6 hair follicular unit (photo)

The only way a hair transplant is normal looking after it is performed, is to transplant the natural growing groups that hair normally grows in, in their anatomical groups, i.e. the follicular Unit.  The average Caucasian averages about 2.2 hairs per follicular unit and the typical human has approximately 50,000 of these follicular units on their entire scalp.  So if the average hair count per follicular unit is 2.2 hairs/follicular unit, then the typical Caucasian man has approximately 110,000 hairs on their scalp. For the typical Asian, the follicular count remains at ~50,000 but the average hair count per follicular unit drops to 1.9 hairs/follicular unit for a total hair count of ~95,000 hairs.  This is an average, but the range could be wide ranging from 75,000 hairs – 120,000 in any given population.

This is a picture of a 6 hair follicular unit (rare in most people) but worth showing because it shows new hairs in their growth phase.  Notice that two of the hairs are shorter than the other four (marked with arrows).  These are new anagen hairs growing into this follicular unit increasing the visual hair count by 1/3rd from 4 to 6 hairs. That means that possibly a few months before this follicular unit was excised, it probably had only 4 hairs that were visible. The two new anagen hairs arose from stem cells within the follicular unit. It is likely, that if we allowed this to grow (and were able to follow the hair count in this follicular unit over a year or so), the hair count may actually drop as some of these longer hairs (terminal hairs) may actually turn into their sleep phase (telogen).