Beyond cosmetic: Why Dr Kgoale Moabelo calls hair transplants corrective medicine

There is a quiet authority in the way Dr Kgoale Moabelo speaks about hair restoration. Not sales-driven. Not sensational. Clinical, yes but also deeply personal. For her, hair transplantation is not simply cosmetic enhancement. It is corrective medicine for damage that, in many cases, should never have happened.

“I’ve been a general practitioner since 2011,” she says. “I was running two private practices in Limpopo. But when my divorce came about four years ago, it hit me that I needed to move. I needed to be better than I wanted to be because I didn’t get a chance to specialise.”

That moment of personal transition sparked a professional pivot. While travelling to Türkiye with a friend in aesthetics, she visited a clinic performing hair transplants. 

“When I saw what they were doing, I said: ‘That is what I want to do.’ That’s actually how I got into the industry.”

But returning home raised difficult questions.

“Coming back to my country and researching hair transplants, I realised the clinics we have are mostly catering for white people,” Moabelo explains. “Where do my African people go?”

Afro-textured hair requires specialised training. The follicle grows in a curved shape beneath the scalp, making extraction and implantation technically demanding. Without proper expertise, grafts can be damaged before they are even placed.

Determined to close the gap, she sought international training and eventually found Dr Christian Busanga in Belgium, a global authority in Afro hair restoration. “He trained me specifically on Afro hair,” Moabelo says. “Because our hair is different. The angle is different. The curl under the skin is different.”

By February 2022, she opened her clinic, VYTA Aesthetics, and focused on hair transplantation and medical scalp treatment for African patients.

But transplantation, she stresses, is often the last resort.

“Most of our African people have other types of hair loss that actually need medical treatment. Hair transplant is for when the damage is permanent.”

The most common condition Moabelo treats is traction alopecia, hair loss caused by repeated pulling from tight braids, weaves, wig glue and ponytails.

“I always tell my clients that 99% of African hair loss is caused by the choice of hairstyles that we do,” she says firmly. “Tight hairstyles, glue wigs, chemical treatments … at the end of the day your scalp gets damaged.”

Moabelo has watched the pattern worsen over time. “In the past 20 years, ladies have been putting on weaves and braids continuously. It’s something we are seeing more recently.”

A visit to a school left her shaken. “To my surprise, all the black teenage girls had their braids with traction alopecia at high school level. Where will they be in 10 years? We are not breaking the curse.”

A study led by Dr Nonhlanhla Khumalo, the head of Dermatology and director of the Hair and Skin Research Lab in the Department of Medicine Groote Schuur Hospital and the University of Cape Town, supports Moabelo’s concern. It states that  “traction alopecia was higher in adults than in children and was higher with braiding-related than chemical-related symptoms. Traction alopecia severity was associated with age group, current hairstyle and hairdressing symptoms”.

The danger lies in how normalised it has become.

“Many people assume it’s genetic. They think hair loss is just normal,” Moabelo says. “It’s a mix of lack of awareness and cultural norms. Especially in the black culture, if you want your hair to grow, you should braid it. But that is not true.”

She is direct about myths she regularly corrects in consultations. “Another one is that they are protective hairstyles. It is a myth to believe that braiding, dreadlocks and wig installs are protective, because they still cause tension.”

Traction alopecia develops gradually. “It is caused by repetitive pulling and tension on the hair roots,” she explains. “When you do your braids, your ponytails, you are constantly pulling.”

The early signs are often ignored. “Redness, tenderness and Itchiness. If you’re having sores on your scalp, especially around the hairline, breakage, thinning and a little bit of receding hairline all these signs, it’s worth reassessing your haircare routine.”

When does it become irreversible?

“Hair loss becomes permanent when the hair follicles are severely damaged due to prolonged tension and inflammation, plus or minus 10 to 15 years,” Moabelo says. “If caught early and you remove those tension hairstyles, the hair can grow. But when you’ve got scarring, that makes it harder because now there’s permanent damage.”

That is when hair transplantation becomes necessary. Healthy follicles are extracted from donor areas and implanted into scarred or bald regions, carefully following the natural growth direction of Afro hair. “But even then,” she adds, “stopping the damaging practices at any stage is always better than going on.”

Scalp health sits at the centre of everything she teaches.

“A healthy scalp is crucial for hair growth. It’s like fertile soil for plants. If your soil is not good, your plants will not grow,” she says. “Keep it clean. Keep it moisturised. Do gentle cleansing. Regular massages to improve blood circulation. Avoid harsh products.”

Perhaps Moabelo’s most repeated advice is also the simplest: “Give your hair a break. Leave your hair alone. Your Afro hair is beautiful. Learn how to take care of that.”

Her message to South Africans is preventative before it is procedural. 

“Hair loss is avoidable. Prevention is better than cure,” she says. “What we think is protective hairstyles is not really protective.”

In her clinic, restoration happens graft by graft. But outside it, she hopes education will do something even greater which is break a cycle that has silently claimed generations of edges.

“Embrace your natural beauty,” Moabelo says.