Ten years ago Jonathan Long, then aged 34, began to hate what he saw when he looked in the mirror.
The hereditary male-pattern baldness that resulted in his father losing most of his hair by the age of 21 was taking its toll and, as his hairline receded, Jonathan, a hairdresser with his own salon on London’s Kings Road, found it was affecting his personality as well as his appearance.
His wife Sophie watched helplessly as the happy, confident man she married 12 years ago turned into an angry introvert.
For many men, baldness is an unwelcome part of the ageing process. But whether they succumb to a monk-like tonsure or a gleaming egghead, few dare admit the misery it causes. The sense that a head of hair is indicative of greater masculinity and sexual appeal is deep-rooted — an attitude the billion-dollar hair loss-remedy industry isn’t keen to dispel.
Sophie Long (pictured with her husband) describes how her husband Jonathan’s hair loss affected their relationship, leading to him getting a £10,000 hair transplant
As Sophie, 37, will attest, many men are unable to vocalise how upset they are. Call it Samson syndrome, but baldness affects many men psychologically as well as physically and yet they don’t feel able to talk about the impact on their self-esteem.
When Jonathan, 44, decided to take drastic action last year, undergoing a £10,000 hair transplant, Sophie was secretly relieved. The result? Not only a more youthful-looking husband but a revitalised relationship, too. Here, the couple share their diary of a dramatic transformation and the life-changing effect it has had on them as a couple.
July 2016
Sophie says: As Jon began to lose his hair, he became super-sensitive about it. I tried reassuring him, saying perhaps he would just have a slightly receding hairline like his grandad and that would be ok. But I soon realised Jon was going the same way as his dad — who was completely bald by the time he was in his 20s.
Nothing I said helped. I could tell Jon hated not having the versatility to change his hairstyle when he wanted to. He was getting more stressed and angry. If someone made a joke about going bald, he would fly at them, which I found shocking because he wasn’t the easy-going, fun-loving Jon of old.
He became miserable and introverted, relying on hats whenever we went out and if someone knocked or snatched his hat off, he went crazy. I couldn’t believe he would be like this, but I came to realise it was getting to him more than any of us knew.
And to be truthful, it did age him. Not at first, but in the six months before he had the transplant, I noticed he was prone to looking tired or worried. I still loved him, of course, but I didn’t like the effect it was having on him. He wasn’t the confident, happy man I married.
Jonathan says: The fact I was destined to lose my hair was always the big family joke: ‘Oh you may be a hairdresser but you’re going to end up bald like your dad,’ they used to say.
Jonathan (pictured six months after the transplant, left, and ten months after right) got noticeably thicker hair following the procedure
When I got to 25 and I still had my own hair, I was hopeful I had beaten the curse. But in my 30s, I began to shed hair fast. That’s when friends and family really started to make fun and I found that quite hurtful.
I tried expensive serums and even went in for a painful treatment called PRP, which involves blood transfusions and rolling your scalp until it bleeds in order to stimulate hair growth, but it had no improving effect.
People’s insensitive jokes would send me into a rage. You wouldn’t say to someone: ‘Oh you’re getting fat’ — so why is it all right to make comments about hair loss?
I hated catching sight of myself in the salon mirrors. I found my ‘crop circle’ bald spot at the back and ‘island’ of hair at the front massively ageing. Sadly, I couldn’t embrace my hair loss. It got to me. Defeated me really. I became a serial hat wearer. I was thoroughly miserable, and started to think a hair transplant was my last hope.
August 2016
Sophie: I was relieved when Jon decided to do something about his hair. In our family, I had always been the hair-obsessed one, but by this point Jon had way overtaken me. However, I thought if it was happening to me, I would want to do something about it.
Jonathan (pictured three months after the procedure, left, and ten months after right) had a sore head for months after the transplant, admitting that day-to-day progress is slow
I wasn’t worried about the expense. To me it was like spending that amount of money on good dentistry.
My only concern was that it might not work and he would be massively disappointed.
Jonathan: I started looking for a doctor to do my transplant. At the salon, I see clients who have had them. If not done properly the new hair can look like a wig, with a rounded hairline of coarse hairs laid in the wrong direction sticking up in spikes. I didn’t want a ‘Lego head’ with a ‘crash helmet’ hairline.
I chose Doctor Mazhar Hussain, at Absolute Aesthetics in Marylebone, London, because he seemed to understand a natural hairline is a bit wavy and messy and that hair differs in thickness at different parts of the head.
At £10,000, Dr Mazhar was expensive, but better to pay double for something that works. My hope was it would make me look younger and boost my self-esteem.
I have never had great hair — it was always fine and thin. But recently, looking at pictures of myself styling hair for a shoot, all I saw was my own receding hairline. It bugged me. I admit, I am vain.
But I was realistic. I wasn’t expecting to end up with hair like George Clooney, but I wanted to feel confident when cameras were clicking around me.
October 2016
Sophie: I offered to drive and collect Jon from the clinic on ‘transplant day’, but he insisted on going by himself in a taxi. I realised this was something he wanted to go through on his own, which I could understand.
When he came home, his scalp was very red and you could see the little pinprick marks where they had transplanted existing hairs from the back of his head to the thin areas at the front and on his crown. The next morning, his head looked swollen and covered in scabs and I was very worried. I was scared to touch him because it looked so painful. He had to sleep sitting up for the first few days. But after that, the pain went and he could return to normal.
