copingbaldy

My SMP is many years old and I've never seen this "clumping" people talk about. Yes the dots lose their sharp definition but the overall size of the dot shrinks, it doesn't expand. The grey helmet look is a result of going too dense and having no variation in pressure or ink. If every variable is kept the same then there's more chance of having a smudged helmet look.

There are people who just break down the ink way too fast, even at very good clinics. I had my work done at the original Birmingham clinic with 3 guys who now among the best in the UK and I know of a couple of clients who had something like 8 sessions that all faded. It's very rare but it does happen. However I'd agree with getting a second opinion from a different clinic because it might just be a case of not hitting the right depth.

All hair looks some shade of grey when shaved down to the follicle. Blonde is just a lighter shade. I have light brown hair (NW7) and what they did was go slightly darker at the top tapering it into lighter SMP at the sides within the existing follicles. I've even seen redheads get SMP that looks good but it has to be really light ink and you have to keep in mind that when you go light it will look realistic but in bright sunlight you'll look completely bald.

I had mine done 9 years ago, and a top up around the crown about a year in. Nothing since then. It has held up, and I don't really go out of my way to use sunscreen unless it's extremely sunny or I know I'll be out for a long period of time. I actually tried to deliberately fade the edge of my hairline (I always felt the dots are slightly too big there) by wearing a specially shaped kitchen foil helmet that only exposed about 5mm of hairline inside a sunbed. I did this several times a couple of years ago and I don't think it made any difference although I am going to try again this week and try tilting my head different ways. I ended up dealing with my hairline concerns by using concealer. I think if a treatment is going to fade it will happen within the first few months. I got my top up because that first year I was out all the time in the summer, wearing a trucker cap that was only mesh at the back, and I noticed crown fading. But after that top up I didn't do anything different and it hasn't faded. The cases I've seen with bad fading have all happened very soon after the treatment and the poor guys have had to go back over and over. It's normal for both dot size and darkness to fade maybe 30% in the weeks after a treatment and it makes it look more realistic, but it shouldn't fade more than that long term unless you are just a bad candidate.

It was me who messaged Chris about SMP, I just didn't want to put my own pictures in this thread. His situation is very similar to mine and I went through a lot of the same doubts and worries about various procedures. I know this is the HT section so I don't wanna hijack the thread or come across as a shill but I wanted to let him know of other options. I had SMP done 9 years ago, it cost me £3500 for 3 sessions + 1 free touchup under warranty a year later. It's held up for the 8 years since then. There are pitfalls to SMP like needing a skilled practitioner who can hit the right depths, with the right needle and ink etc. The hairline has to be kept receded ideally, and it can't look too dark or it looks like a shoepolish helmet. But if you go to the right place and keep it conservative then it can be a really good route to finally forgetting about balding. But just as with hair transplants there is a minefield of scammers and grifters out there ruining heads. The other good thing about SMP is that if you don't like it after a period of time it can be removed. You aren't left with a massive scar on the back of your head. This is a pic (not me) I found from another forum of a NW6 guy who had SMP to recreate a sort of NW3 look. I think this sort of SMP would look great on Chris and would look super realistic.