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Pigment · fibre · hairpiece — the cosmetic route

It is a tattoo. Everything else follows from that.

An invented head in profile whose scalp is drawn entirely from separate dots of pigment, beside a ramp of the same field at four densities and one impression magnified
Every mark is one impression of pigment in the upper dermis. The strip is the same field at four densities; below it, one impression magnified.
Read the long answer on SMPWhat it costs, honestly

Scalp micropigmentation puts thousands of separate dots of pigment into the top of your scalp so that baldness reads as stubble. It is cosmetic, it is a tattoo, and it is far easier to put in than to take out. This site reads the pigment route — and the hair systems, fibres and concealers next to it — against what has actually been published, and prints no number that nobody has published.

The drawing above is invented. Close up the dots stay dots — on trichoscopy they read as evenly spaced circles larger than the follicles around them — and no page here shows a photograph, a person or a result.

What this site is for

It is for the decision you make once. Scalp micropigmentation, hair systems and keratin fibres all change how a thinning head looks, and none of them changes what is happening to the hair. That distinction gets blurred everywhere else, usually by whoever is selling, so it is the first thing said on every page here.

The order of difficulty matters too. Fibres wash out tonight. A hair system comes off when you take it off. Pigment stays in the dermis, and the US Food and Drug Administration's own guidance on removing tattoos calls the process painstaking, expensive and sometimes incomplete. Cheapest to undo is not the same as cheapest to buy, and the two run in opposite directions.

The rule about numbers

Where a figure is published and checkable, it appears with its source and the day it was read. Where it is not, nothing appears. That is why you will find Toppik's shop prices here to the cent and no price at all for scalp micropigmentation: fibre bottles have a price list, studios do not, and inventing a range would read as a citation.

The same rule kills most of the confident claims in this corner of the internet. There is no published fading rate for SMP. There is no published touch-up interval. There is no trial comparing pigment to a hair system. What exists is a handful of small case series, a regulator's list of what tattoos do to skin, and three countries with three different answers about who may legally hold the needle — and that is what you get here.

Nobody here is selling you a procedure

No studio, artist, clinic or surgeon is named, ranked, reviewed or linked on this site, and none ever will be. Two companies with public affiliate programmes are linked, both marked, both explained on the affiliate disclosure. The single most useful thing on this page costs nothing and pays nothing: see a doctor or a board-certified dermatologist about why the hair is going before you spend anything on how it looks.

Notes from the plate

Every note →
Sep 24, 2026

SMP Aftercare: What the Sources Say, and Who to Ask

Your artist's written instructions are the authority, not a website. What the regulator and the published literature do say about freshly tattooed skin, sun, infection and when something has gone wrong.

Sep 22, 2026

What HairClub's Free Consultation Actually Involves

A measurement, a report and a sales conversation — plus a sentence on HairClub's own page that tells you what the appointment is not. What to bring and what to get in writing.

Sep 19, 2026

Hair Fibres and Concealers: What They Do, and Where They Fail

Charged keratin powder clings to the hair you still have and darkens the scalp behind it. Cheap, reversible, published prices — and completely useless on skin with nothing left to hold onto.

Sep 16, 2026

Hair Systems Explained: Bases, Bonds and What They Cost You

A hair system is an object you attach to your head, not a treatment. How the bases differ, what the adhesives do to some people's skin, and the maintenance nobody mentions at the fitting.

Straight answers, before the long ones

What is scalp micropigmentation?
Scalp micropigmentation is a cosmetic tattoo of the scalp. Pigment is placed in the upper dermis in a stippling pattern of separate dots, so that from normal viewing distance the marks read as hair follicles cut very short. It grows nothing: a review in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology describes it as camouflage, and HairClub's own page for the treatment says plainly that the procedure does not grow new hair. What it changes is contrast — the gap in tone between bare scalp and the hair that is still there.
Is scalp micropigmentation permanent?
It is a tattoo, so treat it as permanent, but not as unchanging. The US Food and Drug Administration puts it plainly for tattoos in general: they are meant to be permanent because the ink sits in the dermis, yet they sometimes fade, and pigment injected too deeply can migrate beyond the original dots and blur. Published work on scalp micropigmentation measures a drop in visual density within months, not years. Planning for touch-ups is realistic; expecting the plate to sit unchanged for a decade is not.
How long does scalp micropigmentation last before it needs a touch-up?
Nobody has published a reliable answer, and this site will not invent one. The largest thing measured so far is a ten-patient case series in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology (2025), which scored visual density at 8.7 straight after treatment and 7.7 six months later, with scarring alopecia fading faster than pattern hair loss. A 2016 review in the International Journal of Women's Dermatology says the work may need touch-ups over time because of fading and because hair loss keeps progressing. Ask any artist for their own touch-up interval in writing before you book.
Does scalp micropigmentation work on thinning hair, or only on a shaved head?
Both are offered, and they are not the same job. On a shaved or closely cropped head the dots stand in for stubble across the whole scalp. On thinning hair the dots go between existing hairs to darken the scalp showing through, which reduces contrast and reads as density — the effect a 2022 clinicopathologic paper describes when it notes that, under a trichoscope, the dots appear as evenly spaced circles that are larger than the follicles beside them. Close up they are still dots, so the result depends on how much hair is left and how the light falls on it.
Can scalp micropigmentation be removed if you change your mind?
Sometimes, with lasers, over several sessions, and not always completely. The FDA's consumer update on tattoo removal says removal is painstaking, usually takes several treatments and considerable expense, and that complete removal without scarring may be impossible. Black and dark blue respond best to lasers; flesh-toned and white pigments can oxidize to black and then cannot be treated at all. Small published case series on removing scalp micropigmentation specifically report clearance in one to three sessions with a picosecond laser, but four patients is not a guarantee for anyone else.