There are many different avenues to a fuller-looking head of hair. Some might get a FUE or FUT transplant (if they qualify), start using specialized shampoo & follicle activator spray, give laser therapy a shot, or try any combination of methods. We encourage all of these approaches, of course, but there might be another that you have yet to consider. It’s a fairly new trend, and it’s simpler than you might think.
Allow us to fill you in on what’s known as Scalp Micro Pigmentation, which is often referred to as SMP for short. To keep it short, the person performing the procedure creates a dense grouping of medical-grade tattoos, each about the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen, specifically matching the density of the hairs on that part of the patient’s head.
“Wait, but what’s a medical-grade tattoo?” You might be thinking, “Couldn’t I just have my local tattoo artist take care of it?” Let’s just get this out of the way now: tattoo artists are not qualified to perform SMP by any means. For starters, there’s no sort of major oversight group to monitor the safety of tattoo parlors. In contrast, the people cleared to perform SMP are strictly monitored by the state medical licensing board, meaning that they have to follow an incredibly precise set of guidelines concerning how these tattoos are given to patients.
Let’s get back to explaining SMP itself, though. This sort of procedure can be useful for quite a few different people. For starters, if you recently got a hair transplant & want to make it seem like there’s more hairs between the transplanted ones, an SMP procedure can be an excellent option. It also works for people who want to fill in the space between thinner hairs, and if you don’t feel like having too much hair restoration work done, you can even have larger areas of your scalp pigmented to give the appearance of a very low-cropped shaved hairdo.
A donor scar resulting an FUT procedure, also known as the “strip” procedure, can be covered up in this manner as well. As another example, if a person decides to go to a less experienced hair surgeon before finding us at Modena Hair Institute, either at our Newport, Beverly Hills, or Las Vegas locations, we can utilize the procedure to cover up poorly-closed donor areas that would’ve stuck out far more clearly otherwise.
You can see an example of how this plays out in the first half of the video we’ve included here. This Modena patient was dealing with a rather wide donor scar that appeared clear as day along the back of his head. With some moderate pigmentation by Dr. Yazdan, however, one cannot tell that any procedure had been performed in the first place. The same can be said of the person appearing in the second half, who had a space in the center of their head & left with it not only looking completely filled-in, but natural in turn. When it’s all said and done, the results will end up lasting you around 3-5 years.
The best results, however, only come when you have an experienced professional handling things. If done poorly, the results can end up looking worse than unnatural. How can this happen, you wonder? Well, many of the negative experiences people have at outside clinics center on a certain safety factor that wasn’t in play, along with a lack of experience.
One of the main causes of a botched SMP procedure, for instance, is bad ink. If you’ve seen the results of botched budget tattoos people get on other parts of their body, imagine how that would look on someone’s scalp. It’s a sorry sight, to say the least, and it can be easily avoided. All you have to do is avoid the temptation of dubious budget clinics, where cheapness is often a result of cutting corners in safety. Instead, opt for a clinic like Modena Hair Institute, where board-certified & licensed physician Amir Yazdan follows precise medical standards to make the procedure completely safe & sanitary.
Of course, with cheap outside clinics, there’s also the risk of ending up with dramatically unnatural markings on your head, resulting from the performer’s lack of experience replicating real hairlines. Your surgeon should know a natural hair grouping like it’s their first name, and as you can tell from the pictures above, Dr. Yazdan fits that description better than any other hair restoration surgeon out there.
The long-lasting nature of the procedure means it’s more than vital that things are done right the first time. That’s why all SMP procedures at Modena are performed under the guidance of Dr. Amir Yazdan, a board-certified hair restoration surgeon & physician who has years of experience in his field. You can see various examples of his patients here, and set up a consultation of your own here.
