You’ve Got to See What Happened to This Ballerina’s Hair After Wearing a Bun Every Day

Photograph courtesy of Edward Ball, M.D.

“I had my hair tied up really tight from when I was really little, and looking back at pictures you can see it started having an effect on my hairline,” said Hollands in a statement put out by Edward Ball, M.D., the specialist who treated her hair loss. “Over the course of so many years, it got worse.”

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According to Ball’s statement, Diva had an eight-hour follicular unit transplant in October. During the procedure, a thin strip of skin with hair growing from it is removed from the back of the scalp and transplanted to an area where there’s been hair loss—usually around the hairline, top of the head, or eyebrows. Diva said she saw results a few months after this (the photo below shows the new hair growth).

Photograph courtesy of Edward Ball, M.D.

The technical term for this kind of terrifying hair issue is “chronic traction alopecia,” which can occur when you wear the same style over and over. “The best way to describe traction alopecia is that it’s due to constant pulling,” says Sejal Shah, M.D., a board-certified dermatologist in New York City. “If you wear your hair in a tight style one time, this probably isn’t going to happen. But over time, that sheer force will at some point damage the hair to the point where it stops growing from the follicle.” At that point—which totally varies from person to person—you’re dealing with the kind of irreversible damage that Hollands had.

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