What are the disadvantages of SMP? 

This is something that I really do feel like needs to be explained carefully and well because scalp micropigmentation is something that while really wonderful is not perfect for everyone. The way you can know it’s not right for you is if after hearing the disadvantages, and the advantages if it doesn’t seem like it’s a good fit for you, I can guarantee you it’s not. It’s something that is very personal and individual and while it can be used for everyone, it doesn’t mean that everyone needs to want it or have it and so I’m going to go ahead and explain that a little bit now.

Scalp micropigmentation is a tattoo. This is something that I try to establish at the beginning of all my consultations because some people come in and believe that their hair is going to regrow after they have scalp micropigmentation while you may experience a little bit of regrowth. I have explained this in other videos. The goal of scalp micropigmentation is not to regrow your hair. It’s to increase the density of your hair and also to reconstruct your hairline, it can also be used to cover localized thinning from scarring or specific patches of hair loss.

When it might not be an advantage to get it done? 

• If you are having success with hair loss drugs and you’re okay with the side effects. 

I think that if you’re content with your current routine, then continue doing what you’re doing. The reason I think this is valuable for most people is that if they’re not content with continually having to go back and buy more hair loss drugs, to buy topic, and they’re tired of devoting time to it. This is the best solution for them.

• If you really want to grow back real hair

If your goal is to have your hair back and not to have your hair thinning alleviated then I think that this might not be the right service for you. You’re going to go into scalp micropigmentation still wanting to have hair and so it would be better for you to explore options that regrow the actual hair.

The problem with hair regrowth is going to be that to get results like most people are wanting, you’re going to need to go on a hair loss drug or have hair loss surgery. For obvious reasons, hair loss surgery is fairly extreme, and then having to go on a hair loss drug that has a lot of really nasty side effects is not something that’s really appealing to most people.

So if you’re really intent on regrowing your hair and that’s something that you’re willing to accept, you’re willing to accept surgical consequences or drug consequences, then that’s totally fine.

And you know, if the goal for you is really to have the hair back and not necessarily to just have a solution to hair loss. Then I would suggest getting that getting scalp micropigmentation might be a disadvantage for you.

What about having bad scalp micropigmentation? 

Now, as far as actually getting scalp micropigmentation and then having a disadvantage I would say that if you get it and you get bad scalp micropigmentation, that would be a huge disadvantage.

You can mitigate that risk by making sure you go to someone who specializes in scalp micropigmentation. 

It’s a very specific procedure. It’s a very specific skill set, and you do want to find someone who’s really good at that, and that would more or less eliminate any risk of you having a bad scalp micropigmentation experience.

So really the only disadvantages I think to scalp micropigmentation are going to be if you get bad scalp micropigmentation, or if you really really want your actual hair. Because for some folks the hair is the thing they’re most concerned about. I will say though as a side note that a lot of the time people have much higher expectations for hair transplants than they actually achieve. 

Want to know if people regret SMP? Check this out: Do People Regret SMP or Hair Tattoo?

If you have hair loss on the top of your head and you have genetic thinning, after you get a hair transplant, you’re still going to lose that hair eventually. 

So for me, I find that sometimes folks really need to go and experience that for themselves if SMP is in their future. But if you’re really intent on trying to get your hair back first. I would advise you to continue to go in that direction and then if it’s not successful as many hair transplants are not then you can come and get SMP as a secondary option because it will solve the density and hairline problem for you. It just can’t recreate your hair.

That said if you go into a procedure wanting your hair back and you don’t get your hair back, you’re going to view that as a disadvantage. So that’s something that I would say to keep in mind but also just to way as you consider your options on your hair loss journey, and then the second one would be if you get bad SMP then yes, that’s a huge disadvantage and you are going to have to go get it removed or let it fade or have it camouflaged by somebody like me who is going to work around bad SMP in order to create a realistic and good result.

So, I hope that answered the question about what disadvantages I see to scalp micropigmentation the main one being that it’s not hair. So if hair is something you’re really intent on, I would recommend that you pursue other options. But if your goal is to have a hair loss solution, that’s low maintenance, effective and doesn’t require any downtime, and is significantly less expensive than hair transplant or continual hair loss drugs. That’s something I would say is worth considering.

So we talked a lot about the disadvantages of scalp micropigmentation as I mentioned, I feel that there are really only two though they do kind of cover a few different sorts of disadvantages.

What about the advantages of scalp micropigmentation or SMP? 

