Hair Restoration Blog

I just read a nice article in Dermatologic Surgery Journal on naturally occurring female hairline based on a study on a large group of normal women.  The study was done in Miami, Florida by Dr. Nausbaum et al.  Although due to the higher numbers of men with hair loss who undergo hair restoration surgery, male hairline has been studied and published more comprehensively though female hairline design through hair transplant is also gaining popularity in the last few years.

The authors came up with a guideline that could be used for designing a female hairline.  The numbers were calculated based on the average of the recorded parameters in women with healthy non-balding female hairline.   Among the interesting parameters, you could see that the presence of the widow’s peak was recorded in 81% of all 360 women.

The authors report that lateral mounds were observed in 90% of the patients in the study.  They published the average measurement parameters on all the indexes in the article.  We at US Hair Restoration perform hair transplants for women with some types of female patterned hair loss and alterations in the pattern of their hairline, or the ones with a male patterned hairline.  We also perform transgender hair transplants for male to female transsexuals.  I believe that transgender hair transplants should be one of the first cosmetic surgeries that a transgender individual should have done to achieve a more feminine appearance.

Q:

I am a male to female transgender.  I have some hair thinning on top with receded corners as a male hairline.  I am already taking Propecia and Spironolactone to block my testosterone effect. I would like to change my hairline from a male hairline with corner recessions to a female one. I have some thinning on the top too.  I have fine and curly hair to start with.  How can a male hairline be converted to a female pattern?  Do you recommend hair transplant for transsexuals or is there any other options to restore receded corners to a perfect feminine hair line?  I’m interested to know my options and what you recommend.

A:

Male to female transgender patients may experience two personal problems.  The first is having receded frontal corners in mature male patterned hairline which is what makes the frame of the face “masculine”. Receded corners can be easily restored with hair restoration through follicular unit transplantation.  The second issue is when there is also miniaturization or balding of the rest of their hair in a male patterned baldness that may require further hair restoration.  Taking anti-testosterone medications can help to slow down your hair loss, but it does not stop the balding process completely.  Removing the testicles surgically as part of a transgender procedure can eliminate testosterone and, in turn, stop the process of male pattern hair loss in people who are genetically susceptible to it.
If you are only changing your male mature hairline to a feminine one or if you have male patterned balding, a hair transplant can help you.  Obviously, you need to continue with your anti-testosterone medications and get a hair transplant to reshape the frame of your face.  You may need more than one hair transplant procedure for maximum fullness of the hairline in a perfect female pattern.

Transsexual hair transplantation is a meticulous procedure and the hair transplant surgeon needs to understand your facial proportions.  Your Hair transplant doctor needs to be experienced with shaping the hairline in women.  Women hairline is different from male in many aspects such as: the location of the hairline from eyebrow level at mid frontal and laterals; temples need to be restored in a complete female shape; direction and orientation of hair shafts are also different between men and women.  All these features and details need to be dealt with meticulously.  We at US Hair Restoraiton offer quality hiar restoration to change a male to female hairline for transgenders.