Women Are Getting Hair Transplants in Turkey, Too

23.09.2026, 16:06 allure.com

Nearly one million people travel to Istanbul, Turkey each year for a very specific reason—and it’s not to hunt for treasures inside the Grand Bazaar’s labyrinth of shops or take in the grandeur of the Blue Mosque. It’s to bring home a new head of hair. You may have seen the many TikToks and memes about hordes of men flocking to “Hairstanbul” for hair transplants and flying back to the United States with bandages wrapped around their freshly shaved scalps—even New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani joked he’s taking minoxidil to try and “push off Turkey”—but it’s not just men who are crossing borders in pursuit of more luscious locks. A growing number of women—especially Black women—appear to be doing the same.

Eloise Dufka, a 25-year-old fashion and lifestyle content creator based in New York City, says that her most-worn hairstyle is a slicked-back bun. To be more precise: Dufka has been tugging her hair back into a sleek up-do about six times a week since 2022. “I feel so much more confident when my hair is slicked back,” she says. “I love the way it looks. I love how my jawline is accentuated.” But after almost four years (and an estimated 1,300 slicked back styles) later, she started to notice the hair framing her face was thinning. Dufka did not receive a formal diagnosis from a dermatologist, but assumes that she was dealing with traction alopecia, a form of hair loss caused by continuously pulling on the hair follicles. Instead of seeking out medical care in the United States, she decided it was time to head to Turkey.

Although that may seem like an impulsive decision for someone to make—a hair transplant is, in fact, a major medical procedure—Dufka wasn’t too concerned. “I live my life on a YOLO basis,” she says, adding that she’d rather get the procedure over with than spend her time trying to see if other hair restoration methods would work.

During her preliminary research last fall, Dufka came across a woman on TikTok who had posted about the positive experience she had at the Turkish clinic HairNeva. It was one of the only clinics she found that had multiple testimonials from women. She was sold, and contacted them through their website. The process was simple: After sending the clinic photos of her hairline and chatting with a concierge about what the procedure entails, she received a text summarizing their call with photos of what the surgery would look like along with how many grafts they think they’ll need and a quote for how much it would cost. Shortly after, she booked her roundtrip flights from Paris to Istanbul for a few weeks later.

On November 13, 2025, Dufka hopped aboard “Turkish Hair Lines” and landed in Istanbul. She was picked up from the airport by transportation arranged by HairNeva and brought to a Marriott hotel housed in the same building as the clinic. The next morning she had a consultation with her doctor, where they took her blood, did an EKG, and marked up her new hairline for approval. After, they shaved a small window on the back of Dufka’s head to prepare for harvesting donor follicles, brought her into the operating room where she was numbed, and then, the extraction began. Dufka had 1,850 grafts removed, which took around four hours. “You're face down, you're not asleep,” she says, “and then after that, they flip you from face down to face up and they go straight into implanting.”

In total, Dufka was in the operating room for eight to nine hours with one break in the middle. While she says that, in retrospect, she could’ve easily flown home the next day, she had booked a hotel in Turkey until November 19 because she couldn’t predict how much she’d swell. The total cost of her procedure was $2,900—it was originally $3,300, but she says she received a “winter discount.” She was not compensated nor given an additional discount for later posting about her experience on social media.

Eloise Dufka before and after her hair transplant.

Dr. Crystal Agbuh, a board-certified dermatologist and director of the Ethnic Skin Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, says hair loss among women has exploded in recent years. While there are reports that this may be due to a number of things like GLP-1 use, an increase in stress, and the COVID pandemic, Dr. Agbuh offers another explanation: “It's an epidemic, and that's because of traction alopecia.” An uptick in awareness surrounding the condition may be another reason why Dr. Agbuh has been seeing more patients recently, she says. It also could be why the majority of women Allure has seen posting about their hair loss-related jaunts to Turkey are Black.

