Bosley Hair Transplant Reviews

Admittedly, my Bosley hair restoration review is a bit old; not old enough to be irrelevant...but old enough. I often get feedback asking for updated hair transplant reviews so - with permission from the sender - I am posting the following which was sent to me a little over a month ago. If you have your own Bosley hair review (good or bad) I encourage you to submit them to this site so that we can help people to make a more informed decision - not one based off of advertising dollars.

Bosley Hair Review by (Name Withheld)

The majority of hair loss that I've experienced is in the back of my head. To date, I've had 3 surgeries within the past 7 years. Unfortunately for me and my wife, the hair on the back of my head is still incredibly thin. Forewarned is fair warned, so if you're seriously considering a Bosley hair transplant, there are some key facts that you should bear in mind:

• Presently, the medical procedures they use WON'T make your hair thick enough to cover any kind of major hair loss. What you basically end up with is a thin semi see-through layer of hair.


• Watch out for the pricing! Bosely Medical stung my wallet for over $7,500...and I only received 1000 follicular grafts in the first surgery! The second surgery was around $5000 and again - only 1000 or so grafts. For my third procedure I did things differently and saw a private doctor. Their prices were slightly different and I received 1500 grafts for about $6500


• You are full conscious during the operation, so those of you that fear needles and blood should take warning. Even though you are awake, you really don't have much interaction with the doctor. In fact, the doctor does VERY little of the procedure at all. The vast majority of the process is spent with hair loss "technicians". The technicians are the ones that actually place the grafts into holes in your head. All the doctor does is punch out the holes and extract the donor strip....yep, that's it. It is worth noting that most of these hair loss "technicians" have little to no experience. For example, during my second surgery I was asked if I would mind if they used my head to teach some new technicians they had just brought on. This was the first time they even mentioned the proposition so I quickly said "No".


• They will fill your head with statements like "You'll be back at work in a day"...that's bull. Recovery hurts. A lot. The scarring can be intense and heals extremely slowly. You have to be extra careful when you are washing or conditioning your hair and the removal of stitches can be very painful. After my first surgery, the stitches were sewn in so deep that it took 3 techs and a lot of yanking to dig them out and my scalp still hurt three months later!

There's a lot more to the story that I'm leaving out for brevity. If you have hair loss/are going bald - I'm not saying you shouldn't consider hair grafts. Technically, you could say that I have regrown enough hair in the back to get it to a longer length but to be perfectly honest friends and co-workers still point out my bald spot. You need to be ready to try and haggle the price down, because one surgery won't be enough. Also, don't buy the extra stuff like the "after care" package as it does nothing - it also doesn't hurt if you have very low expectations for your procedure.

Does Bosley Work? Submit Your Own Bosley Reviews

Well in my opinion - yes and no. Bosley uses a transplant procedure commonly known as Follicular Unit Transplantation. How well this procedure works is really just a roll of the dice because it all depends on the doctor. The procedure Bosley's doctors use works like this:

• The Bosley surgeon exctracts a small to medium strip of hair (size depends on the number of grafts and available donor area) off the back of the transplant patients noggin.


• The surgeon then stitches up the area where the hair was extracted to try and minimize the size of the scar. If you go by Bosley's marketing material, they will try to convince you that the scars are always minimal and nothing to worry about. These kind of bold statements that can't always be supported has gotten them in trouble in the past. In reality, the scarring will depend on the skill of your surgeon and is subject to a case-by-case basis.


• Once the chunk of scalp/donor area is cut, small groups of follicles and hair are removed and split up for the implanting process.


• At long last, each small piece is planted into your scalp. How natural the it looks is entirely contingent upon the skill and artistry of the surgeon.

That's all well and good, but does Bosley really work?

The issue of whether or not Bosley will work for you is really a two sided coin. While Bosley does use the industry standard transplantation technique of follicular unit grafting, they have gotten into a LOT of hot water in the past; both for their marketing practices and probably the scariest bit - medical violations. To date, Bosley's founder Larry Bosley has had his license to practice medicine taken or put on probation in close to 20 states. Unfortunately, the amount of scary information doesn't stop there. California filed a lawsuit against the companies in the 90's for misleading advertising, and NBC's Dateline featured an undercover investigation into Bosley's services and practices.

I can't make the broad statement that Bosley's doctors all sub-par or that they are still perpetuating their past discrepancies - I haven't been to a Bosley doctor in quite a while and who knows, they may have improved. Its my opinion though that between the shoddy work they did on my own head, coupled with their reputation that you will receive a much better transplant from a private doctor or smaller facility where you can call or speak to the doctor directly pre and post-op, and get the individualized service I think is important for accountability

My Bosley Review

Over the last 5 years, I've had three procedures done by Bosley on the back of my head which is where I was experiencing hair loss.  After repeated promises and dumping a small fortune into the Bosley doctor's coffers, this area is still thin and noticeably balding.  I've encountered my fair share of short comings with the Bosley procedure as well as a few just plain misleading marketing tactics during my experience with them.  Some things you may want to consider if you are thinking about going to Bosley are:

• The procedure may add MORE hair to your balding areas, but it will still be noticeably thin and in most cases won't cover any spots where your scalp is visible.  This seems to be even more the case if you have the procedure done in the back.


• Bosley presents their pricing as "fixed" when in fact it is quite flexible.  I received 1,000 grafts for my first procedure and ended up paying just over $8,000 for this.  The second time around, I paid just under $5,000 for the same number of grafts.  I went to MHR for my third procedure.  MHR is a wholy owned subsidiary of Bosley that I believe they are currently working on rebranding under the Bosley name.  I received just over 1300 grafts for 6K that time.  They also wanted me to pay for some sort of after care products that did zero good.  I don't know if Bosley is offering this to its clients as well since it has upsorbed MHR, but if it is I'd suggest you opt out of it.


• Most of the procedure isn't even done by a doctor. The vast majority of the time I spend during my procedure was with medical assistants called "hair technicians" who are the ones that place the actual grafts into the holes that the doctor has made into your scalp.  Some of these medical assistants are experienced, others....not so much.  During my second procedure a "technician" was actually using my head to teach a new hire how to place grafts.  No one had informed me this would be occuring, nor did they ask my permission to use a new hire to place grafts into my scalp.  Later in the procedure the more experienced "technician" was actually comparing and pointing out to the new hire the difference in quality of my grafts.


• Recovery hurts - really, REALLY badly.  Obviously any kind of surgery is going to hurt, I'm not naive.  With that said, the doctor at Bosley was unrealistic describing how much pain I would actually be in.  When you wash your hair you have to be EXTREMELY care ful that you don't reopen your scar, which heals slowly.  Suture removal is never fun by my last go-round it took two medical assistants and a lot of wrestling with the stitches to get them out.  Four months later, it is still extremely tender and painful where I had my procedure.

There is a lot more and when I have the time, I'll post my experiences here to share. I guess I can't really say that no one should even think about the procedure.  I have some hair growing in the back that I can grow to different lengths, that said - a lot of my friends still take notice of and point out my bald spot.  If you do decide to go through with it, don't purchase anything extra and expect a heck of a lot less than you were promised.