Hairline restoration in Tirana

A hairline transplant is a design problem before it is a surgical one. Eight hundred to fifteen hundred grafts is usually all it takes to rebuild a front line, which makes it one of the smaller operations on this site and by far the most consequential: the line is what people look at, and it is drawn once. At Ego Hair Clinic the line is planned for the face you will have at fifty rather than the one in the mirror today, and the design is agreed with you, on paper and in a mirror, before a single graft is lifted.

Grafts

typically 800 to 1,500 for a front line and temples

First rows

single-hair grafts only, no two-hair or three-hair grafts at the very front

Implantation

implanter pen, for angle and direction one graft at a time

Design

agreed standing and sitting, with the eyebrows raised and lowered

Anaesthesia

local

Price

inside the package: €2,500 for pen work, €2,500 for a plan with channels behind the line

Not a candidate

a line that is still receding fast at 22, with no medication tried

Result

first growth month 3 to 4, judged at month 12

The four decisions that make up a line

How high. The front of a male hairline sits roughly a hand’s width above the brow, and the reference point is the change of plane where the forehead stops facing forward and starts facing up. Put a line below that and it looks transplanted at any age, because no adult male hairline sits there.

How wide. The line runs back from its central point towards the temples along a curve, and the wider it is carried the more grafts it needs and the more it exposes the area behind it. A line that is full at the front with nothing behind it produces a strip, not a head of hair.

Where the temples sit. Temple points are the most over-built feature in this industry. Carried too far forward they read as a wig from across a room. The rule used here is that a temple point never comes forward of a vertical line dropped from the outer edge of the eyebrow.

How irregular. Real hairlines are not lines. There are clusters, gaps, and stray hairs a few millimetres in front of everything else. Two kinds of irregularity are built in: the large-scale wave of the whole line and the small-scale roughness of individual grafts placed slightly forward. It is the single biggest reason a result is undetectable, and it costs nothing but patience. More on what gives a transplant away is on does a hair transplant look natural.

Why the line is drawn for age fifty

Hair loss does not stop after surgery. If your line is placed where a twenty-five-year-old wants it, then by forty the area behind it has thinned and you own a low, dense front line with an empty mid-scalp, and the grafts that could have covered that area are already spent in the front.

A line planned conservatively costs you a centimetre of forehead now and leaves grafts in the donor for the mid-scalp you will need later. This is the argument the clinic makes most often to young patients, and it is set out fully on a hair transplant in your twenties.

How the grafts are placed

The front two rows are single hairs, taken from the finest part of the donor. Behind them come two-hair grafts, then three-hair grafts further back where density matters and detection does not. Placed the other way round, with multi-hair grafts at the front, you get the tufted look that gave transplants their reputation in the 1990s, and it cannot be fixed by adding hair.

Angle matters as much as calibre. At the front, hairs leave the scalp at a very acute angle, almost lying on the skin and pointing forwards. Further back they lift. Each graft is placed with the pen at the angle the surgeon holds it at, which is why the front of a head is pen work here: the technique is described on the DHI page.

When a line has already been built badly

Three problems arrive at this clinic regularly, usually after surgery elsewhere.

Too low. The line is anatomically wrong and will look wrong for the rest of your life. Grafts can be removed by punching them out individually and replanting them further back, which is slow, and the skin needs months between passes.

Too straight or too dense a front row. Softened by placing single hairs irregularly in front of the existing line and, where needed, removing the worst multi-hair grafts from the front row.

Temple points too far forward. The same punch-and-replant approach, and the grafts recovered are usually reusable.

None of this is quick and none of it is cheap in donor terms, which is the real argument for getting the design right the first time. Revision work is assessed from photographs plus whatever report the first clinic gave you.

Your visit

FAQ

How many grafts does a hairline need?

Between 800 and 1,500 in most cases, including temple points. A receding corner on one side alone can be a few hundred. What pushes the number up is width rather than depth: carrying the line out towards the temples adds surface area quickly. Your own number comes from the photographs, and it is quoted with the density it will produce rather than as a figure on its own.

Can I have the hairline I had at eighteen?

Almost never, and a surgeon who agrees to it is selling you a problem for your forties. The line at eighteen sits below the change of plane on the forehead, and rebuilding it consumes grafts that the mid-scalp will need. What can be done is a line that looks natural for your age and leaves you options later.

Is a hairline transplant enough on its own?

It is, when the loss is limited to the front. When the mid-scalp behind the line has thinned as well, a front line on its own creates a visible contrast, so the plan either covers both areas or sets the line higher to reduce the gap. This is judged from the crown photograph, which is why all three photographs are asked for.

Will the line still be there in twenty years?

The transplanted hair is permanent; hair that was not transplanted can still thin, so the line stays while the area behind it can change. That is exactly why the design leaves donor grafts in reserve and why the medication conversation belongs with your own doctor at home.

Who designs the line, the surgeon or a consultant?

The specialist who assessed your hairline is the one in the room from extraction to the final graft The design session is not delegated, and it happens before you are asked to confirm anything. With a small number of patients a day, the drawing takes the time it needs.

Clinically reviewed by the treating surgeon. Last reviewed 25 September 2026.