Illusion of Density and Youtube

[RecedingTide]

No illusion of density going on there Matt. Great stuff. If you take a set of headphones, move the ear pieces to in front of your ears in the temple area and imagine the area of scalp in front of the band , then that's the area that should have 45FU/cm2 moving up to 60FU/cm2 in the hairline.

[Shampoo]

Whoaaa....those are some great results with Dr. Rahal!

[bonkerstonker]

Yes nice spot Matt you can defo see gaps in his donor where it's just natural so some people do naturally have gaps. By the way nice result all the guy needs is a decent haircut and he's laughing.

[Spanker]

Matt, that is a nice result.

 

Bonker,

To tell you the truth, the videos did put me off a little. I feel like my hair thinned in a little strip in front if my forehead about an inch and a half back almost overnight. Propecia and minox gave me no growth and to be honest I have felt super depressed about it. I am not sure of what decision I should make and am a little down about it. My wife mentioned my thinning to me today. Having a really jacked up looking head makes it suck even more. I guess I have to get over this emotional hump of depression I am dealing with and go from there.

[aaron1234]

I truly did not appreciate the phrase “illusion of density” until after the fruition of my second transplant. There is no substitute for seeing a transplant in person under different lighting situations (both indoor and outdoor).

 

Under normal lighting my hair appears completely dense with slight temple recession. Under harsh lights my hair line is obliterated. With my hair dry and styled it looks full. With my hair wet out of the shower you can see most of my scalp (including the scars). I have made a video of my hair under flourescent lights and have thought about posting it so guys have a better idea of what to expect. And let me reiterate - I am completely happy with the work SMG has done for me.

 

Not all lights are created equal. Some very bright lights don’t unmask the “illusion”, as some very dim lights do. The circular overhead lights are the worst. Either way, I scope out room ceilings. I’m a performer and have often told the stage manager to dim the lighting - I blame it on my vision, headaches, etc. I’m a big fan of dark rooms!

 

But also keep in mind that a lot depends on what the patient brings to the table. The more natural hair you have the thicker the transplanted hair will look. The backdrop provided by natural hair is invaluable. I would be at least a NW5 without transplants and Fin, and I am holding onto my thinning bridge for dear life. There is no substitute for native hair - none!

 

Thankfully Spanker, you have a great head of native hair that would greatly compliment the transplanted hairs. Also, you’d be probably be a great candidate for dense-packing as I know I am definitely not. You have a lot of factors in your favor.

 

The hair quality can also make a huge difference. Mine is on the thinner side. I’m sure that someone with thicker donor hairs would be able to stand up to harsh lighting better than I.

 


Alot depends on styling. With my hair spiked up lights have a direct route to reflect off my scalp. If I grew it longer and combed it to the side it’d probably deflect the harsh lights more effectively.

 

All of this I know is nothing new. It’s been said before and it will be said again. There’s one video of Jotronic walking around with a hand-held camera. We all know how great he looks, but the overhead lights revealed the see-through effect of the transplanted hair. It comes with the territory, but affects some of us more than others.

[Spanker]

Thanks for the reply Aaron. I have an in person consultation on the 6th and will be able to get real and have real answers. This will help me decide wether or not to proceed.

 

Your hair looks much better. You would be very bald without SMG and fin. You look ten times better in photos. Do you feel that in real life it looks natural? When it is see thru does it look fake see through or just thin?

 

Cheers.

[bonkerstonker]

Aaron I too have noticed that some dim lights cause a real thinning illusion and some strong halogen down lights do not it's kind of weird. When I go out I know which Mirrors with lighting not to look in.

[orlhair1]

Spanker, I think Aaron summed it up best. When you look at some of the over the top results, there is almost always a lot of dense native hair there and then with dense packing into what looks like fairly minor receding, the result looks really thick. The more thinning you have or the greater the bald area, there is more real estate to cover and you can't get that super dense look always, but what you can get is a very natural looking hairline and coverage. My HT blends right in and as I said previously, I am confident no one could tell I have a HT unless I told them. I have to say at 9 months I am thrilled I had this done. In fact, I am working on scheduling an FUE session to fill in my corners which will enhance the results I already have. The second HT is a choice for more......my first one is a definite stand alone result. I know that the process of deciding what to do can be nerve wracking......I went through it myself. I could not be happier that I did it. Good luck as you work through your decision making process.

[aaron1234]

Thanks for the reply Aaron. I have an in person consultation on the 6th and will be able to get real and have real answers. This will help me decide wether or not to proceed.

 

Your hair looks much better. You would be very bald without SMG and fin. You look ten times better in photos. Do you feel that in real life it looks natural? When it is see thru does it look fake see through or just thin?

 

Cheers.

