Why Hollywood’s Follicle-Challenged Stars Are Harvesting Their Hair

For decades, the hair-loss conversation centered on what could be added to one’s habits or head: minoxidil, finasteride, transplants or extensions, with widely varying success rates. While we wait until early 2028 for the FDA to potentially approve a new, more effective VDPHL01 hair pill, those who don’t want to see their hairlines recede further or their locks grow sparser might wish to look into hair banking, i.e., having your own hair potentially beget future hairs, with, eventually, the ability to clone follicles and restore what was lost without limits.

“Hair follicle multiplication holds tremendous promise as the holy grail of hair restoration,” says Dr. Alan J. Bauman of New York City’s Bauman Medical, one of the country’s leading hair restoration physicians. “The ability to create an unlimited number of a patient’s own genetically matched follicles would overcome current donor limitations,” i.e., the finite amount of lawn on the back of your head needed to resod the front of it. The concept is directly borrowed from fertility medicine, like IVF and egg freezing: Bank your cells now, while they’re young and viable, and you’ll have the raw material for whatever regenerative medicine can do next, including, possibly over the next decade, cloning them. Bauman has banked his own and says that not a week passes without a celebrity inquiry.

A provider harvests roughly 50 healthy follicles in a 30-minute, no-anesthesia procedure. Those follicles are sent to a laboratory, where they are tested and cryogenically preserved. Aside from banking follicles for future reimplantation, scientists from such leading entities as Toronto-based Acorn Biolabs can create a personalized “secretome,” an experimental, active cocktail of growth factors and cellular messengers that send repairing signals, like exosomes, cytokines and peptides. Says board-certified dermatologist and derma-pathologist Dr. Lady Dy, “The highly concentrated secretome can be delivered back to the patient’s scalp through injection, microneedling” or Alma TED, an “ultrasound and acoustic pressure technology that enhances delivery” deep into the scalp without needles or downtime. A 12-session package costs $12,000; secretomes can be cold stored for up to two years.

Dr. Antonella Tosti, one of the world’s foremost hair specialists, sees exosomes on their own as the most exciting development: “They may simultaneously reduce inflammation, promote tissue repair, support stem cell activity and enhance regenerative signaling.” Similar to secretomes, the goal is not to slow hair loss, but to repair and restore the follicle. Stand-alone exosome sessions typically range from $1,500 to $5,000; multisession packages can run $3,000 to $10,000 or more. For a smaller price tag, platelet-derived, exosome-based products like Plated Hair Serum — fans include celebrity hairstylist Sami Knight and Hailey Bieber — can typically cost under $400 for a 1-fluid-ounce bottle.

Other topicals treating hair growth like skin care are OMI WellBeauty’s Hair Growth Peptide (Kris Jenner and Khloé Kardashian are investors), which uses a patented, keratin-derived peptide formula to improve hair strength and thickness; and Harklinikken, a 32-year-old Danish clinic that custom-blends botanical growth extracts for each client’s scalp biology, and counts Gwyneth Paltrow, Naomi Watts and Malin Akerman as devotees. Then there’s KeraFactor, a no-needle synthetic peptide complex, which is ideal after transplant surgeries, among other uses. Board-certified dermatologist Dr. Sapna Palep of Journelle Skin sees strong results for both men and women in four to six months.

The science underpinning all of it is moving fast. “We’ve never had anything beyond two FDA-approved products for hair loss for almost 30 years,” says Dy. In addition to the VDPHL01 pill in development, Pelage Pharmaceuticals’ PP405 topical drug targets dormant follicle stem cells, essentially waking them up, and is advancing through trials.

Not every expert believes restoration begins at the follicle, however. Dr. Elroy Vojdani from L.A.’s Regenera Medical argues that successful treatment requires first understanding what’s driving loss systemically. “My whole take is that hair loss is usually a systemic thing, not a scalp thing,” he says. “The follicle burns through a huge amount of energy, so it’s often the first place that shows something’s off with your metabolism or immune system. Fix that and the hair tends to follow.”

This story appears in The Hollywood Reporter’s July 2026 issue “The New Face of Hollywood.” Click here to read more.