There’s a certain obsession with knowing whether or not certain celebrities or public figures have had plastic surgery or hair transplants. Knowing if the people on TV naturally look as good as they do or if they have paid to keep up their appearance, is one thing that everyone seems to be intrigued by.

This notion that celebrities are just naturally beautiful or go through the aging process better than everyone else is this thing that mystifies a lot of people that don’t deal with these types of things on a daily basis.

For a plastic surgeon or a hair transplant specialist, a lot of times we notice things about people that most people don’t. We can spot when someone has had plastic surgery or when they have had a hair transplant. There are certain things that you can look out for to figure out who has had what done and once you learn about them, they can be pretty obvious.

The sign of a good procedure is when even a doctor can’t be certain whether someone has had work done or not; it’s always the people that have undergone a bad hair transplant or plastic surgery procedure that stick out the most. Dr. Krejci likes to say, “The sign of a great hair transplant is that no one knows you’ve had one. My best work, goes completely unnoticed.”

When it comes to celebrity hair transplants, there are a number of men who aren’t afraid to come out and say they’ve had the procedure done, but there are a lot of them that just disappear one day and then appear a couple months later with a full head of hair but don’t say anything.

One of the most prolific people in the spotlight today, who doesn’t like to comment on his hair, is Donald Trump.  And while we don’t know for sure if he’s actually come out and said that he’s had one, let’s dive into what we think about his hair, as hair transplant specialists.

Donald Trump’s Hair Transplants

Donald Trump’s hair has been talked about for years, but it wasn’t until he became president did the scrutiny really start to mount.

Trump has had a very unique comb-over hair style that many people believe hides the fact that he’s had a hair transplant or that he’s been utilizing wigs over the course of his life. While his hair does resemble a bad wig or toupee, it’s unlikely that the hair we see every day isn’t his own hair. The way it blows in the wind, exposing a large bald crown would lead most people to believe that it is his own hair, but that’s not to say he hasn’t had some help over the years.

It’s obvious to anyone that looks at Trump that his hair is very thin and has probably become thinner as he has aged (let’s not forget he’s almost 80). Even looking back at old photos of Donald Trump Sr. you’ll see that he started to have receding temples around age 30. So, there are indications that what we see from Donald Trump Jr., in terms of his hair, is not all natural, but has he had a hair transplant?

Without a person coming forward and saying that they absolutely had hair transplant surgery, one can never be too certain, unless, of course, the surgeons did a terrible job. With Trump, we’re assuming that he has access to exceptional doctors that would leave him without much evidence of a hair transplant, but if you look close in certain pictures, he may not be hiding it as well as he thinks.

In some photos of Trump, when the wind is blowing his hair, there is a noticeable incision on the back/side of his head underneath the longer hair that he typically combs over. An incision like this is typical when utilizing certain methods of hair transplant, but the positioning of the scar isn’t where you would normally find a scar for an FUT and FUE has only gained traction in the last 10 years in the hair restoration world. Donald has been sporting his unique combover since the early 1980s.

Because the scar isn’t in the normal place on his scalp it could mean a few things, one, it’s a scar from something else totally unrelated to his hair, maybe an injury in the past. Two, he may have had a hair transplant way back in the past and this is where the doctor at the time decided to excise the donor hair follicles from. Or three, he hasn’t had a typical hair transplant, but instead had a scalp reduction or other scalp surgery in the past.

Scalp reduction surgery has fallen out of favor these days, but in the 1980’s it was more prevalent in helping to reduce bald spots, especially in the crown. In this surgery, an area of the scalp skin would be simply removed or excised and the nearby skin with healthy follicles would be stretched up and over to cover the balding areas. This procedure is rarely performed due to the advancements in hair transplant procedures, but it could explain the odd scar on his scalp.

Given the evolution of his notable swoosh of hair over his forehead, our suspicion on Donald Trump is that he had a Juri Flap which was popular in the late 1970s.  Also known as the temporo-parieto-occipital flap, introduced in 1969 by Dr. Juri.  This was the first large skin flap performed for reconstructive and aesthetic purposes on the scalp. Essentially, a long skinny strip of skin is loosened from the scalp on the side of the head over the ear, it is left attached near the front of the ear and then the strip of skin (the flap) is turned upwards towards the hairline and stitched in place to create a new hairline where one was receding. This hair is very resilient, because it is the same hair follicles that are used for an FUT strip, but the resulting hairline is not as natural since there’s an incision scar at the front of the hairline where it was stitched into the upper forehead. Donald’s famous comb-over would hide any scars that may have resulted from this procedure but not the further loss he’s experienced over the years on the back of his head.

Donald Trump’s Hair

The world will probably never now if former President Donald Trump has ever undergone a hair transplant in his life, as he’s likely never going to come out and tell anyone if he has. But seeing as how he is almost 80 years old, he’s probably, at the very least, used some sort of medical therapy to help keep his hair healthy and promote hair growth.

His hair is relatively thin, which is normal for his age, but with the help of a well-paid hairdresser and a lot of hair spray, he is able to groom the remaining hair well in order to cover most of his head – depending on which way the wind is blowing. We think we can see a good amount of baldness under that swirl of hair on top. It’ll just remain one of those mysteries of the world as to whether or not he’s undergone an actual hair transplant, a scalp flap or if that’s just the way his hair has naturally grown and aged over the years.

Personally, we believe that he’s at least had medical therapy for hair loss, but based on his father’s hair and the rate of balding, we’re going to guess that he’s had some type of surgical procedure to help augment the thinning and balding of his scalp.