At What Length Do Transplanted Hair Provide Great Cosmetic Coverage?

[Leftwithrope]

Hey guys,

It's almost 6 months and 2 weeks after my hair transplant(2500 grafts) At this point, I'm feeling mixed emotions. I can see that majority of the transplanted grafts survived and are now growing, but at their current length of 1 to 1.5 inches, I would say that it is unable to provide a cosmetically acceptable look. The hairs are short, kinky and of a duller colour than my original hair. I am wondering at what length does transplanted hair typically provide great coverage and whether transplanted hair starts to regain its donor characteristics (color, texture, and caliber) as it grows in length.

This is causing me some distress as many 6 month progress pictures online show the patient having stylable hair that looks good enough to go outdoors with.

I'm attaching a picture of my current progress to illustrate what I mean.

Thanks a lot.

[Al - Moderator]

The hair will get thicker and less kinky over time, so it will provide better coverage over the next 6 months.

 

[Leftwithrope]

1 minute ago, BeHappy said:

The hair will get thicker and less kinky over time, so it will provide better coverage over the next 6 months.

 

Thank you for your reply. I know this is too early for me to say but I am actually looking at a second procedure because I am aiming to approach native density even more. I take it that you have underwent a transplant yourself and would like to ask if you think having another 1000 grafts would be greatly beneficial in helping reach my goals.

Also, would you mind sharing how the maturation process was like for you, if you've underwent a transplant of course.

[Shera]

Again at 6 months your hair transplant is nowhere near grown out and you should be more positive as you have a long way to go yet. Your hair will continue to grow up to approximately the 9-12 month mark and even then it is likely to take up to 18 months to mature and return back to it's natural state. At this point keeping your hair an inch - 1.5 inches long will likely help create the best illusion of a thick dense head of hair.

But at 6 months you will be better off keeping it a lot shorter and uniform with your native hair (also short, grade 4-5 perhaps.)

Edited December 27, 2018 by Shera

[pkipling]

Tread lightly when comparing your 6 month results to someone else's. There's no guaranteed timeline for results/density, and every single case is different. 6 months is still relatively early, so don't panic just yet. It will continue to thicken and mature over the next 6 months at least. 

Shera is right that in the meantime, shorter is probably better in terms of maximizing the illusion of density.