Jonathan: D-day arrived and I was not overly worried because I had seen a video and knew what was involved. The transplant is a ten-hour procedure, starting with local anaesthetic injected into my skull at several locations.
Jonathan (pictured before his hair transplant) said he had previously tried expensive serums and other treatments to prevent his hair loss prior to the transplant
Sophie admits she was concerned that Jonathan would be disappointed by the results of the hair transplant
Dr Mazhar did this while he was massaging my scalp so I didn’t really feel anything. I was awake the entire time and even filmed the whole thing on my iPad.
It is a painstaking procedure — hairs are removed individually from the thick growth at the back of the head with a tiny instrument, then sorted into types of hair before transplanting them into the thin areas at the front in a natural, aesthetically pleasing way.
As you must shave your head before the process, you can only see tiny dots where the hair is inserted. The tiny bit of hair that’s transplanted into the follicle falls out and you have to wait for new hair to grow — so at first all you see is a red, sore, scabbed head.
Dr Mazhar said it was the first time he’d done a ‘transplant by numbers’, as I kept saying, ‘Put it here, not there.’ I was obsessed!
There is artistry involved in what direction you place the hair and what type of hair grows where. The follicles with the finer hairs are placed at the front, the coarser ones further back.
Dr Mazhar took just one in every 15 hairs from the back of my head and this was enough to cover the bald patches while still leaving a thick pad of hair at the back.
Jonathan (pictured with his wife Sophie) says his hair was always fine and thin and when choosing to have a transplant he chose a doctor who understood his natural hairline
Five days later
Sophie: If anyone thinks a hair transplant means you go in with nothing and come out with a full head of hair, they are very mistaken. It’s more like planting a seed in a garden then waiting for it to grow.
It looked like Jon had a very sore, bald head for ages.
I can see why more timid souls might not be able to go through with a transplant and put up with going to work with a red, spotty scalp or deal with people’s unkind comments.
Jon was able to weather the nasty remarks but I was shocked people could be so mean. They didn’t understand what a big deal the whole thing was to him. And I think some of the men were jealous. The remarks were male banter really, but very insensitive.
I didn’t try to defend Jon as he is well able to look after himself in this respect.
Jonathan: Back at work and at first, everyone thought I had got a tattoo on my head and I let them go on thinking this. But when the hair began to grow, I admitted I’d had a hair transplant.
Jonathan’s procedure lasted ten-hours using hair from the back of the head placed in to the thin areas at the front
At first, there were just little spotty bumps — like ingrown hairs — then the hairs began to come through. It was very exciting for me. The nasty comments didn’t worry me: I did it for me, not to please other people.
January 2017
Sophie: When the hair began to come through, Jon was so excited. I saw a complete change in him as his old, confident personality began to return along with his hair. He became much quicker at getting ready to go out as he didn’t keep fretting about his thin hair and trying on different hats.
Our children (Maddox, nine, and Phoebe, seven) were fascinated. They would touch the new growth and say: ‘Does it hurt Daddy?’ ‘When will it be grown?’ They would give other people a progress report. Phoebe would say ‘My daddy has hair now.’
Jonathan: There’s nothing you can do to speed up the process of hair growth after a transplant. The only after-care involves applying baby oil to your scalp to stop it from drying out. Even so, I became obsessed with it. My clients, whom I normally see every six to eight weeks, got a more impressive snapshot of the changes, but day-to-day progress is slow.
May 2017
Sophie: At first, Jon’s hair was fine and fluffy — like baby’s hair — and I wondered if that was how it was supposed to look. To me, no hair would have been better than this. But Jon said it was just the beginning. At this point, I was more worried by the idea of a bad outcome than he was, but I kept it to myself.
Both Jonathan and Sophie (pictured) are happy with the results of the transplant. Sophie believes the procedure has made him look younger
As the hair grew thicker and stronger, Jon let it get longer and I would see him walking around trying to flick his hair about. It was very touching.
Jonathan: By spring, my hair really started to grow. It was the same colour but very sparse and fine, which made me concerned that the transplant hadn’t been very successful. I went back to Dr Mazhar, who assured me it would take up to 18 months for all the growth to come through, so I kept the rest of my hair short.
October 2017
Sophie: These days Jon looks as young as when we first met — though he’s always looked good to me. Other women drag their poor husbands over to us at parties and say: ‘Look at how marvellous Jonathan looks. Why don’t you do something about your hair, too?’ Other men will sidle over to Jon to ask about the process.
Men don’t obsess about wrinkles the way women do, but I think they equate going bald with the ageing process — Jon did. But it is the change in his personality rather than his looks that has pleased me most. We have a wardrobe full of his hats, but he rarely wears them now. I’ve got back the confident, funny, happy man that I married.
Jonathan: A year on from the transplant I’m delighted. If my hair carries on growing more, great, but I am so pleased now. I treat it just like you would a normal head of hair and I recently bought a couple of hair products. I’m like a girl going out in a beautiful dress. I feel fabulous, darling!
And I am no longer afraid of cameras. Sophie said to me recently: ‘Oh God, you really do quite like yourself now, don’t you?’ and I said, ‘To be honest, for the first time in a long time, I do.’ I think I look ten years younger.
Has his hair loss damaged your marriage? Email femailreaders@dailymail.co.uk