Tia, a 34-year-old director at a non-profit based in Atlanta who asked to be referred to by first name only, had been experiencing thinning around her hairline since she was 15 years old. She too made a spur-of-the-moment decision after scrolling. “It’s always been something that I was really self-conscious about. I never wore my hair up in ponytails because of the thinning of the edges,” she says. During her first and only PRP treatment two years ago, the technician suggested that she may be experiencing traction alopecia, although she has not received a formal diagnosis. She decided to look into hair restoration surgery in the U.S., but was quoted over $7,000—a number she says was out of her budget at the time.
This past summer, Tia decided to take action. “I saw this one girl’s results [online] and it was about two o’clock in the morning, and I was like, You know what? I’m just going to book it and I’m going to do it,” she says. The clinic Tia ended up reaching out to was Heva Clinic, which markets itself as “Afro-textured Hair Experts” and also offers dental work. “Heva Clinic is the one I kept seeing Black women going to with really good results,” she says. Tia arrived in Turkey on September 18, 2025, and received her hair transplant on the 19th. The next day, she was on a flight back home. In all, she paid $2,600 for the package and $700 for flights to and from Atlanta.
Not all women who seek out hair transplants are experiencing hair loss. Nychy Eyanna, a 26-year-old based in Virginia, says she received a hair transplant to make her forehead smaller. She had been studying abroad in Italy when she came across a video on TikTok of someone flying to Turkey for a transplant. After watching, she booked her appointment for less than two weeks later. “I always just told myself if the chance ever came to make [my forehead] smaller, I would do it,” she says. “The opportunity came, I had the money, I was already living in Europe, and I decided to do it before I came back to the U.S.” While Eyanna is happy she went through with the procedure, she says she “hasn’t had great hair growth” since her surgery in 2023—so much so that she’s thinking about getting another one.
Dr. Jason Champagne, a double board-certified plastic surgeon and hair-restoration surgeon based in Beverly Hills often recommends a hairline lowering procedure, which is when the hairline is physically pulled down through an incision, instead of a hair transplant to decrease forehead size. For women who choose the transplant route, Dr. Champagne says achieving the same density at the hairline is difficult because grafts can’t be placed too close together. This may be what Eyanna is experiencing.
While the internet may make it seem like women are heading to Turkey in droves, it’s still a small percentage of the entire hair restoration industry. Medical tourism as we know it is booming, although most American professionals would not recommend traveling to a foreign country for any kind of cosmetic surgery. Dr. Champagne says that while crossing borders for care is ultimately the patient’s decision, it needs to be an educated one. “I wouldn’t say that surgeons in Turkey are less qualified and that this procedure is not properly researched. There are many qualified surgeons there,” he tells Allure. “But people going to some high-volume or destination clinics, whether in Turkey or somewhere else, should pay attention not only to price and marketing but also to the actual performance of their surgery.”
