What follicular unit extraction is, how it differs from the strip method, and how visible it has to be.
Follicular unit extraction takes healthy follicles from the back and sides of the scalp — the zone androgenetic loss does not reach — using a dedicated punch of 0.8 to 1.0mm. Nothing is cut and nothing is stitched.
It is an ultra-precision technique in which the surgeon's hand and experience are decisive. Each extraction leaves a dot under a millimetre across; the dots are scattered rather than joined into a line, and growing the surrounding hair even slightly covers them. Hair does not regrow from an extraction point itself — the follicles deliberately left behind carry the density of the donor area afterwards.
Either the harvest zone is clipped, or the individual follicles to be taken are selected and trimmed in advance.
Small pieces of scalp tissue are taken one follicular unit at a time. The field is kept wet throughout, because dry tissue transects.
The resident team dissects the extracted tissue into grafts and sorts them by follicle count and hair calibre, immediately as it arrives.
Grafts are loaded into an implanter by the team and placed by the director, who sets direction, angle and depth per graft.
| Strip method | FUE | |
|---|---|---|
| Scarring | A fine linear scar at the back, its length set by how much was taken | Scattered dots at the back, their number set by how much was taken |
| Pain, on a 0–10 scale | Generally 4–5 | Generally 1–2 |
| Recovery | Ordinary activity from the next day; stitches out on day 10 | Ordinary activity from the next day; no stitches to remove |
| Donor clipping | Donor hair trimmed to within 5mm, with a band about 5mm above and below | Donor hair clipped to 1mm, or in rows, or not clipped at all |
Pain is scored on a scale where nothing is 0 and unbearable is 10.
How much of the operation anyone can see is a choice made at the consultation, against graft count, hair length and how much concealment you need.
The whole head is clipped, and extraction and placement proceed from there.
Only the donor zone at the back is clipped, as in a two-block haircut.
A box-shaped area is clipped, sized so that the hair above covers it.
Only the follicles to be extracted are trimmed, leaving nothing visible.
Not a single hair is cut; extraction and placement proceed as they are.
Dense packing is 40 to 50 follicular units per square centimetre — 80 to 100 hairs — which approaches native density. Reaching it is less a matter of ordering more grafts than of how quickly follicles get from the donor area back into the scalp, which is why this clinic books one operation a day and keeps its dissection team resident.
Density also has to be balanced against the donor supply you will still need later, and against blood supply in the recipient bed. A plan that empties the donor area to fill a frontal third leaves nothing for the crown in ten years.
Every plan begins with a one-to-one consultation. Tell us what you want to change and we will tell you honestly what is worth doing — and what is not.