Designing the Hair Line
The best transplant doesn’t look like one at all. The way to achieve it is by following the example of nature itself. The McAndrews Method respects hair—its tendencies, its integrity and its inherent design. It’s a more exacting process with the rewards of incredible survival rates and the most natural-born effect possible.
The McAndrews Method is founded on the talents of an aesthetic surgeon’s skillful hand. However, that doesn’t mean that artistry overrules the artistic genius of nature. It mandates to follow hair’s own patterns for the best possible result in design as well as execution. It follows what nature intended before it got interrupted. The result? A naturally restored head of hair.
Q: What are the most important factors in designing the hairline?
A: Hair restoration is as much art as science, although many physicians value an automated technique, or speed, over aesthetics. The goal is to frame your face and maintain a youthful appearance that’s true to you, including your own growth/loss patterns. There are four key points:
Strategic Height
Unfortunately, hair loss does not stop with a transplant. Placing the restored hairline too low virtually guarantees you’ll outgrow it. True, placing it low is tempting, especially to younger patients. Yet a few years of hair loss later and the natural balding pattern reasserts itself, leaving an unnaturally bold hairline without enough good genetic hair to fill it in. The McAndrews Method uses a conservatively placed hairline that looks good now—and in 20 years.
Natural Lateral Balance
Too wide of a frontal hairline creates the very result you want to avoid, evoking a comb-over
or hair piece look.
The Angle of Hair to the Scalp
Hair angles more acutely at the front of the hairline. Incisions are too often placed perpendicular to the scalp, which covers it poorly and looks obviously fake.
Irregularity
A straight, symmetrical hairline doesn’t exist in nature, which is why it attracts unwanted attention. The McAndrews Method will follow the tendencies, textures and growth pattern of your own hair. That means it’s naturally irregular, not overly linear or harsh.
As Nature Intended
Each and every hair doesn’t grow individually from the scalp. They grow naturally in groups
of 1 to 4 hairs. One of the most important innovations in hair restoration was the discovery of these natural hair groupings. Rather than destroying these natural groupings for the sake of convenience, we fight nature with nature by following the scalp’s inherent design.
Again, we follow nature’s plan in how we harvest, place and implant the hair grafts, ensuring the most natural look and an overwhelming rate of survival and success.
Supply & Demand
As we mentioned, there’s one significant limitation to any hair transplant: the amount of “good genetic” hair. One of the most important aspects of the artful precision with The McAndrews Method is that we use this limited supply as wisely and efficiently as possible to meet the hair loss demands.
Preserving, placing and encouraging its growth are key components of The McAndrews Method. We use only techniques and technologies that ensure grafts survive and thrive without damage or depletion. The result? A naturally restored head of hair.
Q: Is there a difference in the hair grafts?
A: Absolutely. The McAndrews Method takes advantage of these natural hair groupings. Carefully and precisely. By maintaining this integrity, the look is far more natural and the survival is far greater than popular single-hair micrografts. That technique dissects only individual hairs, despite this inherent plan.
Q: How do you identify the natural hair groupings?
A: Critical to The McAndrews Method is another innovation—the “stereoscopic microscope”
to identify these groupings with accuracy and dissect them with the utmost integrity. Without it, you’re seriously risking one of your most precious commodities: viable donor hair.
The microscope allows the doctor to precisely dissect the grafts, locating each unique grouping. This precision also prevents trauma to the surrounding hair. The result? The highest quality grafts with a dramatically higher success rate—95 to 100 percent. These results are typical for the McAndrews Method but are not the medical standard.
Note: During the critical dissection process, imperative to The McAndrews Method, is the use of the stereoscopic microscope. It is not “for show”. Using the stereoscopic microscope is the correct way to precisely dissect out each and every graft, which is the only way to ensure the best results for the patient.
Q: Does this technique have other advantages?
A: Yes. The McAndrews Method of using the stereoscopic technique does have another
important advantage: density. With the microscope, we can remove excess tissue from the hair follicle. That means your incisions are smaller, and smaller grafts can be placed more closely
for a fuller, thicker effect.
Q: How are the natural hair groupings placed?
A: The hairs that are naturally single get placed at the hairline. This careful placement is
supported by multiple groupings placed farther back, designed for a thick appearance.
The McAndrews Method of side-by-side placement of naturally grouped hair creates a
lush, born-with-it density. And isn’t that what we’re all looking for? Other methods of hair restoration place hair in straight rows in a line formation from front to back which is unnatural.