So let’s talk about other hair loss treatments and how effective they are versus the side effects or the cost. And I think that’s really where the value of scalp micropigmentation is. It’s in the difference and the achievability of those things.

Hair transplants 

There are two different types. There’re FUE and FUT hair transplants. FUT hair transplants are well, they’re still done, they’re not as prevalent as they were. That said you’re going to have the same issue with both FUT and FUE transplants and that is, once you get a transplant. It’s still going to thin over time, especially if you have genetic thinning and that’s something that I think that’s not really factored in. So if you get a FUT hair transplant, which is going to be a large u-shaped scar in the back of your head that you’re going to have to come to somebody like me to cover up any way you are going to have a good amount of hair. But eventually, you’re going to lose that hair again and it’s possible — and not only just possible but probable that you also have to buy hair loss drugs and other expensive treatments like platelet-rich plasma therapy or micro-needling in order to get that hair to grow and to keep it from going away once you’ve had it transplanted.

Now for a lot of people, they’re not actually able to have that type of transplant because they don’t have enough hair—donor hair in order to have that sort of transplant so they do FUE which is individual units. Now when you do these individual units, it does look a little better. It doesn’t leave the scarring the FUT transplants leave, that said once you have those done you’re going to lose that hair eventually and that’s something that I really feel like it’s important to stress. Like there is a level to accepting hair loss and then seeing what can be done realistically within those parameters that can really increase how happy you are with the result which is why I think SMP such a good option for most people because the thing is if your goal is to have a full head of hair again, if genetics has said that you’re not going to have a full head of hair again. It doesn’t matter what you do surgically that’s not going to happen. And so that’s something that’s better accepted and then trying to find alternative solutions as opposed to continuing to try to have surgery that’s really expensive, time-consuming, and has a lot of recovery time. 

For me, it’s just something that I wouldn’t want my relatives to go through or friends to go through. I would advise them to take different routes. 

Hair Loss Drugs 

So let’s take for a minute the two most popular hair loss drugs. Finasteride, which is called Propecia or minoxidil, which is Rogaine. Both of these have very serious hormonal side effects, especially for men. So women cannot even use full strength minoxidil as it can really affect their hormones as well but I find that men are really affected by the interference with the testosterone which is the main function of these drugs is to stop conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone or DHT, which is something that can increase hair fall and contribute to baldness.

Then there’s a lot of natural alternative to this, something called saw palmetto that I do tend to recommend to anybody that comes into my studio because I’m big on using diet and natural supplements to help with scalp micropigmentation.

But at the same time using these drugs, it’s just much higher risk than getting a tattoo, and the impact it has in your hormones can affect a lot of things just downstream from that. I don’t really have to go into it too much but extremely personal things like libido and performance and those are all things that are definitely not worth sacrificing for a few strands of hair. So for a lot of people scalp micropigmentation is just a much safer much, more reasonable, and much faster solution to hair loss. 

Another advantage of scalp micropigmentation is that you can do it before you do more extreme forms.

I think what I want to do here is just present that scalp micropigmentation is a much less extreme thing to do than you go have surgery or go on a drug with really harsh side effects. I would say that downstream from diet and scalp care is going to be scalp micropigmentation and those come way before you ever resort to drugs or surgery in order to fix hair loss issues. And then if you think for a second because scalp micropigmentation is much less intrusive, because it’s much more reasonably priced, and because it’s not a drug or surgery related is something that you can do before you get to those other things. 

If you find that it wasn’t enough for you or that it may work best in conjunction with those things, then you can go ahead and tack those on further on your journey. But what I would rather see is for people to do that first as opposed to later because if it solves a problem in a much more efficient and less expensive then and also much less intrusive way, why wouldn’t you try first?

And I say that because I just see a lot of people who would have gone to do those things and they didn’t have to because they came and they got scalp micropigmentation and they’re so glad that it ended there and they didn’t have to keep searching or trying different things, and so that’s something that I think is worth considering as well. 

The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages 

So while there are disadvantages like the fact that it’s not actually hair and then if you get a bad job that you may be unhappy with, I would argue that the advantages that come from having scalp micropigmentation before drugs or surgery far outweigh the disadvantages. But it’s largely individual and it really comes down to whatever you feel like is best for your own hair loss journey. 

If you want to get in touch with me for a consultation, then fill out the contact form below. Let’s see what scalp micropigmentation can do for you!