 

Thanks Spanker. My results are very natural, especially under normal room lighting. Even under the harsh lights, when the hair looks thinner and see through, it is still natural. The only unnaturalness that remains is from the cobblestoning from my first procedure before SMG. But this is only visible under the worst of lighting conditions, and you really have to be very close and look for it to see it now. The additional density from my most recent procedure has really disguised the poor results from my first procedure before SMG.

 

After three procedures (one poor, two great), I will gladly take the "illusion of density" I enjoy now over no illusion at all.

 

P.S. Good luck with your upcoming consultations. We are all eagerly awaiting the full report!

Edited March 18, 2012 by aaron1234

[mahhong]

Something else to consider with the "illusion of density" is that we shouldn't imagine every man who doesn't appear to be balding to have some uniform and consistent amount of hair per cm2.

 

The truth is balding men usually become insatiable about the idea of a full head of hair, to the point that it obsesses us. When I started thinning I started looking at hair a lot more and, what I started to notice is, a lot of men with full heads of hair actually do have some thinning and even some of those with great heads of hair sometimes betray a bit of thinning under harsh lights or certain lighting conditions. That's especially true of people with thin hair, very blonde hair, dark hair and pale scalps etc.

 

Ultimately we talk about the "Illusion" as if we're worried it's some cheap con we're trying to foist on others, but I would maintain a lot of men; even those with seemingly strong heads of hair, do have some sort of general thinning in the balding area. The vast majority of people will never notice the "illusion" because, even if they do see a bit of scalp or something, it doesn't really matter to them. We've become trained to look out for harsh lights, to study men's hair, to notice balding etc. I'm often surprised how many men are, to many of their friends and families, not bald, when in reality the trained eye can see that the reality is that there is some recession or diffuse thinning or something.

 

It does of course depend on your level of loss and size of procedure(s). But some men are getting 8-10k grafts or more over multiple procedures and, even at higher balding levels, are getting something akin to a good head of hair again. No doubt if you were to scrutinise you'd see the difference between a true non-balding man and someone with a transplant, especially in the crown, but you keep having to remind yourself; who is really looking that hard all the time? My best is the vast majority of people studying hair that hard are losing hair themselves!

[Cant decide]

mahhong - I could not agree more. Great post! Us balding folk tend to be so paranoid at the thought of some scalp showing that we forget most non balding men will show some scalp under harsh lights as well.

[England]

Thanks Spanker. My results are very natural, especially under normal room lighting. Even under the harsh lights, when the hair looks thinner and see through, it is still natural. The only unnaturalness that remains is from the cobblestoning from my first procedure before SMG. But this is only visible under the worst of lighting conditions, and you really have to be very close and look for it to see it now. The additional density from my most recent procedure has really disguised the poor results from my first procedure before SMG.

 

After three procedures (one poor, two great), I will gladly take the "illusion of density" I enjoy now over no illusion at all.

 

P.S. Good luck with your upcoming consultations. We are all eagerly awaiting the full report!

 

Aaron, honestly, your results are absolutely fantastic. You don't look like a balding guy at all, not even close. I bet even if your hair does look thin in certain lights, nobody looks close enough to notice, and as has been said, even guys with full heads of hair can have the same effect happen to them.

[mahhong]

And another factor to consider; most of us were probably living with the "illusion of density" long before we even knew we were bald.

 

A lot of men have to lose up to 40-60% of their hair density before it really becomes clear even to them that they're balding. If you think that these days modern transplants can put you back up to those sorts of figures if you're a suitable candidate, then many people might be returning to the sort of hair (at least in the frontal third) that they had before they even knew for definite they were losing it.

 

Also, that doesn't just go for NW3/4 cases. A lot of men with even NW5-6 are able, with modern techniques and the best surgeons, to get 6-8,000 grafts or more over a few procedures. For many of those men that could probably average around 35-50 g/cm2, which would be somewhere between a third and a half of their original density. If you artfully place those grafts so you pack them denser where it matters and slightly less dense where you can get away with it, you can really produce some impressive results. Add in to that the fact you can probably boost those numbers again with an FUE procedure and, provided you've been as thorough as possible in limiting the danger of future loss (meds and/or a thorough examination of miniaturization and studious planning) and it's possible, time and money willing of course, to restore a lot of your hair back. It all comes down to the fact that, again, even if you "only" have 50% of your hair back, chances are 90% of the time you'll just appear to be a man with hair.

[BadBeat]

Mahhong -- great posts. I agree 100% with everything you said. You made a really good point about how we were living with the "illusion of density" before our balding became really apparent to us and other people. A good point to prove this fact is that it was a couple of years into my awareness that I was losing my hair (and obsessing over it) before anybody made any comments about it. I didn't start getting the annoying comments from my guy friends (you know, the "hey, you're losing your hair" comments) until at least 2-3 years into me realizing that I was balding. To me, this just proves that the "illusion of density" is a powerful tool in getting to an acceptable level of coverage to start to feel good about things again.

