This Tattoo Artist Is Inking Hair on Bald People’s Heads
Credit to Author: Manisha Krishnan| Date: Fri, 20 Dec 2019 12:00:00 +0000
Jason Park was 30 when he started losing his hair. It bothered him a lot.
At the time, he worked at a nightclub and said he was reviewing security footage one day when he couldn’t help but notice the bald “crop circle” on the back of his head. He said he had an otherwise youthful appearance.
“I really started to feel self-conscious about it,” said Park, 39, who works in sales and lives in Toronto.
He tried thickening shampoos and shaved his head down hoping it would grow in thicker. Neither made any difference.
But last year, he started getting familiar with scalp micopigmentation—a procedure through which a person has their scalp tattooed to give the illusion of having more hair.
Through scalp micopigmentation, tiny dots of pigment are tattooed on the head to mimic a hair follicle. Think microblading but for your hairline. It can last for up to seven years and costs a fraction of getting a hair transplant, which cost up to $20,000.
He was intrigued by the dramatic before and after pictures posted by Joe Nguyen, a local tattoo artist who specializes in scalp micropigmentation. So he decided to give it a shot. It took him five sessions, about two hours each time, and cost $1,000.
The end result looked like a low fade haircut.
“I was very happy with the results,” Park said, noting the process was virtually painless.
Nguyen, who offers scalp micopigmentation at Chronic Ink, said he found out about it while visiting Thailand three years ago. He began researching it, and saw that it was taking off in places like Miami and Los Angeles. He got it done himself due to his thinning hair.
He said it requires a lot of practice to make simple dots that don’t go in too deep. A lot of his clients are people who don’t have other tattoos, so they’re afraid of the pain. But because the needle stays closer to the skin’s surface, scalp micropigmentation is far less irritating than a traditional tattoo.
“My clients, 90 percent of them fall asleep and start snoring,” Nguyen said.
There are two options—permanent, which lasts five to seven years, and non-permanent, which lasts two to three years.
Nguyen said most of his clients are men. He described a bald head as “an open, plain canvas.” Tattooing hair onto women is “very tedious,” he said, because you have to pull the hairs away from each other. He said it takes around six to seven sessions to finish a woman’s head.
For men, he’ll typically charge $1,000 to $2,500, whereas women can pay up to $3,000.
Nguyen said the results he produces are convincing.
“People wouldn’t even notice you had it done,” he said. A perusal of his Instagram feed reveals mostly good results for men, but on a couple of the women, it looks less realistic.
Nguyen also knows how to style hair, so he’ll top up his clients with a haircut, showing them how to style their hair to make the most out of the scalp micropigmentation.
Park said the procedure has knocked 10 to 15 years off his appearance. And he’s a lot more confident.
“A lot of guys out there are very self-conscious about thinning hair,” he said, noting there’s a cycle of wearing baseball caps, wigs, bandanas, or potentially getting an expensive hair transplant.
He’d recommend scalp micropigmenation over all of the above.
“It’s definitely a game changer.”