Are crown transplants the most undetectable? What are the risks?

I am 45 years old and considering an FUE transplant in the crown area where I have a medium sized bald patch. I have quite a lot of donor hair. I am not really interested in doing the hairline because I doubt it would ever look natural enough for my liking (even the very best transplanted hairlines I see on the internet look kind of weird to me).

Are there any issues I should be concerned about with getting a crown transplant? I am assuming it should be more undetectable than a full or hairline transplants - is this correct?

Also, I have no intention of ever taking any meds because I am opposed to the idea of messing with my natural male hormones.

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

Crown transplants can certainly be undetectable. However the crown tends to be viewed as a “black hole” for grafts. The convex nature of the surface + the natural lay of the hair direction makes it a much less graft-effective place to try to thicken. Transplants go much farther for your graft/dollar on the top or front of the head.

I would urge you to rethink the hairline issue.

I also have a dim view of the majority of transplanted hairlines on the net. But really, do you know a “natural” hairline from an unnatural one?

I find that good hairlines are like trying to draw a nose or an ear - once you start trying to draw a perfect one on paper, you’ll keep erasing & retrying it forever. But when you just see one of these “imperfect” ones in the real world in the context of daily life, you usually never even question most of them.

And if you posted (unlabeled) pics of 10 natural and 10 transplanted hairlines up on the website, I suspect that at least half the natural ones would get pegged as transplant work with some “flaws.”

I think most HT hairlines fail for avoidable reasons.

#1 - a mediocre hairline + a thick-ass frontal third is more convincing than the best hairline on earth in front of a weak head of hair. I think if the rest of the head is shaky then people will scrutinize the hairline and decide there must be something wrong with it, regardless of whether the hairline itself is the giveaway or not.

#2 - The trick of using thinner-shafted neck hairs on the front of the hairline is WAY under-appreciated IMHO. This idea only became an option after FUE was invented, and I think that factor has slowed the recognition of how beneficial it can really be. FUE has been widely done for most of a decade and this trick still doesn’t seem very commonplace.

» Thanks Cal, much appreciated. Re neck hairs, yes, I have wondered about that too - it seems like a natural source of donor hair.

» I am 45 years old and considering an FUE transplant in the crown area where
» I have a medium sized bald patch. I have quite a lot of donor hair. I am
» not really interested in doing the hairline because I doubt it would ever
» look natural enough for my liking (even the very best transplanted
» hairlines I see on the internet look kind of weird to me).
»
» Are there any issues I should be concerned about with getting a crown
» transplant? I am assuming it should be more undetectable than a full or
» hairline transplants - is this correct?
»
» Also, I have no intention of ever taking any meds because I am opposed to
» the idea of messing with my natural male hormones.
»
» Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

The only problem I forsee is that your hairloss will continue and you may need to go for more and more transplants. The crown area can sometimes use up 1000s of grafts as hairloss continues to NW6 levels.
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Patient results

Crown transplants can look very good, with the natural swirl of the crown and everything, even when closely examined.

» Crown transplants can look very good, with the natural swirl of the crown
» and everything, even when closely examined.
»
»

As Pats said, providing the crown has the swirl & reasonable density it looks good.
Dont forget that rogaine & propecia’s best results are in the crown area also.

“I am 45 years old and considering an FUE transplant in the crown area where I have a medium sized bald patch” I had a small Fue in the crown and vertex area at 40 years old. I am 46 years old and and have maintained my hair as of now. What the other posters say is correct crown loss can be a black hole for grafts but really depends on your situation. Can you provide pics with the area you would like filled in?