I was insecure about my sparse bush — so I had a pubic hair transplant (2025)

Healthcare worker Sophia was in her late teens when the Brazilian wax craze saw women choose to banish the bush and go completely hairless during the early noughties.

A trend that first began on the bikini-clad beaches of Rio de Janeiro in the seventies, as it swept across the globe, body hair suddenly became unhygienic and out of fashion, while being clean-shaven was bang on trend — and considered synonymous with sex appeal.

For Sophia, now 40, it also offered her a solution to an ‘embarrassing’ problem.

‘My pubic hair was always sparse and patchy. I couldn’t even have a landing strip because of it, so I was forced to constantly shave it all off,’ she tells Metro.

‘It was a big insecurity for me because it wouldn’t grow evenly, so it always looked bad. Even when I had a serious boyfriend I constantly shaved because I had bald spots. It was embarrassing.’

‘Shaving so much meant I always ended up with ingrown hairs, which I absolutely couldn’t stand, and I resented how much effort it was. Plus I think pubic hair is really sexy — even if no one’s looking at it, you know you’ve got something cute going on underneath your clothes.’

Throughout her twenties and thirties Sophia tried countless methods to get her pubic hair to grow in properly, from beard oils and hair growth oils to biotin, but ‘nothing worked’.

‘I wanted the option of a full grown bush one day, a tiny landing strip another day, or to be completely bare the next day,’ she Sophia explains.

But at 35 she still struggled to get it to grow and was tired of shaving, so Sophia eventually opted for laser treatment, paying £456 for eight sessions.

It was never something she thought of as a ‘medical problem’ or ‘serious thing’ worth visiting the doctor over, but curious over her options she took to Google and discovered pubic hair transplants.

‘I thought “finally, something can be done”, it was like I was in charge of the issue at last,’ Sophia explains.

Her initial appointment at the Wimpole Clinic on August 30, 2023 involved a chat with consultant Marie. During the meeting, Sophia was assured that wanting the transplant (otherwise known as a ‘pube plant’) wasn’t ‘weird’ and talked through the process, which detailed the cost and what to expect in terms of the procedure and recovery.

‘I definitely felt self conscious about needing a transplant in the first place – like why couldn’t I just have normal growing pubes?’ she says. ‘I didn’t tell any friends or family I was having it done, it felt super personal, so I kept it quiet.’

Two months later she had the procedure, which cost £5,000 including aftercare.

It’s no small amount, but Sophia says it was worth every penny, making her feel ‘much more in control and more confident.’

The pubic hair transplant process

Trichologist Marie-Royce Book, who specialises in pubic hair restoration and performed Sophia’s transplant, tells Metro that the process is very similar to that of a classic hair transplant —just with ‘more artistry’ involved.

‘In the pubic area, the hairs grow down towards the labia — it’s this lovely little pattern, and designing this is individual to each patient,’ she says.

‘Sophia wanted her hairs to form the shape of a bowl on her pubic mound but I’ve had patients who want the hairs to form more of a triangle.’

The hairs used in a pubic transplant are taken from the patient’s scalp using one of two methods.

Although recovery time can be lessened withFUEorfollicular unit extraction, where the surgeon removes individual follicles, often people prefer to go with follicular unit transplantation or FUT instead, where a part of your scalp is removed to retrieve the follicles.

According to Marie: ‘Women don’t like this option [FUE] because it means they’ve got to shave an area at the back of the head. So they’ll choose the more invasive method where we take a strip of tissue out from the back of the head, and then that’s closed up with sutures, and you’re left with a linear scar on the scalp – this preserves their hairstyle.’

The hairs are then retrieved from the follicles by being separated under a microscope. While this process is happening the surgeon will make 800 to 1,000 small slits in the pubic area, parallel to the skin, before placing an individual hair in each.

‘It’s very meticulous but the most uncomfortable bit is the local anaesthetic on the pubic area before the procedure – the injections are pretty sore and sharp,’ Marie says. ‘But by the tenth injection the area is pretty numb.

‘We actually use a vibrator on the area to distract from the sensation of the needle, and patients are also given a Valium to relax them, as they’re awake through the whole process.’

When it comes to aftercare, patients are expected to go commando to avoid any friction on the pubic area.

‘We give patients a petticoat and have them wear a floaty skirt or dress so nothing touches the area,’ Marie explains. ‘They have to go home and not walk much, laying down on their bed with the area exposed so it can start to scab and heal.’

Plus, since they can’t wash the area for five days, they’re given a saline spray to keep it clean.

Marie adds: ‘On the tenth day we ask them to massage the area to get the scabs off. Sex is also off the table for two weeks.’

The results

Sophia says she ‘doesn’t regret [surgery] one bit’ and that staff at the clinic were ‘amazing’ – during and afterwards.

Now her hair grows evenly, and she feels empowered to have her pubic hair however she wishes.

The healthcare worker jokes: ‘I know some men don’t like pubic hair, but if they’re with me my bush could be overgrown, a neat triangle, a landing strip – they get what they’re given.’

And Sophia isn’t the only one using her bush to celebrate her autonomy, either. According to trichologist Marie, interest in the procedure has been growing steadily over the past six years, and she has performed 40 of these transplants herself alongside a surgeon.

She even had a patient travel from Qatar to get a pubic hair transplant, because she wanted to grow it back after her divorce.

‘She’d removed it for her ex-husband and was adamant she would get her pubic hair back, because every time she looked at it she was reminded of why she’s lasered it off,’ Marie explains.

‘She also wanted her daughter to appreciate her own natural hair and felt she should lead by example. It was an empowering move for her.’

It’s women like Sophia who are proving that the desire for the bush is back with a vengeance. That, and the fact that 59% of us feel expectations around our body hair have changed.

Another of Marie’s clients from Paris had lasered her pubic hair to a landing strip previously, but wanted a bigger bush for a new partner, and Marie herself has even been inspired to grow more hair down there.

‘I realised I did look completely naked down there and questioned why I was taking everything off,’ she says.

‘These women have inspired me to be more proud of my hair down there – there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s certainly not old fashioned to have that eighties bush!’

This article was first published on February 26, 2025.

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