While bald men may often be associated with good qualities such as wisdom and authority, thinning hair is nothing that younger men—those in their 20s and 30s—want much to do with. Nevertheless, the   ailment is prevalent all over the globe. In mainland China, the media reported that over 70% of hair restoration products were consumed by men born after 1980. The causes include stress, diet, and lack of sleep—but the tried and true stand-by, genetics, remains the number one catalyst. In Asia, about 200,000 hair transplants take place every year, compared to 75,000 in Europe and 130,000 in the United States. Now we realize that’s continent, continent, country, but the numbers still show how seriously Asian men react to hair loss. But how does Asian hair differ from Caucasian hair? What unique challenges can a surgeon expect to face?

Pattern baldness in Asians can be the same as what’s found in Caucasians. It most often presents itself as a receding hairline, loss of hair on the crown, or in worst-case scenarios, both. Having said that, it is known that the quality of Asian hair from the typical donor areas is different. For starters, Asians tend to have fewer overall donors—about 1.7 to 1.8 hairs per square millimeter, compared to 2 hairs per square millimeter in Caucasians. But while the number of hairs per graft may be fewer, they are thicker and more coarse. This extra coarseness can be tricky around the hairline. For this part of an Asian scalp, the transplant surgeon will be careful to use donors that are thick while not necessarily coarse in order to create the most natural look possible. Moving back, the surgeon will make more irregular insertions of 2 and 3 grafts at a time, again to achieve a natural appearance.

Asian donor hairs are straighter and longer than donor hairs from Caucasian scalps. For surgeons, this presents of bit of the good and bad. The straight hair makes extraction easier, while the extra length creates a little more difficulty. Another added challenge doctor’s face is the somewhat steeper angle of these donor hairs. These added challenges are not enough, however, for most surgeons to change their opinion that overall, Asian hair transplants are carried off more easily than Caucasian ones.

The Asian hairline

Asian skulls are typically more rounded than Caucasian ones, with a more blunt forehead that calls for slightly different techniques in hair transplantation. To make an Asian hairline look more natural, many surgeons will implant donor hair at a lower angle, while also making certain that the design is less peaked and more rounded.

Do Asians scar more easily?

Scar formation differs from ethnicity to ethnicity. African-Americans and East Asians can be more susceptible to hypertrophic and keloid scars. A hypertrophic scar is defined as a thickened, wide, raised scar where the skin has been injured. Keloid scars have a similar definition, except these tend to spread slightly beyond the inflicted area. For patients who have a genetic history of aggressive scarring, a surgeon may wish to perform hair transplantation in a test area and monitor the results.

Hair transplant recovery for Asians

For Asians, the average recovery time from a hair transplant does not differ from anyone else. Most patients can resume their normal life after just 24 hours, albeit strenuous activity should be avoided for at least 7 days. Sometimes patients choose to schedule time off from work during this first week, but it is not usually required.

Hair transplant cost for Asians

As with recovery time, there is no special difference in cost for Asians to have a hair transplant. That being said, the cost will indeed vary, depending on things such as the extent of the patient’s hair loss, donor health and availability, the patient’s overall health, and the clinic’s location. These are factors for every ethnicity to consider.

For young Asian men, premature balding is simply not a condition they are willing to accept. Nor do they need to with so much modern technology available in the field of hair restoration. Today’s surgeons know precisely how to conduct successful transplant procedures regardless of gender or ethnicity.