SMP Frequently Asked Questions

On this page expert SMP Artist Craig Molyneux answers all your questions about scalp micropigmentation. If there’s a question you have about SMP not answered below get in touch by calling 0151 453 7529 or emailing info@hdhairlines.com and Craig will make a bespoke video answering your scalp micropigmentation question.

How To Choose A Scalp Micro Pigmentation Artist?

When it comes to getting a hair tattoo, you want the best artist for the job. When selecting an artist, consider how long they’ve been in the industry. Examine their reviews to ensure that they have both positive and genuine feedback. Visit their Instagram or website to see their work. Make sure it’s the type of work you’re looking for.

Another thing to consider is whether they are licenced in their area. A major issue right now is that many people are not licenced to ask for a consultation and they will show you the council licence. To tattoo in the UK, all tattoo artists must have a council licence. This is done to ensure that they follow health and safety regulations. They should also be covered by insurance. They should have documentation to back up their claims. They are the official things to look for, but the main thing you are likely looking for is good work. So read the reviews, look at the pictures, and ask how many heads they’ve done. HD hairlines lead SMP artist Craig Molyneux has completed over 1000 heads.

Can You Get Scalp Micro Pigmentation With A Dry Scalp?

If you have a dry scalp, I would recommend getting it under control before coming in for your SMP. Whether it was simply exfoliating and moisturising the scalp a few weeks before or a skin condition, I would definitely see your doctor. Having a dry scalp and SMP can result in uneven results. We need a nice, clean canvas to work on, and we don’t want you to leave disappointed. If you have a dry scalp, we can examine it for you.

But we’re not medical professionals. If we believe you should see a doctor, we will notify you. Or we can tell you the best scalp exfoliation techniques to get that canvas nice and smooth.

Can We Fix Bad Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

If you’ve had bad work done somewhere else and your hair tattoo doesn’t look great, there is a possibility we can fix it. But usually we’re going to need to see some pictures or see you in person. I would recommend the best way usually to fix this, if it is severe, is to have it lasered off and redone again.

If it’s a case of you don’t like the hairline or minor adjustments, then it’s definitely something we can do without laser. Or if it’s a full procedure that you’re not liking and the results aren’t great, I would recommend you see how laser faced I can help you do this. This would not be covered in a fixed price of £1400. We would need to quote you on this work.

Can I Get SMP If Not In Your Area?

The answer is yes. We have a lot of SMP clients travelling from all over the country. We’ve had clients from Newcastle, clients from the Isle of man and most recently we’ve even had an international client flying from India. What we were will do is if you are flying in from another country, we’ll do our best to work with you on your schedule. We can squeeze in a few extra appointments when needed and make sure that you go home with a HD hairline.

Will Scalp micro pigmentation Make My Hair Grow?

No. Generally, no, it won’t. But strangely enough, I have had the
clients say that they have noticed the hair, gets thicker afterwards. I think this is a placebo effect, but there is such thing as micro needling, where the micro needles over the head, increasing blood flow and claim that this will make your hair grow. Suppose we are doing this in a certain way, or there is no guarantee or proof that SMP will make your hair grow its a tattoo.

Do We Match Hair Direction?

I could be fancier and tell you that we do, but the honest answer is no, that we don’t. When we put all these thousands of dots on your head, you cannot tell the direction that the dot is going in. What we do match to though, is your hair hair density. That’s what’s crucial. If you draw a load of dots on a piece of paper, you can’t tell the direction that they were done in.

It’s the same when working on a scalp, but you will be able to tell the
density. We want to match this to your hair density and blend out into the sides to make this completely unnoticeable and look like your natural buzz cut.

Can You Go The Gym After Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

After each session, we’re going to ask you not to wash the head for at least three days and also to avoid heavy activity such as going to the gym. The reason being the sweating and getting dirty would cause skin
infection. It could also jeopardise your SMP results.

So at least wait three days before you go back to the gym. I can’t force you to do this, but it’s advisable.

Is Scalp MicroPigmentation Safe?

