Hair Foundation Blog

Last year, there was a lot of talk about new dry shampoos entering the market. Back in December, the Hair Foundation wrote a post about them and in March, we had a post highlighting one of our partners’ new line of dry shampoo products.

I have memories of my mom and grandmother going to the beauty shop once a week to get their hair done. This meant they didn’t wash their hair all week. I never heard them complain about it. Once the weekly visits stopped, my mom still didn’t wash her hair every day. And now years later, I am a full-fledged proponent of not washing your hair too often even during these hot summer temps and sweaty workouts.

In a recent Huffington Post story, “Is It Healthier To Skip Washing Your Hair?” the author cites health magazines, celebrities, hair dresses and doctors who believe you shouldn’t wash your hair too often and overall, it supports skipping the washing of your hair.

It’s a good read and poses the question, how often do you wash your hair?

In this AOL Stylelist article, it states that in the United States, an estimated 30 million women suffer from thinning hair and for women over the age of 50, hair loss affects 50 percent of them. More women are seeking treatments for hair loss than in the past and while it may appear to be growing problem, in reality women have been affected by it for quite some time.

Highlights in the article include types of hair loss, causes, and treatments.

To read more about women and hair loss, check out the article.

In this ongoing series of posts from an article written by Hair Foundation’s former president E. Antonio Mangubat, MD, he gives an overview of HRS cosmetic and reconstructive options and applications for their use in implementing treatments for massive hair loss from devastating illness or injury. 

Specifically, Mangubat focuses on the challenges of major scalp defect reconstruction in achieving a cosmetically superior result.

In today’s post, we’ll take a look at Hairline Design.

Besides hair transplantation, scalp flap procedures are the mainstay of scalp recon­struction. While creating an undetectable and natural hairline often represents a great challenge to HRS surgeons, scalp flap techniques are able to cover large defects swiftly and effectively.

Alopecia reduction (AR) allows the sur­geon to eliminate unwanted bald tissue. Originally innovated for cosmetic HRS in the 1970s, it is a procedure that became very popular because of its simplicity and effectiveness in reducing the amount of bald scalp requiring hair transplantation. Its popularity waned as hair transplanta­tion techniques improved and our under­standing of the natural history of hair loss became more refined. But the techniques remain valuable tools for reconstructive purposes.

The first AR procedures were simple excision of bald scalp from the central area of hair loss.  The scalp was undermined to the nuchal line that is a prominent ridge on the parietal and occipital scalp where several muscle attach to the skull. Undermining in the subgaleal plane was easy, bloodless, and fast, allow­ing the surgeon to remove a significant area of bald scalp rapidly.

Limitations and disadvantages of AR were soon discovered including widening the bald area also known as stretch-back, slot deformity, and visible scarring. Many technique variations were developed to further improve the method to enhance bald scalp removal and minimize hair deformities.

The extensive scalp lift (ESL) is one of the more interesting and effective AR techniques in that the dissection was car­ried out beyond the limits of the galea aponeurotica marked by the nuchal line, extending it down to the nape of the hair line. Furthermore, no expander devices were required. Brandy determined that the majority of the tissue stretch occurred in the tissue beyond the thick and less elastic galeal layer; thus, ESL permit­ted a much greater reduction of bald scalp.

This greater efficiency was not without greater complications, however, in that an incidence occipital hair-bearing scalp necrosis was noted. Mangubat developed the procedure to pre­serve the occipital artery of the posterior scalp and eliminated the incidence of necrosis.

In our next post, we’ll discuss hair-bearing flaps and tissue expanders.

In More, a sophisticated magazine targeted to women 40-years-old and plus, has a recent feature on 12 frugal finds. With these hair-related products, you’ll look like you just left an expensive hair salon.  

In this ongoing series of posts from an article written by Hair Foundation’s former president E. Antonio Mangubat, MD, he gives an overview of HRS cosmetic and reconstructive options and applications for their use in implementing treatments for massive hair loss from devastating illness or injury. 

Specifically, Mangubat focuses on the challenges of major scalp defect reconstruction in achieving a cosmetically superior result.

In today’s post, we’ll take a look at Hair Reconstruction: Understanding the aesthetic elements.

The success of any HRS procedure depends upon many factors but recognizing what is a normal-appearing hairline, is critical. The reader is directed to a complete discussion of this topic in Hair Transplantation, 4th edition.10 Natural cosmetic results are highly dependent on these factors, which include the following:

1) Extent of hair loss or defect. This deter­mines the amount of work required to cover the defect.

2) Age of the patient. Bear in mind that the extent of hair loss increases with age. Young men with AGA will have less hair to transplant and more bald area to cover as they grow older. In scalp reconstruction, the balding pro­cess continues unabated and can have a significant impact on the future and longevity of the results.

3) Adequate donor tissue (hair-bearing scalp). There must be sufficient donor hair density and tissue to provide enough grafts to cover the hair defect. Hair restoration does not produce more hair but, rather, relocates exist­ing hair on the patient’s scalp.

4) Hair color affects perceived cover­age. The darker the color, the greater the apparent coverage per given hair density.

5) Hair curl increases the apparent vol­ume of hair present. Curly hair covers more area as it bunches up on itself.

6) Hair contrast plays an important role in naturalness. The greater the contrast–for example, black hair on white skin—the more unnatural the appearance. Care must be taken to use the finest single hair grafts in the most exposed area; that is, the hairline especially after a reconstructive flap advancement.