While other types of hair loss, like androgenetic alopecia—a condition caused by genetics and hormones that shrinks hair follicles that’s also known as female-pattern hair loss—are more common and occur equally across racial and ethnic groups, Dr. Agbuh says traction alopecia disproportionately affects women of color because they’re more likely to wear tight buns, braids, weaves, and locs that put added pressure on hair follicles. Curly hair is also more fragile and easier to pull out. While the sources who responded to Allure's interview requests for this story were all Black women, Dr. Agbuh says traction alopecia is also occurring at significantly higher rates in women who have straight hair due to the increasing popularity in hair extensions and slicked-back hairstyles.

According to the International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS), the number of women receiving hair transplants across the globe rose by 16.5% between 2021 and 2024. People aren't flocking to Turkey for new hairlines because the country's surgeons have access to cutting-edge transplant technology that’s unavailable in the U.S. It's in large part because it has two other things: Low prices and a great PR team. Turkey’s growing hair transplant and restoration industry in particular entices people with easy-to-digest all-inclusive packages advertised on their websites, online placements, and social media. Dufka was able to receive her hair transplant, a platelet-rich plasma treatment (also known as PRP, a process that injects your own processed blood into your scalp and is considered to be a helpful treatment for hair regrowth), one month of medicated shampoo and conditioner and post-op medication, local transportation, and accommodations for two nights in her package deal. Meals and the flights to Turkey weren’t included, so she paid for her tickets from Paris, where she was staying at the time, and back to the United States.

Fateh Bey, a communications professional at HairNeva, says the clinic has recently invested in partnering with more influencers (a.k.a giving them free or discounted treatments in exchange for posting about their experience) from the United States and the United Kingdom to bring in more international patients. “Right now we are living in a world where people keep browsing social media,” Bey says. “People are on Instagram, TikTok, and social media all the time, so when they see one of the influencers they follow or they trust and they see that they went to a clinic and did a treatment, they are more intrigued to research this clinic.” Each hair transplant recipient Allure spoke to for this story says they were influenced to book their procedures by first-person testimonials they saw on social media, so it seems like HairNeva’s plan is working. (They also said they did not receive any influencer discounts in exchange for posting.)

Dr. Oma Agbai, a board-certified dermatologist based in Northern California who has expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of hair and scalp disorders, says she’s personally seen how social media has inspired more women to seek out treatment for their hair loss. “I am getting more and more women coming in asking not only for hair transplantation, but also for just hair restoration in general,” she says, which includes non-surgical modes like PRP and both topical and oral medications. It makes sense—sharing an intimate experience like a hair transplant online is a surefire way to go viral, and seeing someone’s first-hand review can encourage others to follow in the creator’s footsteps or, at least, take the first step in seeking out treatment.

Affordability is also a driving factor for many patients who decide to leave the country: As previously reported by Allure, a hair transplant in the United States could run you upwards of $20,000; the four women who were interviewed for this story all paid under $4,000 for similar comprehensive packages. This reduced price is made possible in part by the country’s decades-long investment into its medical tourism sector, cheap labor, and low equipment costs.

Chizi Duru, a 30-year-old beauty influencer who built a career styling her natural 4C hair, says the low cost was what motivated her to book the procedure abroad. Duru first started noticing hair loss and soreness in her scalp around 2016. After years of unanswered questions, continuing symptoms, and thinning around her hairline, she underwent a scalp biopsy in 2024. At last, she received an answer: androgenetic alopecia. “Part of me grieves for my younger self and all the time that I could have been preventing this [pain] or getting it treated much earlier,” she told Allure last year following her diagnosis. “But I'm also grateful that I decided to advocate for myself and try again and get some answers.”

With help from New York City-based dermatologist Michelle Henry, Duru started a combination of prescription minoxidil (the active ingredient in Rogaine which, as an oral medication, is FDA-approved to treat high blood pressure but is often prescribed off-label for hair growth) and ketoconazole shampoo (a topical that helps manage hair thinning). On top of that, she started applying hair serums and vitamins she received from brands, giving herself scalp massages, using a dermaroller, and washing her hair more often. Still, it wasn’t enough. “Although I was seeing