Scalp micropigmentation is definitely safe. There’s no more risk in a hair tattoo than there is in a normal tattoo. It’s all about keeping it clean, stop infection and everything here HD hairlines is 100% clean. We’re licenced by our local council, therefore making sure we comply with all health and safety regulations. Everything is clean and we will give you
aftercare advice to make sure you have the safest experience possible.

Scalp micro pigmentation Top Up Cost?

Here at HD Hairlines we fix the prices to make things easy for clients. So for existing clients, top ups are £300. If you’re a non existing
client, you’ve had work done somewhere else. What you want us to do top ups get in contact with us. Either send us some pictures or come down to the studio so we can see the work and we’ll be
able to tell you exactly the cost.

How do we choose your hairline?

Here at HD hairlines. We’ve developed a method for creating the most natural hairlines possible for each individual client.

Not every client is the same, so not every client gets the same hairline. What will run through with you is what will be the most natural look for you yourself. So when you come into the studio, we’ll sit you down, we’ll go over a few different options with you and show you all these options, and not until you’re happy with the hairline.

When we start your SMP procedure, I can’t go into too much
detail of how we actually do it, because it’s our secret weapon for creating the best hairlines possible.|

But, when you come to the studio, I’ll be more than happy to show you exactly how we get those hairlines

Will Scalp Micro Pigmentation Damage Existing Hair?

When having scalp micropigmentation, we make tiny impressions into the scalp, causing a tiny, tiny wound. But you’ll be happy to know
that this does not damage existing hair. If anything, it probably encourages hair growth. You may have had a micro needling. This is where they use tiny time needles on the scalp to encourage the growth of hair through blood flowing from damaging the skin.

With tattooing, it will increase blood flow to the area which COULD I’m not saying it will increase hair growth, but it’s definitely does not
cause any damage to existed here.

How Much Does Scalp Micro Pigmentation Cost?

The cost of your hair tattoo with HD hairlines is £1400. We have fixed the price this way to make things easy. What you are expected to do, though, if you are considering getting SMP with us, is still to send us a picture.

We want pictures of the top of the head, the sides of the head and the back of the head. The reason we still want pictures, this is not a price to work, but this is so we can guarantee you a result.

At HD Hairlines, we won’t work with a client unless we can 100%
guarantee you the result you’re looking for. Another reason we’ve priced things this way is a lot of people will use the scale to measure
how much hair that you’ve lost and how much they’re going to cover up.

Through experience, we found that HD hairlines, it doesn’t matter the amount of hair that you’ve lost on top, we still need to give you full coverage of the top of the head. Otherwise you’ll be coming back constantly for top ups.

It’s not a case of if, it’s a case of when more hair will go. So, for instance, if you have small hair loss at the front and just a slight bit of the crown and we cover these areas up, eventually you will lose more hair and be coming back to us anyway, doing it our way with a fixed cost, we will do the full top of the scalp. That way, as you lose more here, you’ll have more even results and you won’t need to be coming back as much.

What Is Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

Scalp Micropigmentation to put it simply, is a fancy way of saying hair
tattoo. With a hair tattoo, we make thousands and thousands of small impressions on top of the head to create the look of stubble, therefore giving you the look of a freshly shaven head. That’s what it is in its simplest form.

Learn more about what is scalp micropigmentation here.

How Often Do You Need A Top Up For Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

Here at HD Hairlines, we don’t really like to tell our clients how often they’re going to need to come back. We’ll leave that down to yourselves. But as a rule of thumb, usually between 12 to 24 months is where most of our clients come back for a top up.

Why is there such a big gap in that number? It’s usually to do age & hair colour or lifestyle itself. Some people like to be in the sun all the time and this can cause fading to the SMP. But most of the time it’s age related. Younger clients, mid 20s to early 30s they like to come back every twelve months to keep things looking fresh. Older clients late 40s, going into 50s usually hair is greying at this point and going a little bit thinner on the sides. They usually wait a little bit longer than that, 24 months to three years mark. That way they get the most out of their treatments.

Will Scalp Micro Pigmentation work on light hair?