[aaron1234]

And another factor to consider; most of us were probably living with the "illusion of density" long before we even knew we were bald.

 

Absolutely true! However, I will add that the illusion with native hair is somewhat different than with transplanted hair. This is mainly due to the fact that we rarely transplant at comparable densities with 40%-60% loss. Again, there are exceptions to this but it depends entirely on the patient's level of loss. If you are a candidate for dense packing then you probably don't have 40%-60% loss in the first place.

 

Thanks England. I absolutely agree that my current results are just terrific. I'm simply trying to shed light - pardon the pun - on the reality of the "illusion" with transplanted hair.

[RecedingTide]

I've seen a number of Dr. Rahal cases that are precisely planned out and take into account going norwood 6 in the future. There's also a guy, think it's El Nino, and he's had almost 5000 starting from the crown. He has yet to lose his hairline and people were asking what would happen if he lost the hair at the front. It turns out he has another 4000 by strip for the front half. After that he has between another 1500 to 2000 FUE if he needed them. The plan would have him at about 50% everywhere if he has to have another pass or two.

 

Nowadays a very decent head of hair is possible even for many norwood 6s who have lost nearly all their native hair.

[Davis91]

El Nino has an exceptional donor supply according to his posts/case.

[mahhong]

Wow, El Nino is one lucky guy!

 

I think these days studious planning and monitoring makes it easier and more effective to plan your hair restoration goals, although it's still a case of supply and demand. But we can more accurately gauge miniaturization, balding area, donor supply and keep track of that prior to making decisions about our hair goals. In addition to that yield and the ability to maximise the donor supply is slowly improving, meaning that some doctors are getting pretty incredible amounts of hair out of the donor area. This is all still obviously limited by your physiology and even the best cases will never be able to replace close to every hair they lose, but it does seem that these days some NW5/6 patients with the right characteristics are able to look at restoring a good amount of hair on their heads, especially in the areas that matter like the hairline.

 

If a good doctor can give you a strong sense of the hair you're losing and the sorts of donor you might be able to harvest, you can make more informed guesses about how much hair you have and what you need to do with it. Things like finance will be obvious limitations, as it's not like most of us can just max out our donor at will (nor would it be wise to really do that), but I think you can really plan more diligently to get good results now, or at least know pretty well what you can hope to achieve and be realistic about whether that matches your goals.

 

aaron - Out of curiosity do you know the details of your case, like the balding area size, density you were planted at etc.? Your hair looks great by the way!

 

I think we have to remember that the "illusion" and "real density" are not explicit terms to describe two different things. There would come a point where the "illusion" turned into real density and the grey area in between would easily fool anybody.

[orlhair1]

I think it is very true that people on here are hypersensitive about any scalp showing through. Most people who have never done any research on HT would have no idea that a person has had a HT if done by a top clinic. The reality is that it is not uncommon to see men with what most of us would consider a nice full head of hair.......but, if you looked under the same bright lights mentioned on this post, you would see through to the scalp some. Also, many men with full heads of hair use gel to separate the hair for styling which allows you to see the scalp. At the end of the day, the most important thing about a HT is that it looks natural as if no work has been done......if you get that, it really does not matter how dense it is packed or if you can see a little scalp under the right light. While some people are lucky and may have 8 - 10K grafts available, most do not. Most clinics say the average is between 4 & 8K. So the thing to do is use them wisely as they have to stand the test of time as we continue to lose hair.....especially for those in their 20s & 30s. who still have decades to worry about their hair loss. Even with meds, most people will continue to thin over the years......it is just a question of when.....for some the meds may stop or slow it for a decade or more......others, it only works for a few years. So personally, I like the conservative approach that gives a nice natural look and keeps plenty of donor for any future needs.

[aaron1234]

This great thread inspired me to find the most nasty, unflattering lights in my town today. They happen to be inside a bathroom at a Subway. I took two pictures; one directly under the lights and another just two steps back. The one directly under the lights is quite brutal - it reveals the thinness and even some of the bumps from my crummy first procedure (formerly recommended surgeon on this site). But just a mere two steps back it looks like a full head of hair with slight recession. It's a Jekyll and Hyde comparison - only a few feet of difference.

 

Fortunately, most lights are never this harsh, and if I see them I steer clear of them. I know my lights! But it just goes to show what the illusion actually is - especially with hair as thin as mine.

 

@Mahong. I'm actually not quite sure about the size and numbers of my procedures. I know graft/hair counts but I do not the densities off the top of my head. Thanks for the compliments!

[mahhong]

Thanks for the photos Aaron! It's really great to see stuff like this because it helps people see the whole picture when it comes to getting a hair transplant!

