Depleted Donor Area

Please look carefully at this picture. You can see that the donor density is clearly less dense than in the upper left corner, an area that was not harvested.  People always ask me what is my total donor supply; well, this picture shows that with enough harvesting, the donor area becomes so thin that one can call it depleted of hair, thin enough to be visibly observed.  FUE thins the donor area 100% of the time; however, there is some grafts that can be removed that will not cause significant visual depletion, as shown in this man.  How many grafts can be harvested before the donor area looks depleted, like in this man? That depends on at least two major factors and some minor factors as well.  

1- Major Factors:

a) Remaining hair follicles.  The average Caucasian man has 27,500 hairs in his donor area or about 12,500 grafts.  If the hair count is reduced by over 50% in an average-weight hair (50-micron thickness), then depletion starts to appear the more the hair count goes down.

b) Hair thickness: The coarser the hair, the more hairs can be removed from the donor area. A person with a hair thickness of 75 microns can probably lose 60-70% of their hair before donor depletion is an issue; however, if the hair thickness is 30 microns, then the loss of 50% of the donor hair will certainly look depleted. 

2- Minor Factors:

a) Hair vs skin color.  The closer the hair color is to the skin color, then more hair can be safely removed from the donor area; however, when the contrast is high (black hair against white skin), then the number of hair left behind must be higher than 50%.  

b) Character of the hair: Straight hair may not be as good in coverage, especially if it is fine in character, while wurly or kinky hair covers well behind each single hair shaft.  

Here is an example of a man who had too many hairs removed from his donor area. The only want to treat this is to (1) grow the hair longer in the hope that longer hair will act like shingles to cover the spaces where it used to be or (2) use SMP to change the color and of the spaces in the donor area with what appears to be cut hair follicles.