After Living With My Own Density Scalp Micropigmentation for More Than a Decade

 

When I started working with scalp micropigmentation in 2013, I wasn’t only an SMP practitioner. I was also someone experiencing thinning hair myself.

At that time, scalp micropigmentation was still very new. There weren’t thousands of long-term healed examples to study. Nobody could show me what density SMP would look like 10 or 13 years later.

So I became my own client.

Instead of shaving my head and creating the appearance of a completely shaved hairstyle, I used SMP between my existing hairs to reduce the contrast between my hair and scalp. Today we call this density scalp micropigmentation.

More than a decade later, I can finally answer a question I couldn’t answer in 2013:

How Does Well-Executed Density SMP Age?

In my own case, remarkably naturally.

My hair today isn’t the same hair I had in 2013. It has become thinner, lighter and grayer with age. Interestingly, my SMP has softened and lightened over the years as well.

Instead of looking like an old tattoo sitting underneath changing hair, the overall appearance has continued to look natural.

I describe this by saying:

Good SMP can mature with you.

That doesn’t mean everyone’s SMP will age exactly like mine. Skin, pigment, technique, sun exposure, immune response, hair-loss progression and many other factors can influence how pigment changes over time.

But my scalp gives me something extremely valuable as both a practitioner and a client: a real-world example that has been living and aging for more than a decade.

Why I Believe Density SMP Should Be Subtle

Density SMP isn’t supposed to replace every missing hair.

Its purpose is to reduce the visible contrast between the scalp and the existing hair. When someone looks at you, I don’t want them to see scalp micropigmentation.

I want them to see hair.

That philosophy has guided my work since the early days of SMP.

After more than a decade of living with the procedure myself, I understand something else that cannot be learned from a training course alone.

I understand what it’s like to be the person sitting in the chair.

I understand the uncertainty before doing it. I understand wanting the result to look natural. And I understand wondering what that decision will look like many years into the future.

I made that decision myself in 2013.

More than a decade later, I’m still living with the result.

And that experience influences every density SMP treatment I perform today.

— Serge Bolan
Elite Institute of Micropigmentation / Scalp Masters Atlanta