Bradley Cooper’s hair loss started looking obvious in his early 30’s. Good example for his first signs of male pattern hair loss is the movie “Wedding Crashers” from 2005.
Below you can see some photos of him being a NW2 – NW3.
Bradley’s hairline massively improved between the movies “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey in 2008 and the first part of the trilogy “The Hangover” in 2009.
In case you might think it was a hair system/wig, keep reading further as I am going to discuss it also.
During Hangover Movie (2009) we were able to see Bradley with his typical long hair he had throughout the whole Hangover trilogy.
This was one of his first big movies where he already had some work done on his hairline and corners.
He most likely had his hair transplant done in 2008. By looking at his hairline in the movie “Yes Man” in 2008 it is obvious that it still looks receded. In the movie “Hangover” from 2009 though, his hairline looks much fuller already.
Check it out on the photo below.
One graft/hair follicle contains 2 hairs on average. It always contains at least 1 hair and some grafts can carry up to 4-5 hairs. Having high hair per graft average is one of the signs of being a great hair transplant candidate!
The final number of grafts which Bradley likely had transplanted can be estimated based on his hair loss pattern prior to the hair transplant.
His classification was a NW2 – NW3 transition. Normally, patients with a similar hair loss progression get at least 1500 grafts transplanted.
1500 is most likely the lower range and it would suffice to fill out his receding corners. In case the doctor decided to transplant new follicles into his frontal forelock (with plenty of native hair growing), the final number could be around 2000.
The easiest way how to tell if someone had FUT or FUE hair transplant is to look at the donor area (back and sides of the scalp).
In Bradley Cooper’s case it´s hard to see the FUE/FUT proof on the back of his head as it was the case with Machine Gun Kelly or Lebron James.
Bradley always kept his hair long since his hair transplant in 2008.
Maybe we´ll be able to tell it with 100% assurance in the future, once Bradley cuts his sides and back very short (5mm or less).
For now, I´d say FUE until I don´t see any strong FUT proof like a linear scar on the donor area.
Below you can see a photo of Bradley Cooper’s transplanted hair while it’s long vs short. How detectable and natural does his hair transplant look in both situations?
Bradley Cooper’s restored hairline doesn´t start with a very high hair density but it does look natural because of single hair follicle placement in his hairline and corners.
During the first hair transplant one should always focus on ending up with a natural looking hairline instead of obsessing about density.
High dense-packing of hair follicles is technically possible with the hair transplant, but in many cases the survival of the implanted hair follicles can be compromised due to insufficient blood supply in the recipient (transplanted) area.
On the photo below (short buzz cut hairstyle), we can notice how his hair looks more sparse in the frontal forelock area.
When men want to end up with a dense-looking buzzcut after a hair transplant while perfectly blending the transplanted hair with the native hair, hair fibers or concealers are almost a necessity to make it look the best!
Transplanted hair tends to look the best in a certain length. Only then its coverage property can be properly utilized.
For some people it means letting the transplanted hair grow at least 5cm, while for other it might be 8cm or more.
Besides the decreased hair density on the buzz cut photo, the naturalness and transplanted hair direction are spot on.
In this movie, Bradley’s hair transplant is probably the least obvious. His hair is either slicked back or the strands are slicked onto the left and right corners.
Wearing long hair after the hair transplant always takes a little bit off of the hair transplant detectability.
Long hair can be used to camouflage improper hair follicle placement in the hairline or lagging density.
Had I seen Bradley in this movie for the first time in my life, I would have never guessed he had a hair transplant!
Yes is likely to be the answer. My guess would be, that he actually took Finasteride back in 2005 and kept taking it until his hair transplant in 2008.
It is also likely that the 5 alpha reductase inhibitor he uses doesn’t have to be exactly Finasteride but also Dutasteride.
Dutasteride is not FDA approved for treating male pattern baldness but it can be used instead of Finasteride. In fact celebrities like Ashton Kutcher has admitted Dutasteride use for his hair loss since his mid 20’s.
He most likely wasn´t taking it prior to his 30’s but after his hair transplant in 2009 he probably gave it a try to maintain his hair transplant together with his naturally thinning hair all around.
Without getting a hair transplant and without finasteride he could have already been at least a NW4 by now.