5 Points To A Successful MSP/SMP Treatment

[Vinci Hair Clinic]

1. Hair Line Design

2. Non-Candidates

3. The Need For Multiple Sessions

4. Treating Non-MPB

5. Education


1. Hair line Design.


SMP candidates are no different to hair transplant candidates in some ways; many wish to restore their original hair line or wish to have a design which is either not age appropriate or is incorrect in the design or placement.

If the angles are too acute, the temporal angles at the same height as the apex or lower, the result will look unnatural. A concern with SMP is recreating a natural front line, not too harsh and not too flat or symmetrical. This can be achieved with artistic design and sometimes a conservative approach. A soft touch, possibly slight tonal differences and, no different to hair transplantation, a jagged frontal line, building up to a greater density of tone behind makes the hair line softer and natural.

2. Non-Candidates

A non-candidate can be simply their expectations are too high, hair line design, or what they are looking for cannot be achieved with a SMP treatment. SMP gives the illusion of a shaved look, by definition if you allow your native hair to grow longer the effect is lost and the result becomes cosmetically unnatural, so before deciding on SMP it is important to appreciate the limitations. Other aspects that need to be taken into consideration are scarring, burns, sun burnt skin. Skin quality is important when performing SMP, it will affect the way the pigmentation is accepted into the skin and how it reacts. For example performing SMP on sun burnt skin can cause the tone to spread, like making an ink dot on wet paper. This can result in totally unnatural results and should not be performed until the skin physiology has returned to normal. Pigmentation into scar tissue can be more demanding as the tissue is generally harder and been compromised, a conservative approach is recommended and build up to required tone.


3. The Number of Sessions

To get the best results from SMP it is important to be a little patient, although full coverage can be achieved on a NW5/6 candidate that does not mean it cannot be improved upon. Covering areas already discussed such as hair line design, the crown/vertex that takes the pigmentation differently. Tone variants can be fine-tuned over one or two sessions further sessions and it ´s important to leave a reasonable period of time between each session to allow the skin and pigment to relax, and then judge properly how to refine the result. This time can vary dependent on your skin physiology, generally by a matter of days or weeks. Take the advice of your SMP Technician, they understand and have your best interest as a priority.


4. Treating Non-MPB


SMP opens the door to hair loss sufferers that either do not want the surgical approach, medications are not going to effectively get them where they want to be, or alternative hair loss conditions; maybe the most severe being Alopecia Universalis, the total loss of hair over the scalp and sometimes the body. A demanding task but it is possibly to take a person from their original hair loss state first to a NW5 hair loss sufferer and then to the appearance of what looks to be a shaved but good head of hair. Alopecia areata can sometimes be hard to hide if the patches spread or are large, and can also fill in these areas, but a concern here can be the irregularity of AA and how it can close and spread to other areas of the scalp.


5. Education


With any cosmetic procedure the ultimate goal should be to improve the person ´s life, this does not mean whatever the person wishes for should be done, but educating the candidate to understand the limitations, pros and cons of the treatment. Education is a vital tool to ensuring the result is to the person ´s satisfaction and their long term happiness. With any cosmetic procedure people react differently to the procedure and giving the knowledge to them of how the process is built up informs and educates so they have a greater understanding and appreciate why certain decisions are taken for their best interest. This is far from an extensive list to a successful SMP/MSP result and we can expand in detail, as we believe one aspect is understanding, expectations and education. Vinci Hair Clinic developed Micro Scalp Pigmentation in 2010 as a procedure to help those suffering from alopecia areata, Universalis, those that had bad hair transplants scars and or where not candidates for surgery or interested in medical treatment.


We were the first medical clinic to employ the use of MSP (Micro Scalp Pigmentation) also known as SMP now, and have consistently developed our range of tones and state of the art tools to provide the best possible results. We believe, as we do in our surgical hair restoration, that artistic design is a vital component to the result and client happiness. Our team are selected for the dexterity of hand, patience to detail and client satisfaction.

