Can I Wear My Hair Short After Hair Transplant Surgery?

For years, hair transplant surgery, when performed correctly, is undetectable from the patient’s original hair. Of course, it is your own growing hair taken from the back and transplanted to the bald or thinning areas in front or top of the scalp.

However, due to the surgical technique of harvesting hair-bearing tissue from the back by excising a linear strip of hair and then suturing the area closed, bringing the hair from the top and below back together, a narrow linear scar is left, which is covered by the surrounding hair.

With improvements in trichophytic donor closure, the remaining scar is usually so minor that even the patient's barber would not be able to notice it.

Several years ago, follicular unit extraction (FUE) donor harvesting was introduced, where individual follicular units are extracted using a tiny punch or circular scalpel, typically with a diameter of between 0.7 and 1.0 mm. These tiny excisions, when properly spaced, are almost invisible even when the hair is trimmed very short, exposing the scalp.

In this case, the patient wanted all his hair very short after surgery.

Donor area before and after FUE hair transplant surgery. There is no visible evidence of hair being removed or scarring.

Things to Keep in Mind

• Healing Time: Patients should wait at least 2–4 weeks before trimming the donor area with clippers, and 6–12 months before evaluating the final look with very short styles.
• Scar Visibility: The shorter the cut (especially under a #1 guard), the greater the risk of small white dot scars being visible, especially under bright light.
• Skin tone and hair color contrast matter—a high contrast (e.g., light skin with black hair) can make scars more visible.
• Number of grafts removed: Heavier extractions can thin out the donor area more, making scarring or uneven texture more noticeable with very short cuts.