Young women are risking lifelong scarring and permanent hair loss by undergoing a cosmetic procedure to lower their hairline, experts warn.

Costing between £5,000 and £7,000 in the UK, the operation – originally a treatment for men with receding hairlines – is widely promoted on social media by cosmetic firms and former patients who claim that having a smaller forehead ‘balances facial proportions’ and ‘boosts confidence’.

The operation involves cutting across the woman’s scalp and pulling her hairline forward.

Online adverts promise patients will fully recover in a week and be left with no obvious scarring. On video-sharing app TikTok, clips showing women with hairline transformations have attracted 44 million viewers.

Yet experts say that if the skin is pulled too tightly then the supply of blood and oxygen to the face is restricted, causing skin tissue to die and patches of hair to fall out.

During the three-hour procedure, surgeons cut away a band of skin on the forehead below the hairline. Tiny holes drilled into the skull allow metal implants to secure the bone to the skin once it is pulled forward. Then the wound is stitched. Dr Greg Williams, hair restoration expert at Farjo Hair Institute in London, says: ‘Every patient will be left with a scar, the quality of which cannot be guaranteed. It can be raised or a different colour to the forehead skin – requiring a fringe to hide it.

‘The surgeon has to be very skilled to hide the wound. The risks are trivialised by social media influencers, who suggest it’s easy and everything will go well.’

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