 

[SMPLooks]

Good, informative post. Well done!

 

[Vinci Hair Clinic]

Thanks SMPLooks,

SMP hold many similarities to hair transplant in respect of the artistic nature of creating the best results. It ´s not simply a case of "dotting ink" over the head, and no different to a surgical option if the individual performing the treatment hasn ´t got that feel for anatomy, bone structure and how to blend the tones to create a natural result.

 

[Vinci Hair Clinic]

I wanted to expand on the 5 points that started the thread, starting with hair line design. Many aspects of SMP and surgical hair restoration, hair transplant, cross over, hair line placement and design is one aspect.

1. Hair Line Design

Hair line design and placement can be a make or break to how natural a result appears, and is important in the framing of the face. Framing the face centres the eye contact; a poorly designed hair line can draw attention to itself for the wrong reasons.

There is a misconception our face is perfectly symmetrical, this is not correct; there are usually subtle differences, and even the hair line can be slightly higher one side to the other; and this has to be taken into account with the new design.

The shape of the hair line is important, between a male and female hair line for example. A male hair line the apex, or the centre of the hair line is the lowest point, going up either side in a crude €œV € shape to the temple points then down to mimic an €œM € shape; with a female hair line this is opposite. If a male hair line is designed not understanding these principles the framing of the face is totally unnatural and draws the eye up to the hair line instead of eye to eye contact.

A hair line is not only the area across our face, it continues down the sides; if one area is retouched there is a good chance it will affect the design of another area. Bringing the lateral temples forward for example will have an impact on how low the centre of the hair line is placed.

Although a different design than your original hair line can be created the new hair line has to follow some basic principles on your facial bone structure. A simple, a little crude, but effective tool when thinking of designing a hair line is when we frown, we can often see a €œline € where our original hair line existed; even if we don ´t want to mimic this line it can be used as a template to create a higher more receded hair line; which is probably more appropriate in the majority of cases.

 

[SMPLooks]

Unfortunately there are SMP practitioners out there who think it's OK to simply draw a straight line across someone's forehead and call it a hairline. Combine this with large dot size and it's a recipe for disaster.

Another caveat: If you're going to a chain operation, make certain the pictures you're looking at are from that particular artist and not just stock company results. Ask to speak with some of that particular artists' happy clients.

 

[Vinci Hair Clinic]

That is why there needs to be an innate understanding of facial bone structure and an artistic flare; to a degree it can be learnt but some are simply better than others at hair line design; that includes for surgical hair restoration also.

 

[Vinci Hair Clinic]

A Non-Candidate

To expand on being a non-candidate; and much can also be translated over to surgical hair restoration as well.

As SMP does not rely on a donor hair resource, so can create any look requested in theory. So, just because someone asks for a specific design, do you comply? Of course not; hair loss is an emotional issue and sometimes the desire to have a better cosmetic look clouds our judgment on what is best.

Unattainable expectations or not understanding limitations in the treatment can lead to being unhappy with the result. When researching listen and ask about all the pros and cons, but if told a con do not try to convince yourself you can be the exception to the rule. For example, SMP to keep the illusion of shaved hair or stubble needs the surrounding hair to be shaved, letting your native hair grow longer will lose the effect.

Want a totally permanent solution to hair loss with SMP; SMP is a cosmetic procedure, €œpermanent € SMP, by contradiction is not, but can last for a number of years, still maintaining a natural result, but it a cosmetic treatment that will change over time, and require further treatment in the future.

Don ´t think your hair loss is stable; you cannot guarantee your hair loss will not progress, so even if SMP will last forever, planning is important, and understanding both aspects of planning the design and understanding that over time, naturally aspects will change.

Repairing scars, surgical or otherwise; a scar can change overtime, in some occasions become smaller, or less cosmetically obvious, but a scar is always going to exist. SMP cannot remove a scar; it can in some cases camouflage a scar by adding pigment to the area, breaking down the obvious scarred area. Treating scars there needs to be an understanding how well it can improve the cosmetic look and how long it will take.