So getting a hair tattoo and having lighter hair tone is not a problem. Here at HSP Hairlines, we’ve had clients in the 70s get SMP and as you know, as we get older, our hairlines up. Some of these clients have white and grey hair and the results look fantastic. If it is a consumer of yours, have a lighter and get an SMP, get a contact, talk to us.

But generally what we’ll do is use a lighter ink and we build the colour up over time, being conservative to make sure we don’t get things too
dark. And another thing we can do is modify the ink to make sure it’s the right colour for your hair tone. But generally we’re more concerned of skin tone than hair tone when we do this matching. So anyone with lighter hair, whether it’s grey, blonde, even ginger, we can get fantastic results for you.

Best thing to do if you are concerned about this, just send us over a picture because we won’t work with anyone that we can’t 100% guarantee results for and we’ll let you know if SMP is for you.

What Is The Recovery Time Of Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

After you’ve had a hair tattoo with HD hairlines, the recovery time really is only one or two days. That’s for the actual cuts, where the
impressions have been put in to heal. But we still like to leave seven days between each session. After each session, your head is going to be a little bit red. This subsides 24 hours to 48 hours after your initial treatment. There’s no problem if you want to go back to work straight away, you might just want to wear a hat. Or if you’re open about getting
SMP, you can rock the red head.

How Do We Choose The Correct Colour For You?

Here at HD Hairlines, we specialise in getting the correct colours for each client. We do this more so of skin tone rather than hair tone. The reason being is sometimes we match the hair tone. If they’re quite light and the skin is a little bit darker, we won’t see any of those impressions. So for us, it’s more crucial to go off skin tone than hair. For this reason, we’re going to need to know what ethnicity you are, especially if you’re mixed race. Sometimes this can really help us match the tones.

Scalp Micro Pigmentation is it permanent?

I can only speak for us here at HD hairlines and yes, results are permanent.

This is a hair tattoo and tattoos are permanent. Although there is fading over time, which we’ve discussed in other videos, the results are
permanent. Just like a tattoo with the skin being thinner on the top of the head, it does cause fading. And if it’s the case for you as you get older, which I don’t think it will be, that you don’t want your SMP anymore, let it fade out. But who doesn’t want hair? Everyone wants hair and everyone loves the top up.

So yes, results are permanent.

Will Anyone Notice Your Having Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

So this is a big one that clients are always asking? No, no one’s going to know. Not unless you told them. From the first session, you’re not really going to notice much of a difference. It gives us a slight shadow. The second session, that’s what we’re going to start. I’ll see real results,
and the third session is usually when we’re complete because it’s a gradual buildup.

People around your colleagues, family, friends, they don’t generally
notice what’s changed, but we’ll notice there is a change, especially if you’ve been wearing your hair a little bit longer and shaved it off. They usually just think you’ve shaved your hair.

A lot of my clients have been worried about this, and after they’ve had their full SMP procedure done, they’ve gone back to work and no colleagues, no family or friends have even noticed.

What If I Cant Pay The Full Amount Upfront?

This is not a problem. Here at HD Hairlines, we have a fixed price of, £1400. If You can’t afford to pay this upfront. Not a problem. Most clients don’t. We’ve got two options for you. At the time of booking, we’ll take a deposit and then over your four sessions, we’ll divide that off into even chunks. So usually it works something like this 200 pound
deposit and then £400 on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd session.

Will Sunlight Effect Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

 Sunlight over time will definitely affect your hair tattoo, but it’s not going to make it completely disappear. When I say sunlight here in the HD hairlines, we’re based in the UK, so we don’t get a lot of
it. If you are a sun worshipped and you’re going on holiday, a lot it can affect the SMP. The UV rays can take away the vibrancy of your
SMP.

So what we recommend is, if you go on a holiday or if you live in a hot country, use factor 50 on the head daily whilst you’re exposed to the
sun. This will preserve your SMP and keep it looking at the best for a
long time.

Can Scalp Micro Pigmentation Turn Blue?