7) Hair shaft diameter is an important determinant in how much hair mass is moved. The thicker the diameter, the more prominent the hair and the more coverage it provides.

8) Hair direction must be maintained to create a natural result. This element is critical and should be considered except in the most dire circumstance,where any coverage is acceptable.

9) Hairline considerations. A natural hairline is a misnomer. A natural hairline is actually a zone of fine, irregular hairs that create the feathering zone as the bald scalp gradually yields to hair-bearing scalp.

10) Ethnic differences are wide and varied, and usually can be described as a combination of the above characteristics. For example, Asian hair is less dense than Caucasian hair, but the hair shaft diameters are typically thicker. The converse is also true: Typically, Caucasians have greater density (hair follicles/mm2) but smaller shaft diameters.

In our next post, we’ll discuss hairline design.

At the Hair Foundation, we occasionally receive inquiries from consumers about hair loss. Recently, we received this question about children with cancer and hair loss. This response comes from one of the Hair Foundation’s trustee, Dr. William M Parsley.

Question: My seven-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cancer. We have been told that she may lose her hair permanently due to radiation. She has completed the radiation treatment and while she has lost a lot of hair, some does remain. Once she starts chemotherapy, she will lose the hair but I know that it will grow back. However, if this doesn’t happen, what are her treatment options?

Answer: If the permanent hair loss from radiation is not too extensive, your daughter may be a good candidate for hair transplantation.  Before this, you will need to see if the hair loss from chemotherapy returns with good quality.  Even so, transplantation is tough on a seven-year-old so you would want to wait until she is socially active and also determine how much the hair loss bothers her.

In the meantime, hair pieces work well and also camouflage agents such as fibers (Toppik) and sprays (Fullmore). These camouflage agents are wonderful if she has enough remaining hair.

But your question seems to be about options if the hair from chemotherapy doesn’t grow back.  At this time a hair piece is your only good choice.  Considerable work is being done with hair cloning and other treatments to bring back hair.  It is a promising field but worthwhile breakthroughs appear to be at least five to 10 years away.

August is National Hair Loss Awareness Month. Don’t you owe it to yourself to face the issue “head on” once and for all? If you are like the millions of men and women who suffer from hair loss, it can be a difficult issue for you to discuss. Hair loss could be your body’s way of telling you there is a larger issue or illness you should address. Once you have been evaluated by a physician and concluded you indeed have hair loss that is not associated with a temporary condition such as pregnancy, stress, diet, or hormones, you have several options for restoring your hair, slowing the rate of hair loss or camouflaging your hair loss. Many individuals accept and embrace their new appearance or temporarily try to disguise their hair loss. However, depending on the severity or type of hair loss and your lifestyle, there are many medical and non-medical treatments and solutions that may be right for you.

Dr. Zoe Draelos, a Trustee of the Hair Foundation, discusses myths about hair loss at http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/27956.php

Non-Surgical Hair Loss Treatment: As long as people have been concerned about hair loss, there have been products that claim to stop or cure it. Until scientific research discovered the cause of androgenic alopecia (hair loss), medical treatments for hair loss were hit-or-miss. Many people, who suffer from hair loss, first try laser hair therapy, hair systems or wigs, spray on hair, thickeners or powders that effectively camouflage thinning hair or stimulate hair growth.

Today there are products on the market that claim to reverse hair loss, but only two medications have FDA-recognized effectiveness – minoxidil and finasteride.

There are also, surgical treatments for hair loss. All four of the surgical treatments for hair loss involve moving active, hair producing follicles from one site on the scalp to another. Moving hair from an area where hair is more plentiful and less likely to be lost to areas where hair is thinning or missing. While all of these surgical treatments have shown proven success, achieving natural-appearing results has made Transplantation the most widely used surgical procedure for diminishing the appearance (or is the treatment of the condition of hair loss) of hair loss.

Hair Transplant: Gone are the days of the “plugs.” Hair transplantation today achieves a natural look and is made possible by better understanding of the scalp and hair biology, refined surgical techniques and ever-improving surgical instruments.

Scalp Reduction: Scalp (Alopecia) reduction surgically removes bald scalp skin in areas of hair loss and pulls adjoining hair-bearing scalp skin together to eliminate the bald spot.

Scalp Expansion: Scalp expansion is a modification of alopecia reduction. A balloon-type device is placed under the scalp and slowly inflated and expanded over a period of several weeks to create a “dome” or “bubble” of stretched scalp skin. A series of surgical procedures reduces the area of hair loss by alopecia reduction surgery, removes the scalp expansion device, and completes closure of hair-bearing scalp to achieve complete alopecia reduction.

Scalp Flap Transfer: Flap procedures are used in both cosmetic and reconstructive surgery. In the treatment of hair loss, a flap of hair-bearing scalp tissue is surgically raised from underlying tissue and transferred to a prepared scalp site with hair loss.

To learn more about Hair Loss Causes and Treatments, please visit: http://www.hairfoundation.org/hair-loss.htm

Dr. David Perez-Meza, Hair Foundation Scientific Advisory Council Member and renowned hair surgeon http://hairfoundation.org/about/about-leadership-councils-sac.htm was a guest speaker at the American Association of Cosmetology Schools (AACS) and the Cosmetology Educators of America (CEA) http://www.beautyschools.org/ Annual Convention in Orlando on July 24, 2010. Over 700 cosmetology educators from around the country attended the convention and heard Dr. Perez-Meza’s lecture dispelling myths about hair loss, hair transplant surgery and the use of different types of shampoos to combat hair loss.