Aria is a 27-year-old woman who was born in London. She’s officially become one with the growing ranks of women searching for voice-activated solutions to hair loss. Outside of cosplay, Aria lives with her parents, her twin brother, and her older sister. These experiences have exacerbated her concern with her receding hairline and resulted in visible, negative changes to her appearance. Most importantly, her sister has an even more drastic cause for concern, with an even higher forehead than Aria.
According to Aria, the main catalyst for her hair loss started when she herself came down with Covid-19 in 2021. After her first infection, she began to experience a high hairline around the frontal edges of her hair. This worrisome outcome became even worse following her fight with the virus—twice. This led to her hair getting frizzy and thin at the edges of her head. “Every time I step outside, the first thing on my mind is my forehead,” Aria commented, highlighting the emotional toll of her hair loss.
On departure day for her spay procedure Aria was processing the Maitland Clinic in Portsmouth, Hampshire around 8 am. She’d actually used the time to squeeze in a salmon poke bowl lunch beforehand. She knew how important the process was. To alleviate her nervousness throughout the transplant, they provided her two tablets of codeine to serve as a sedative.
While her total hair transplant procedure cost her £5,500. For Aria, the whole experience was equally exhilarating and terrifying. She was awake enough to hear a “crunching noise” as the doctors worked on her head. As Dr. Ball, the surgeon who carried out the operation, told us, it was important to him to achieve a symmetrical and beautiful result. “The dressing has to be absolutely beautiful and symmetrical,” he stated.
Dr. Ball also said it’s important to remove the stigma of hair loss for women. She emphasized the importance of empowering more advocates and leaders with lived experience to impact those they affect. There’s just not that much guidance available for them. No stars are singing about it, no one is making them feel regular, so they feel ashamed. He wants to get real about these emotions, because a lot of women are made to feel bad for worrying about their appearance.
Aria’s experience, while extreme, is not uncommon, and countless other women are still too intimidated to speak out. Dr. Vara noticed that over 90% of women who present for hair loss treatment do not immediately meet the criteria for surgery. That leaves a very critical gap in short-term treatments. Such a statistic serves to highlight not only the complexity of hair restoration for women, but how much more we must do to provide support and direction.
Soon after Aria’s transplant—just shy of one week—she is feeling good and staying positive about what the future holds. The procedure is intended to do more than just bring her hairline back—it’s meant to make her feel more confident and feminine.
“Now for my favourite part – the arty bit!” – Dr. Ball