Rugby star Stuart Hogg’s hair transplant

Stuart Hogg’s Hair Transplant Success

The Scottish rugby international Stuart Hogg appears to have undergone a highly successful hair transplant procedure.

You can see quite a stark difference in the appearance of his hair between last year and this year in the pictures below.

In the before picture from 2017, his widow’s peak, showing fairly advanced male pattern baldness around the temples, is highly noticeable and he is thinning noticeably right across the front of the scalp.

In the after picture from this year he has filled in all the bald spots on the top of his scalp and he has a neat and full hairline.

It is quite a transformation and he looks years younger in the second picture.

Ful-back Hogg has more than 50 caps for Scotland and has toured with the British and Irish Lions in 2013 and 2017.

He is only 26 which is a relatively young age for a hair transplant.

Around a quarter of men will have already experienced some form of hair loss by this age.

At Crown Clinic, our consultant hair transplant surgeon Asim Shahmalak will not operate on any patients below the age of 25.

That is because a surgeon needs to see how a patient’s hair loss will progress before conducting surgery, and that is impossible below the age of 25.

Dr Shahmalak has turned down some very high profile patients seeking surgery before the age of 25 because he felt it was medically inappropriate.

Not all doctors are as ethical as Dr Shahmalak but he will always put the needs of a patient first.

Hogg follows a long line of sports stars who have sought help with their male pattern baldness with surgery.

Dr Shahmalak has operated on several well-known sporting celebrities including the former Liverpool and Man City footballer Didi Hamann and also the former Olympic diver Peter Waterfield.

Most sports stars opt for the more modern form of hair transplantation, FUE (follicular unit extraction), where the donor grafts and removed one-by-one from the back and sides of the scalp and replanted in the balding areas.

Other celebrity hair transplant patients at Crown Clinic include model Calum Best, Homes Under The Hammer presenter Martin Roberts and Gogglebox star Chris Butland-Steed. Around 80% of clients at Crown Clinic choose FUE.

Dr Shahmalak also performs the more traditional method of hair transplantation, FUT (follicular unit transplantation), where the donor grafts are removed at the same time surgically by cutting a strip of skin from the back or side of the scalp.

These grafts are removed under a microscope by technicians and replanted in the badling areas in the same way as FUE by Dr Shahmalak. Around 20% of Crown Clinic patients opt for FUT including the celebrity doctor Christian Jessen who has had two FUT procedures with Dr Shahmalak.

Because Stuart Hogg wears his wear fairly short there is a small possibility he may have opted for a further hair restoration method also performed at Crown Clinic.

This is Scalp Micropigmentation (SMP), a detailed tattooing process which creates the illusion of a fuller and denser head of hair. At Crown Clinic we specialise in camouflaging scarring and increasing the appearance of hair density through this method. Colour pigment is applied about a millimetre below the skin’s surface, blending seamlessly with the existing hair, to create a perfect head of cropped hair. Several sports stars have had SMP including former England and Crystal Palace forward Andros Townsend.

Whatever method he chose, Hogg is to be congratulated on his hair. It looks much better than before and he looks years younger. Taking such a bold course of action to combat male pattern baldness at such a young age is to be admired.

Restoration of a full head of hair can significantly boost’s a man’s confidence, particularly a high profile sports star whose income depends on him being an attractive proposition to sponsors.