Hair Line & Temporal Design

[Hattingen Hair]

The hair line not only consists of the typical frontal area but is a continuous line from the sideburn, to the temporal recession and then along the front to the other side of your head.

When rebuilding a hair line, besides the natural placement of grafts the design and placement is crucial to restore a cosmetically pleasing look and framing of your face; as this is more likely the first thing people see.

The placement does not always have to be aggressive but sometimes a subtle change can make a huge improvement to the overall result; correct orientation of the hair as it moves around the hair line into the recession and then down the sides: Ensuring the hair used blends with the sometimes softer and finer hair in these areas. As well as hair calibre to take into account other factors such as density placed are important as this will change around the hair line.

This is where artistic licence and medical expertise combine greatly; understanding the bone structure of the individual, the slight changes from one side of the head to the other and then the medical expertise to be able to change the slit angle and orientation so the line looks continuous with no obvious changes in hair direction, just natural.

 

[Bigmac]

Very good post as the hairline is very important and needs to be as natural looking as possible.

 

[Hattingen Hair]

Thanks BM for the comment.


The placement of the hair line can be determined by a few factors, from a technical point of view the level of hair loss, potential future hair loss and the quality of the donor supply to be able to maintain restoration when hair loss progresses whilst maintain a balanced natural looking head of hair; for example not a low hair line on a NW6/7 when the donor supply cannot provide the hair to balance the coverage over the scalp.

A man ´s facial type is determined by his bone structure, the majority of men have a square structure but there are a variety of types, and some overlap so it ´s not exact but can be categorised such as, to name a few:

Round
Oval
Oblong
Triangular
Pear-shaped

As we age, gain weight our facial structure changes, losing the €œsquare jaw line € for example but the basic structure of the face remains. Everyone is different, to the point that even our face is not symmetrical, identical from side to side; therefore the hair line should not be made as a mirror image but design around the nuances of our individual bone structure.

The eye is naturally drawn to certain perceived imperfections, even if we do not know why straight away we just know instinctively something does not look right. For example a man who sports a comb over, by definition he has to comb from one side to another thereby adjusting the angles and position of his temple on one side. Our eye is automatically drawn to this as imperfect because the design does not follow the imagined line that the temple runs through, which is the outer corner of our eyes.

The same with a poorly design, placed or incorrectly oriented hair with a hair transplant, the eye is automatically drawn to the area. For example the apex, the centre of the hair line should be the lowest point; if this is not adhered to then it will alter all other aspects of the design and totally change the natural angles that have to be adhered to and create a cosmetically natural frontal line; and instead of the eye being drawn to the hair line it is balanced back to the centre of the face, the eyes.

 

[SADbutTRUE]

great post, awesome pics, your clinic does very good work

 

[bullitnut]

Superb post ¬b`

 

[Hattingen Hair]

Thanks SADbutTRUE and Bullitnut,

We raise these points because it is important to understand the principle of hair line placement and design, especially in relation to your donor supply and the long term distribution of hair required if hair loss progresses aggressively. Hence when treating a low NW scale candidate many factors have to be taken into consideration otherwise fixing a low juvenile hair line that will never move could in the years to come either not suit the changes in their facial structure or compromise being able to give a balanced coverage of hair over the head.

 

[Galileo]

hattingen wrote:

just natural.

"just natural"?
Black thick and coarse hairs from the occiput area implanted into the temporal sides is "just natural"? c;;9

 

[salvar]

looks great, more and more surgeons are realising how much they can do with relatively few grafts in the temples.

 

[Hattingen Hair]

Hi Galileo,

You raise a good point about "just natural", by definition a hair transplant is not natural it is man-made and limited to the resources available from the donor. The hair was not necessarily taken from the occipital area, the strip would have transversed the occipital, parietal and temporal and could be one of the areas or a mixture of all three areas.

The fact our patient has in general thick coarse hair added to his salt ´n ´pepper colour in this case he had the luxury of generally blending with his native hair. Obviously as we assess results to a greater degree on forums there is more focus but I would sincerely doubt walking past him in the street anyone would be any the wiser that was not his "natural" pattern of hair growth, taking into consideration his native growth and colour.