The honest answer to this is yes it can but first let me tell you why it can turn blue and then I can tell you how we can prevent this from happening. A hair tattoo can turn blue over time. The main reason for this would be be that’s being done wrong.

There’s three main layers to the skin. There’s the epidermis, the Dermis and hypodermis epidermis being the top layer, this is usually dead and flaking skin. If we implant the impressions into this layer of skin, after around four weeks, it will disappear. the dermis also known as the sweet spot, this is the layer where all tattoos love to live. We can implant the ink into this layer of skin and it will stay here relatively unchanged for years and years, giving us the best results possible. The hyperdemis. This is the layer that would cause it to go blue or green over time. The reason being this layer is made up of fat and blood cells. So once the pigment or ink is implanted into this layer, sometimes it can turn instantly
blue or it can migrate over time. And this would cause your SMP to look like it was painted on here. atHD hairlines. We pride ourselves on making sure that we’re always up to date with techniques and that we know exactly what layer we’re going into.

Another reason your SMP can turn blue is skin colour. On white or
Caucasian skin tones, black ink can give the appearance of a bluey tone over time. The way we combat that here at HD Hairlines is through
modifying the ink and warming it up. We have studied colour theory when it comes to ink and know exactly how to adapt these inks to get the best results for yourselves, usually applying an orange or a red
tone to the ink to warm it up. This doesn’t change the appearance of the ink healed in the skin, but over time it will stop it having that blue hue.

Also another benefit of SMP is the layer of skin we’re going into on the scalp is very thin, as you already know. You will need top ups over time, and this has caused through fading. With the fading, it usually fades out to a grey tone exactly what we want before reaching for that bluey colour. Then once again, we can go over, top it up, modify the ink and give you that fresh SMP look. Therefore, avoiding any blue tones showing through.

Is Scalp Micro Pigmentation Painful?

Unfortunately, yes. SMP is a form of tattoo. It’s a hair tattoo. And as we all
know, tattoos hurt but it doesn’t hurt as much as a regular tattoo. The technique we use is called dot work, or pointillism.

We’re making individual little dots onto the skin. We’re not dragging the needle through the skin. Most clients say that it’s about a three or four on a pain scale out of ten. And a lot of clients here that HD hairlines are pretty relaxed throughout the procedure. Some of them even going to sleep. The main areas that hair more than others are the hairline and the side profiles. But these are usually done pretty fast to avoid discomfort through your procedure. The rest of the procedure is pretty easy
going.

What Are The Advantages Of Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

The main advantages of scalp micropigmentation are there is no
surgery unlike hair transplants. So that means recovery time is
literally a few days rather than a few months. Another advantage of
SMP is you get an instant result. So after the second session,
which is only a week after you first, you will start to see the results. Another advantage of a hair tattoo is low maintenance. All our clients
need after their SMP procedure is completed, is a good set of hair clippers and to shave the head two or three times a week. And that’s the only maintenance needed from day to
day.

What Is The Difference Between Scalp Micro Pigmentation & A Tattoo?

So there’s a lot of people out there that probably won’t like me to say this, but there isn’t really a difference other than the technique. The ink we use, the needles we use, the machine we use, they’re all the same as a traditional tattoo. We use black carbon ink. This is an ink that’s been used for years and years to do tattooing. It’s exactly what we use for SMP. No matter what anyone tells you, the needles we use are the same type of needles and the machines we use for the same type of machines. The main difference is the technique.

We specialise in as SMP artists in doing dot work or pointillism,
which is, as says, it’s tiny dots. Also, another difference is
we are specialised in tattooing a scalp.

The scalp is quite a difficult area to tattoo, and if you’re not practised in this area, you can make mistakes quite easily. So, as I said, as artists, we specialise in this and that would be the main difference. I’ve trained tattoo artist myself and they have commented on how hard it is to tattoo the skull. Because the skin is so thin, it’s easy to make mistakes.

Here at HD Hairlines, we pride ourselves in the best smp results and specialise in this technique.

Can You Have Scalp Micro Pigmentation After A Hair Transplant?

