental crowns and transplants. Low labor costs, combined with a high number of doctors per capita, have helped Turkey build an industry that is expected to attract one million hair-transplant tourists in 2022. Amid Byzantine treasures, bloody heads and bandaged noses are everywhere. I’m hurried to a posh seaside hotel, where a company representative briefs me on the next day’s procedure.
The next morning, racked with first-day-of-school anxiety, I headed to the hospital clutching a wad of bills (cash is the cheapest option). The building oozes Trump energy: a huge white cube with three Italianate colonnades topped by a giant company crest. Gold-painted giraffe sculptures line the front yard.
A man in a black turtleneck and brand new Alexander McQueen sneakers escorted me to the reception area, where another man in the same uniform escorted me to a room that contained nothing but a man and a cash machine. I was so nervous I signed a contract I couldn’t read it.
The events that follow unfold with cinematic choreography. As a first-time private-health customer, this smoothness is unnatural. I sit in the barber’s chair while three clean-cut, turtlenecked women examine my head, iPhones in hand and stroking my chin. Are they doctors? Hairdressers? Actors? My photograph is taken, my head is shaved, a suggested hairline is drawn on my forehead. Shit, is this the hairline I want? Why didn’t I think of this before? Is it permanent? Of course. I wonder what was in that contract. There are probably risks. I shrug. Seems about right. Vaguely Virgo, and natural enough.
Then an awed silence fell as another operator, obviously more senior than me, entered the room. He was the founder of the company, spoke no English, and I was told he would be drawing the final line. He silently wiped away the previous line, pinched my temple with a caliper, and flashed a laser level at my eye. He stroked his chin and redrawn the line with deft hands.
“Is this the hairline I want, a vaguely Virgo hairline?”: Rudy Zigadlo after his transplant. Photograph: Amit Lennon/The Guardian. Grooming: Sarah Bowden
A few minutes later I was in a gown in an operating theatre. A friendly, English-speaking turtle asked me what music I wanted to listen to, then three doctors in scrubs laid me down and stuck needles in my arms, prepared an IV for vital nutrients, an EKG, and a blood pressure monitor. “The Goldberg Variations,” I croaked. “Murray Perahia is playing.” I nearly fainted at the sight of the first drops of my own blood. “The anesthesia will hurt a bit,” the turtle said. Shit, did it hurt? Fifty injections in the space of fifteen minutes, each stitch a searing jolt to my skull, the only sound I could hear was a spade digging through the grass.
The anesthesia is over and I’m lying face down. The soundtrack has algorithmically changed to whale songs, but I can’t ask the doctors to change it, because they’re busy harvesting hair follicles from the still-grassy donor areas on the sides and back of my head. It’s painless, thankfully, but it takes a while to get used to the scraping, gouging sounds. For two hours, all I can see are a couple of pairs of black Crocs while the doctors use a micropunch tool to harvest 4,800 hair follicles and place them in a petri dish. 4,800 follicles! A pound each.
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Finally, the actual transplantation begins. Each extracted hair follicle is taken and inserted into the appropriate hole using jewellery forceps. For four hours, I watch a video on a screen above the EKG monitor while the new follicles are implanted into my head. I drift off to sleep listening to an all-time favourite, Keith Floyd’s “Floyd on France”.
That’s it. After eight hours of surgery, I was given medicine and a travel pillow, solemnly told not to touch the top of my head, and hustled back to the hotel. I felt pain, guilt, and excitement. When I confess to my mother later what I’ve done, I’ll say, “Mom, some people permanently stain their skin with tattoos, some people wear makeup every day, some people change their gender because they want to feel good about their body. I’m just moving a few hair follicles from the back of my head to the top of my head. It’s no big deal.” But I know that no matter what I say, I can’t justify the expense. I sleep for an hour and dream of my new grafts blowing away in the wind.
The next day, I visit the clinic, which has a space-age feel from the ’60s, with automatic sliding doors, Arne Jacobsen chairs, and backlit, encouraging messages on the walls. My bandages are removed, and a figure in a mask and apron mops up volcanic islands of blood that have dried in various places after erupting overnight. Over Turkish coffee, I receive detailed instructions on how to wash my hair for the next 10 days: spray my scalp with a foam disinfectant spray each day, dab a shampoo lather on it, and wipe it off with kitchen paper, careful not to get anything on the top of my head. I then head back to base camp for the final time, devouring multiple meals while taking selfies with my free hand.
The flight back was my biggest fear. Two airport security guards, the crowds, the small space. The plane was full, there were five other immigrants, and I was given an aisle seat as usual. The middle seat passenger changed seats with me when he noticed me flinching as people passed by or rummaged through the overhead bins. What an angel. I worry about whether the facial recognition at passport control will recognise me. Not only is my head bloody, my face is swollen in many places. The turnstiles slid open and I made it to the arrivals lounge without being mocked or shoved.
Now, all we have to do is wait: scabs, weird shampoos, and many more months until we find out what new scenery is out there.
Six months later, after several hair loss and regrowth cycles, I have a defined, fairly natural hairline. The transplanted hair is fairly dense in the front, but sparser towards the top, and almost nonexistent. Overall, though, the results are within expectations. I still wear a hat most of the time, but every once in a while I gently take it off. One friend affectionately calls it “hat-taking.” I’m no stranger to strong winds, but I feel more confident. It’s worth it. I went shopping the other day, a 20-minute round trip walk, and interacted directly with neighbors, cashiers, and various passers-by…without a hat. It was an exciting concept, and probably the first time I’d been out completely unprotected since 2013. I was intoxicated. It felt good.
