Written by the AfroHairClinicTurkey editorial team, drawing on the clinical experience of our medical team · Last updated August 31, 2026 · How we write and check this
You came here for photographs. There are twelve at the bottom of this page — deliberately at the bottom, because the checklist that comes first is the part that is actually useful, and we would rather you read ours with it in hand.
Every face in them has been cropped out. The consent forms we hold give permission on condition that the patient’s identity stays confidential, so the scalp is what we can publish and the face is not.
What comes first is the thing that is useful either way: how to take apart any clinic’s gallery, including ours. Before-and-after photos are the most persuasive thing a clinic can show you and the easiest thing to manipulate — better lighting, a wet-hair shot beside a dry one, a camera angle two degrees lower, a fresh haircut. Any of those can manufacture a transformation the surgery did not.
How to Read a Before-and-After Honestly
1. Check the lighting and the angle first, not the hair
If the “before” is shot under hard overhead light and the “after” is in soft, even light, you’re looking at a lighting change as much as a hair change. Overhead light exaggerates a thin scalp; diffuse light hides it. Same with angle — a camera held slightly above eye level makes a hairline look further back than it is. In an honest pair, the lighting, distance and head position match closely enough that your eye doesn’t notice them at all.
2. Wet hair is not a fair comparison
Wet or product-heavy hair clumps and shows scalp. Dry, styled hair covers it. A “before” with damp hair against an “after” that’s been blow-dried is comparing two different presentations of the same head, and it’s one of the oldest tricks in this industry.
3. On Afro-textured hair, ask what stage the curl was at
This one is specific to your hair type and almost nobody mentions it. Coiled hair photographed close-cropped shows far more scalp than the same hair grown out, where the curl overlaps and covers. A clinic can show you a nearly-shaved “before” and a grown-out “after” and the density difference will look dramatic before a single graft is counted. Look for pairs where the hair is at a comparable length and styled the same way.
4. Look for a graft count and a timeline, not just a photo
“3,200 grafts, , 12 months post-op” tells you something you can reason about. An unlabelled pair tells you nothing — you can’t tell whether you’re looking at a modest case that healed beautifully or an enormous that produced an average result. If the numbers aren’t published, ask for them.
5. Twelve months is the honest checkpoint
Growth at three months means very little; even at six months you’re seeing perhaps 60% of the final result. A gallery full of six-month photos isn’t necessarily dishonest, but it’s showing you the flattering part of the curve. Ask to see twelve-month and, better, eighteen-month results.
6. Ask to see the donor area, not just the top
Almost every gallery in this industry shows you the recipient area — the part that got better. Very few show the back and sides, which is where over-harvesting leaves visible thinning. On , where is technically harder, this is exactly where a rushed job shows up. If a clinic won’t show you donor-area photos, that tells you something on its own.
There is a second reason to look. is not scarless. Each punch takes the follicular melanocytes out with the graft, and the wound can heal as a small pale dot — reported as more visible in darker skin phototypes and with short hairstyles. The review that documents this grades it common but gives no incidence figure.[1,2] A photograph cropped to the top of the head shows none of it — which is the point. The is the part of the result a camera is usually pointed away from.
7. Ask whether the case actually resembles yours
A dense, straight-haired Norwood 3 result tells you almost nothing about what’s achievable on tightly coiled hair with traction alopeciaTraction alopecia Hair loss caused by sustained tension on the follicle, concentrated at the hairline and temples. along the hairline. Ask specifically for cases matching your curl pattern, your pattern of loss, and roughly your .
What We Publish, and What We Do Not
Each case in the gallery carries the hair type, the graft count and the number of months post-op. Photographs are published only with written patient consent on file, and the faces are cropped because that consent is conditional on confidentiality.
Measured against the checklist above, our own gallery does not pass all of it, and we would rather write that here than leave you to catch it. There is no donor-area photograph, which is exactly what point 6 tells you to demand. No surgeon is named against a case, and the technique is not recorded per case. Three of the twelve are under twelve months — one at eight and two at ten — which point 5 tells you is the flattering part of the curve; each card states its own figure so you can weigh it. And the area treated is missing, so you cannot ask the gallery for a case matching your own pattern of loss: that is a clinical reading of a photograph, and we have asked the clinic for it rather than inferring it from the picture ourselves.
We do not use stock photography of models. We do not publish a case without consent, however good the result is. And we do not quietly swap a three-month photo into a slot that implies a final result.
A Note on What Results Depend On
Nobody can promise you a specific density before examining your scalp. What you can realistically achieve depends on your donor supply, how far your hair loss has progressed, whether it has stabilised, and how your skin heals. Two people with identical graft counts can end up with visibly different results for reasons that have nothing to do with the surgeon.
What we can tell you honestly, in advance, is whether we think you’re a good candidate at all — and when we’d advise you to wait.
Want to see cases that actually look like your hair? Send us a photo on WhatsApp and we’ll show you comparable ones from our own patients.
The clinic’s own cases
Read these with the four tests on this page, because they do not pass all of them. The “before” frames were taken here: clinic backdrop, overhead light, head tilted forward — the position that shows the most scalp. The “after” frames were sent in by the patients themselves: their own homes, their own light, at eye level, hair cut and shaped. Some of the difference you see is surgery. Some of it is the camera, and we cannot tell you the ratio.
The graft counts, techniques and intervals printed on each card are the clinic’s own records. We have not independently verified them, and unlike the sentences on this site they are inside a picture, where nothing can withhold them on your behalf.
Faces are cropped out. These patients consented to their images being used provided their identity stays confidential, and we intend to keep that.
The standard we are working to. Every case here is our own patient, published with written consent. What is still missing is consistency: a series shot to our measurement protocol — same distance, same light, same pose, same hair length, every frame dated, and the graft count recorded as data rather than printed into a picture. That series is what we have asked the clinic for, and when it exists it replaces what is here.
Results vary. Your donor supply, the degree of your hair loss and how you heal all affect what is achievable in your case, and nothing on this page predicts yours.
Area treated is not a filter yet. Whether a case was hairline, crown or both is a clinical reading, and reading it off a photograph ourselves is the inference this page tells you not to trust. We have asked the clinic to record it per case.
12 of 12 cases
No case here matches that combination. That is a real answer, not a gap: with twelve cases most combinations have nothing behind them, and showing you the nearest one instead would be showing you somebody else’s result.
What is still unknown
These are gaps in the published research, not gaps in our reading of it. Each one is either stated as unresolved by a paper we have read, or recorded in our register as something we looked for and could not find.
- What proportion of final density is typically visible at six months after an Afro-textured hair transplant. Timelines are widely quoted; we could not find one traceable to published data rather than to clinic marketing.No source we have read answers this, so we publish no figure for it.
- Whether curl really does let each follicle cover more scalp, which is the basis of the widely repeated claim that textured hair needs fewer grafts. Three searches returned nothing measuring it.No source we have read answers this, so we publish no figure for it.
If any of these has since been answered in the literature, tell us — we would rather update the page than defend it. Our verification record tracks what is still outstanding.
Clinical references
- Romera de Blas C, Vega Díez D, Ricart Vayá JM, Gómez Zubiaur A. Complications in follicular unit excision hair transplantation. Frontiers in Medicine. 2026. doi:10.3389/fmed.2026.1750989 view source →
- Adotama P, Papac N, Alexis A, Wysong A, Collins L. Common dermatologic procedures and the complications unique to skin of color. Dermatologic Surgery. 2021. doi:10.1097/DSS.0000000000002813 view source →
References are checked on the dates recorded in our evidence library. If a source has been superseded, tell us and we will update it.