 

To be honest I still think your hair looks pretty good even under the harsh lights! As you say, it's clear that the density is not as full under those lights, but in contrast you also have your hair styled well and spiked up at the hairline; two factors which in theory betray the density more easily. That's not a criticism because it's great to see people with HTs using their hair and making it part of their look, but what I meant by that is that these could be construed as factors that will make the lack of density more apparent; and yet your hair still looks great!

 

It would be very interesting to put non-balding men under the same lights, with the same hair style, just to compare. I'm sure some of them would show no thinning or diffuse loss whatsoever but I reckon you'd also find some whose hair began to look a bit see through who didn't expect it. That's the thing; when I was 20 I didn't ever think about how my hair looked wet, or in harsh lights or anything. If I'd shown a bit of scalp I would never have known it because I didn't check and it was never pointed out.

 

Great HT though, even in the worst of conditions! Do you know if you have any donor left and, if so, would you consider further procedures, or do you feel done with your hair now? I ask because I'm always intrigued to see what people's future goals are and if they have donor left to go for them!

[RecedingTide]

Also how you style your hair has a big effect. Needless to say parting the hair to one side will create the best coverage and block the most light whereas spiking your hair, especially at the hairline will let the most light through.

[aaron1234]

As you say, it's clear that the density is not as full under those lights, but in contrast you also have your hair styled well and spiked up at the hairline; two factors which in theory betray the density more easily. That's not a criticism because it's great to see people with HTs using their hair and making it part of their look, but what I meant by that is that these could be construed as factors that will make the lack of density more apparent; and yet your hair still looks great!

 

 

Also how you style your hair has a big effect. Needless to say parting the hair to one side will create the best coverage and block the most light whereas spiking your hair, especially at the hairline will let the most light through.

 

You both are exactly right! The faux-hawk, spiked up look works best for me stylistically. However, it doesn't do me many favors in additional density - no shingling, layering, or quasi-combover effects. It's a compromise I'm willing to take because I'm rarely under lighting that harsh.

 

@Mahong. I consider myself a HT-lifer, so I'm sure I'll get more work done in the future (I have about 2-3K left via strip - though a strip revision will be needed first). As for now I'm just going to enjoy the results I have.

[azazelgs]

I'd like to put a different perspective, my conclusion (one might say "the flaw") about the hairtransplants.

 

Most of us dont regocnise any hairloss until we loose %30-40 of it like mahhong said.After we do, most of the people start to have their haircuts shorter in order to "hide" the thinning effect. Shorter the haircut,vthe less obvious the thinning. But if you grow your hair longer , you start to try different styles to get the best non-thinning appereance but it will always look thinner than the sides.

 

If you became nw5-6 completely bald, the best hair style is to buzz . Some might say " if you buzz it , why you need hair ?it is damn short" but many of us know that it is not true. A hairline frames and defines the face eventhough you buzz it.

 

This is where you face the problem( at least my problem) ; with fut meaning more grafts than fue ,it is impossible because scar looks horrible.with fue , the no of grafts will never be enough. So what's left? To max out your donor with strip and hope for the best. Yes there are truly great results like london lad or nicnitro but those results depended on many factors like donor density, laxity etc.. You know them. Many of us are not perfect candidates. So at this point , ht becomes eliminated for guys like me who prefers shorter haircuts.

 

Long story short, i think if your density between your sides and your top are different ( assuming top is less) ,short cut is the best. However you cant do that after a hair transplant because of the scar. I know that noone could get his teenage hairline but there must be more options for a hair loss sufferer.

[bonkerstonker]

Thanks for the photos Aaron! It's really great to see stuff like this because it helps people see the whole picture when it comes to getting a hair transplant!

 

To be honest I still think your hair looks pretty good even under the harsh lights! As you say, it's clear that the density is not as full under those lights, but in contrast you also have your hair styled well and spiked up at the hairline; two factors which in theory betray the density more easily. That's not a criticism because it's great to see people with HTs using their hair and making it part of their look, but what I meant by that is that these could be construed as factors that will make the lack of density more apparent; and yet your hair still looks great!

 

It would be very interesting to put non-balding men under the same lights, with the same hair style, just to compare. I'm sure some of them would show no thinning or diffuse loss whatsoever but I reckon you'd also find some whose hair began to look a bit see through who didn't expect it. That's the thing; when I was 20 I didn't ever think about how my hair looked wet, or in harsh lights or anything. If I'd shown a bit of scalp I would never have known it because I didn't check and it was never pointed out.

 

Great HT though, even in the worst of conditions! Do you know if you have any donor left and, if so, would you consider further procedures, or do you feel done with your hair now? I ask because I'm always intrigued to see what people's future goals are and if they have donor left to go for them!

 

I suppose you could always turn your head so one side is facing up while under harsh light and take a birds eye picture of your self I've done that a few times to see what my hair should look like and mine is really thick with no gaps at all.