Jokes about bad wigs or hairpieces are not funny to the 50% of men and 33% of women who experience hair loss during their lives. Whether from disease or genetics, hair loss affects a person’s confidence and seriously hampers his or her career and social life.
However, there is a difference in quality among hair replacement systems. Some are mass-produced, throw away hairpieces that clearly look fake. These low quality non surgical hair replacement systems often do more harm than good by driving the wearer’s confidence even lower.
How do we make non surgical hair replacement systems that look natural? Here are 5 ways the best hair replacement systems mimic natural hair:
Hairline
When men suffer hair loss, it usually begins with a receding hairline at the forehead and temples and thinning at the top of the head. These eventually merge, leaving a wreath of hair around the sides and back of the head. This is called male pattern hair loss or Hippocratic baldness after the ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates who studied his own hair loss.
A natural-looking non surgical hair replacement system needs to provide a hairline that matches your own pre-hair loss hairline. If the hair line is too low, the hair looks unnatural as if your eyebrows and scalp have merged.
Similarly, the hair at your hairline looks different in both density and thickness than the hair on the rest of your scalp. One giveaway of fake hairpieces is that they look like they were cut from a piece of carpet, with all the hair having the same density and thickness. The best non surgical hair replacement systems take into account the natural variations in your hair.
Scalp
In addition to matching the shape of your natural hairline, the hairline must also provide a natural transition from your forehead to your hair. A cheap, fake-looking hairpiece will have a visible mesh that sits on your scalp to auto-hold the hair.
By contrast, the best hair replacement system will have no visible mesh or matrix holding the hair. These non surgical hair replacement systems create the impression that the hair is growing directly out of your scalp.
Texture
Head hair has a unique texture that arises from the way hair cells grow. The outer layer of each hair, called the cuticle, has overlapping cells that look like roof shingles under a microscope. This shingled construction is the reason that hair looks, moves, and styles like hair.
Wigs and hairpieces made from synthetic hair do not look, move, or style like natural hair. This is because synthetic hair is made from plastic fibers that are smooth like fishing line, rather than shingled like natural hair. As a result, they look and feel stiff and slick. Worse yet, they cannot be styled.
The best hair restoration systems use natural hair to give the final product the movement, look, and style of your own hair.
Shine
Have you ever used a hair product that leaves your hair looking unnaturally shiny? Some hair products contain oil, which is picked up and held by the shingled cuticle. This reflects light with an unnatural shiny and wet look.
Synthetic hair has this same shiny and wet look. As mentioned above, synthetic hair is made from plastic fibers. As a result, hairpieces made from synthetic hair often have a fake look that is more appropriate for a toy doll’s head than your own head. Natural hair, on the other hand, reflects light the same way your own hair would.
Matched Color
One dead giveaway that a hairpiece is fake is the color contrast between the hair restoration system and your own hair. Since many people with hair loss do not suffer complete baldness, but rather receding hairlines, thinning, and bald spots, there will be some need to blend a hair restoration system with your own hair. Even in cases of total baldness, your eyebrows and facial hair have a particular color. The best hair restoration systems match both the color and texture of your existing hair.
Hair restoration systems can look, feel, and move naturally by using natural hair, matching the color of your existing hair, and providing a blended scalp and hairline.
