Yahoo Lifestyle 
MAFS' Samuel Levi opens up about major hair transformation: 'More confident'
After feeling insecure and self-conscious about his receding hairline for the past few years, Married At First Sight star Samuel Levi underwent hair transplant surgery.
The 29-year-old influencer, who starred on the New Zealand version of the dating series back in 2018, has spoken openly with Yahoo Lifestyle about his transformation and why he wanted to make the change.
“I think a lot of other people’s comments and remarks definitely pushed me to do this, which is a sad thing, but at the end of the day I needed to do it for myself as well,” he says.
“It’s something that's been on my mind for quite a while, and as a male, it’s hard to talk about losing your hair or having a receding hairline. I just want to normalise it and bring awareness to it and let people know that it’s okay.”
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Samuel travelled from Melbourne to Sydney to do the surgery late last month, which took place over two days and cost “between $10,000 to $20,000”.
“Day one was about eight and a half hours of me just laying there while they were prodding at the back of my head, which is called the donor area and that’s where they took all the hair grafts from,” he describes. “Day two took about seven hours where they were individually planting it all in at the front.
“It’s not until the three-month mark where you start to see more progress and the new hair comes through, but I can already tell that I’m going to be more confident, hands down.
“I don’t want to say it’s simple, but it’s such an easy process to get the results and the happiness that you want out of it. I did a lot of research before I did it and I think the surgery looked much worse in videos compared to what was actually done.”
‘I was scared’
While Samuel is extremely happy with his results, adding that he isn’t afraid to rock his new look on the street, he asserts that he wasn’t always planning on being so open about the procedure.
“When I first thought about doing it, I was scared of what people were doing to think,” he admits. “I just thought, ‘People are going to judge me, I don’t want people to know that I'm doing this, there aren’t many people out there doing it’.
“And then after getting to know more about the procedure, I realised that there’s actually room here for people to understand and know more about it. And that's when I took it on board and I decided that I was going to openly talk about it.”
Since he first started discussing it on social media, Samuel’s received plenty of positive comments and curious questions from people who are also interested in the surgery.
"It’s been way better than I thought. Most people know what it is, which means that there are a lot of people who have done their research, but they’re just not openly talking about it. I think it’s quite a taboo subject for people to talk about, but now I just want to own it and address it in normal conversation.”
‘It’s a part of life’
Samuel now wants to break the stigma around the procedure and encourage other people who feel self-conscious about their hair thinning or receding to “just do it”.
“Make sure you do your research and don’t just walk into a clinic that will look at you like a dollar sign,” he details.
“There are so many males out there in my situation and I never realised until I brought it up, even people I know are now starting the conversation. I think people are too scared to talk about it, but I just want to push awareness and let people know that it’s okay, it’s a part of life.
“Girls get boob jobs all the time and no one ever questions it, why can’t men get a new hairline?”
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