Chrissy Teigen has posted a refreshingly honest update on her cosmetic surgery journey, this time dealing with a postpartum symptom: hair thinning and loss. ‘I had a hairline lowering procedure,’ she wrote on her Instagram story to explain posts she’d made from a hospital bed. ‘Lost a lot in the front from babies and it’s just very thin up there.’

She also got real about what you see during her most glamorous moments – namely red carpets. ‘When you see it on the carpet it’s ALWAYS extensions,’ Teigen wrote. ‘Anyhow I’ll share more later if you’re interested in the journey because it really is a journey.’ The story also included a selfie she took which showed the stitches across her hairline.

Research says that over 90% of women have experienced postpartum hair loss. This shift can be due to changes in hormones during and after pregnancy – hair first grows thicker, and then sheds as hormone levels return to normal.

This trademark honesty from Teigen could not be more welcome – postpartum symptoms like hair thinning and loss aren’t talked about enough, leading to unnecessary stigma and shame during an already emotional time for new mothers and parents. It also does so much to lift the veil when it comes to red carpet events – celebrities really do have the most incredible access to wellness and beauty procedures, and it’s so helpful when they are honest about it, so we can reconcile our own lives and looks with rocketing beauty standards.

It’s not the first time that Teigen has spoken out in an honest and refreshing way about her body. Back in May 2020, she posted on Instagram about having our breast implants removed.

‘A lot of people are understandably curious (and nosey!) so I’ll just say it here: I’m getting my boobs out! They’ve been great to me for many years but I’m just over it,’ she wrote. ‘I’d like to be able to zip a dress in my size, lay on my belly with pure comfort! No biggie! So don’t worry about me! All good. I’ll still have boobs, they’ll just be pure fat. Which is all a tit is in the first place. A dumb, miraculous bag of fat.’

So let’s unpack this a bit further. Teigen’s honesty around her procedure, and others she’s had before, speaks to the fact that she’s free to have whatever she’d like done to her body – and sharing her experiences as a high-profile celebrity allows other women who may be feeling stigma around similar body image or postpartum issues to know they’re not alone.

However, it’s also worth arguing that her post is also proof of yet another procedure that women may now feel obligated to get or feel pressured into. The beauty standards that we are held to seem to change and escalate every day, and while transparency when it comes to the reality of celebrity procedures is helpful in terms of authenticity, it also breeds further expectation and comparison culture. After all, these procedures are expensive, and celebrity access to them is due to a considerable wealth gap between them and so many of us. So it’s important to weigh up any pressure this openness has on our own expectations of our bodies.

Like so many women, Teigen has been on a journey with her body and what she wants it to look like. And motherhood has shifted a lot of that for her. But Teigen has always been frank about the decisions she’s made when it comes to cosmetic surgery. Back in a 2020 interview with Glamour UK, she got real about the breast augmentation surgery she had at 20.

‘Yeah, I did my boobs when I was about 20 years old,’ she said. ‘It was more for a swimsuit thing. I thought, if I’m going to be posing, laid on my back, I want them to be perky! But then you have babies and they fill up with milk and deflate and now I am screwed.’

Her post about her recent surgery aligns with her own constant battle against unrealistic expectations of women’s bodies and beauty standards.

‘You can’t set these expectations for people that everything is perfect. Everyone filters their sh*t, edits or Facetunes so you forget what normal faces or bodies look like,’ she has said. ‘It’s not fair and it makes you jealous of other people’s bodies. It’s lying to people by omission. But also, while you want to teach your kids to be comfortable in their own skin, you want to tell them everything you can and let them decide.’

So the complexity of female body image and the additional pressure applied through celebrity culture continues to unfurl. We salute Teigen in her honesty and her continued body image journey. But it’s also important to remember that while having such surgery is a privilege and valid choice, it is not an obligation when it comes to loving and accepting your body.