Yes, you can. What we recommend here, HD hairlines, is you wait at least twelve months after the hair transplant before having SMP. Reason for this is to allow the skin to heal properly on the scalp and on the scarring area where they’ve tucked the donor hair. If we do this before the twelve month period, although the skin does look healed, sometimes the ink can react differently to the skin because it’s
not fully healed.

Better way to do this is to have SMP first and then go for a hair transplant afterwards. The wait time for healing is less and SMP does not affect the hair transplant.

Scalp Micro Pigmentation Aftercare

SMP after Care Advice after your procedure, we will give you an after care sheet and it will include the following advice we will expect you to not wash your head for three days after your SMP sessions. This is for every session that you have. You will also expect you not to shave your hair for at least three days after your SMP sessions. We’ll also expect you to avoid the gym for at least three days after your SMP sessions. This is precautionary. This is to stop things like skin infections and to also make
sure that the pigment is staying in the scalp as not to aggravate scalp before it’s properly healed. This could affect the results of your SMP. So we strongly advise that you follow this advice. And again, we will also give you the application sheet to take over.

Do You Need To Cut Your Hair Before Scalp Micro Pigmentation?

I always recommend that you shave your hair at least the night before you come in for your SMP procedure and give your hair a good wash. Just get rid of all those little bits of hair and dead skin and gives us a fresh canvas before you come in and have your first session. I recommend that you do this before every session of SMP and also moisturise the scalp if for some reason that you can’t shave your own hair or you just don’t want to. As you probably know, I used to be a barber, so I have the equipment here to shave the hair for you,
and I can take care of that. You’re in safe hands with HD Hairlines.

How Long Is Each SMP Session

Here at HD Hairlines, we book all clients in for a three hour slot. This isn’t to say that you’ll be here for the full 3 hours, but you definitely will be on your first session. The first session is where we draw in your hairline. We go over everything that you want from your SMP and then take our time to perfect this. But as a rule of thumb, every session we will book
you in for 3 hours. So if you’re thinking of booking in, make sure you at least allow half a day to come in and have your SMP procedure.

How Long Will Scalp Micro Pigmentation Results Last

Well, SMP, especially here with HD hairlines, is permanent. It’s a tattoo.
But what we do recommend is that you get a top up every twelve to 24
months. This isn’t to say that your SMP will be completely gone on. What it does do is fade over time. Things that can cause fading is excessive exposure to sunlight. And so sometimes people, different skin types, people react different to the ink in their skin and it can fade over time.

So the results of scalp micropigmentation are permanent and it will last a long time. But we recommend a top up every 12 to 24 months.

Does Scalp Micro Pigmentation Look Real?

SMP looks extremely real. So some of you may already know my backstory, but I used to be a barber. The reason I got into SMP because I seen the results online and it confused me. I thought it was real here. The results look spectacular. when done properly. I have a lot of clients that don’t even tell their family and friends that they’ve had
SMP, and people just assume it’s real here. So when
done properly. SMP looks extremely real.

How Many Sessions Of Scalp Micro Pigmentation Are Needed?

Here at HD Hairlines, we like to do four sessions with our clients. The three sessions is where we’re going to do the bulk of the work, and the fourth session is more of a checkup. This allows us to do any
minor changes and also allows us to make sure that all
the work is perfect and that you’re happy with it. Usually these four
sessions carried out over a six week period.

Average Time Between SMP Sessions

The average time between your scalp and micropigmentation sessions
is as follows the time between your first and second session is usually
one week. We like to do this because we’ve noticed clients, they
like to see a result.

Our first session, it’s usually very faint and we don’t see much of a result. The second session is where things really start to come together.
That’s one week between the first and the second session. Between your second and third session, we do two weeks. We do this just to allow the scalp to fully recover and then we can also see the true colour of the pigment on the scalp, allowing us to adjust for the third session, if needed. For your fourth session, this is usually a checkup and to do any minor tweaks just to perfect your SMP. This is a two week gap from the third to the fourth. Again, just to allow things to really settle in before we make those final tweaks if they’re needed. Most of the time we don’t need to do anything and it’s just to take a few after shots.

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