But you do raise a good point, a hair transplant has limits, as discussed above, we are moving hair from one area of the scalp to another and dependent on the hair characteristics sometimes it will work better than other times, for example thick coarse dark hair coupled with a light skin complexion can be hard to achieve a very natural look as the coarse dark hair gives a large contrast against the skin, reversely blond hair on the same light skin complexion aids the result, to the point a slightly lower density can be placed due to the low contrast.

 

[sl]

Nice post.
From experience I see hairs once transplanted for some often are darker and appear coarse and take time to refine as the hair cycles. My own temples were closed after my initial hair line surgery and were noticeably darker for a good few years and even were commented on. I wasn't concerned as I knew it would normalise and now you would not notice it at all and this can happen and be evident and in time will blend better and better but the patient needs to wait for this process.

 

[topccat29]

I agree with many of these thoughts. Regardless of where the hairline is placed the temporal area has to match. If the hairline is placed in such a way that the donor resources cannot be used for any temporal area recession for whatever reason then is will look like you are wearing a bad toupee or a helmet. I have seen plenty of real life examples just being out in the public. It is not a good look €¦ €¦ €¦ €¦ €¦.I seem to see a lot of guys at Home Depot with this look €¦ €¦ €¦ €¦ €¦ €¦ €¦not sure why but it looks bad.

What does a young guy do when he needs hair behind that low hairline to now match the density that was overdone to begin with but yet the temporal areas start to go €¦ €¦ €¦ €¦ €¦..very tough spot to be in as there is no easy answer when the planning was not there to begin with. Proper planning is key and all areas need to be considered.

 

[Galileo]

sl wrote:

Nice post.
From experience I see hairs once transplanted for some often are darker and appear coarse and take time to refine as the hair cycles.

They do not "refine" at all and multiple hair cycles will not change anything!! This is just a mythos.

It doesn't matter whether you transplant scalp or body hair. Transplanted hairs simply grow as in the original source. If that would be untrue, you shouldn't get a hair transplant at all because "donor dominance" doesn't exist.

When you implant beard hairs, for example, and all your beard hairs start to grow grey/white (due to lack of melanin), transplanted beard hairs will also start to grow grey/white and multiple hair cycles will not change anything.

 

[Hattingen Hair]

Galileo wrote:

sl wrote:

Nice post.  
From experience I see hairs once transplanted for some often are darker and appear coarse and take time to refine as the hair cycles.

They do not "refine" at all and multiple hair cycles will not change anything!! This is just a mythos.

It doesn't matter whether you transplant scalp or body hair. Transplanted hairs simply grow as in the original source. If that would be untrue, you shouldn't get a hair transplant at all because "donor dominance" doesn't exist.

When you implant beard hairs, for example, and all your beard hairs start to grow grey/white (due to lack of melanin), transplanted beard hairs will also start to grow grey/white and multiple hair cycles will not change anything.

As transplanted hair starts to regrow it is common that the calibre of the hair differs initially from its original state and surrounding hair, it can be coarser, sometimes finer, a slightly different colour and lose its luster. Over time as the the hair goes through cycles the hair characteristics start to return to their original, natural state. This can take months and in some cases even over a year for the hair to relax and blend back to its original state with the surrounding native hair. This appears to affect some hair characteristics more than others in how obvious the change is before it returns back to the hairs original calibre and state.

In respect of body hair, much is still not understood regarding how it will behave when transplanted to an other area and very possibly holds more contraindications than moving scalp hair, and possibly the calibre will not soften or change to resemble the surrounding scalp hair in all cases but it has been shown that this has occurred, with the hair changing it ´s characteristics over time to be more alike the surrounding scalp hair characteristics. This is not debatable because it has been shown to occur in reality, but the concern maybe with BH is how often this occurs and assuming it does not occur what is going to be the difference between the look of BH and scalp hair when they are used and how natural the blend will be to ensure a natural looking result is achieved.

Getting back to the original point regarding the hair line, designing a natural looking hair line is ironically for the purpose to take the attention away from the hair line and return the focus back to the eyes; and this is no different in respect to differences in hair characteristics, if there are differences then the focus is concentrated there and not where it should be.

 

[Bigmac]

Ones eyes do tend to go straight to the hairline.

 

[wassup]

Interesting post with many factors I never thought about.