Forelock Width?
I was just wonder something about the frontal area when it comes to the mature hairline. You give two measurements of where the corners and the front part of the hairline should be, but what about the size of the frontal area? I think you call it the forelock? How wide can it be or does it matter?
The central portion of the frontal hairline often has a forelock of hair that can be genetically independent of the surrounding hair. David Letterman has a strong forelock that lasted longer than much of his hairline, due to this genetic independence of the frontal hairline around it. It is just one of many unique traits in our appearance.
These forelocks tend to run in families and it can be quite small or even fairly large, depending upon the genetics of the individual. Also, these forelocks often are found low on the central hairline.
We posted on a similar question about forelocks and widow’s peaks a few years back: Forelocks and Widow’s Peaks
We should also note that portions of your hair affected by mpb can be somewhat resistant to hair loss. For instance, my frontal forelock was resistant to the mpb that was affecting the hair around it. While it was thinning, it was thinning at a lower rate than the hair around it(i.e. the corners of my hairline and the vertex of my head). It was weakening but not gone; in appearance it seemed to be “fighting back” the process of balding that surrounded it.
My frontal forelock also has been the most responsive to the rogaine and propecia I have been using for the past 2 1/2 years. It has basically recovered to the level it was before my process of balding ensued. And it recovered better and faster than the hair around it.
So there is another perspective we need to consider in the process of balding. Susceptibility to the mpb process does not seem to be an either–or thing. There appear to be zones throughout your head that may occupy an in-between space, where they will thin but not completely bald out as part of the mpb process. I think that in the end, we have the best and strongest “immune” hair (the hair on the sides of your head) that will not bald out over time, we have “balding” hair, the stuff that will bald out over time, and “in-between” hair, like the frontal forelock, that will fight back the balding process back but still lose out to some degree over time.
I think this is the hair that can best be helped out by rogaine and propecia. This has been the case in my experience.
This kind of hair may also wind up being viable hair for hair transplantation and in my opinion, it may expand the amount of defacto donor hair a person has. There may be certain zones of hair that, in the presence of propecia, will withstand the balding process over time (for instance, hair just a bit up from the completely immune ring of hair around the sides of the head). If this hair can wind up behaving as if it were like the best “immune” hair in the presence of propecia, this hair mmight be viable for use in transplantion if needed if the patient is willing to take the informed risk.
In short, in-between hair can in practice become “good immune” hair in the presence of propecia, and therefore become an additional source for transplantation if the patient needs it and is willing to take this quantified risk.
To the questioner – dr Rassman has suggested a variety of celebrities likely have a mature hairline and they have very different forelock ‘sizes’ – I think the mature hairline confuses a lot of people – but if juvenile hairlines can look very different depending on your head shape/size/hairline genetics it stands to reason a mature hairline isn’t an exact thing – it involves a slight frontal recession and a slightly greater corner recession but is self limiting. The width of the forelock would mostly depend on the width of your forehead and skull shape etc.
The doctor mentions losing hair behind the forelock but I think you were asking for a measurement of the central hair in a mature hairline – the answer would be ‘as wide as determined by your skull’!