Some patients are worried about the shaven and wounded appearance after a hair transplant. The question arises, can a hair transplant be done without shaving? The FUT technique is excellent in allowing an unshaven hair transplant. FUE technically requires at least the donor area shaven; attempts at doing it unshaven causes significant tissue damage and is not recommended. However, limited shaven hair transplant options are also available with FUE. The three available limited shaven FUE options are:
- Donor-only shaven FUE: The donor area is shaven but the recipient area is not shaven. Some clinics present this method as an unshaven hair transplant when in fact it is not. The cosmetic advantage of using this method is doubtful especially considering the difficulties it creates when placing the grafts.
- Window shave FUE: A window within the donor area is shaven only. This can be done in females or males with long hair so that the hair above and around the window can cover it. It must be noted that less than 50% of the donor area can be used with this method, hence reducing the amount of grafts transferred.
- Zebra-crossing shave FUE: 2 or 3 strips are shaven within the donor area allowing the hairs above and below the strips to cover them, looking like a zebra-crossing. It must be noted that less than 50% of the donor area can be used with this method, hence reducing the amount of grafts transferred.
A true unshaven hair transplant can be done using FUT without compromising too much the performance of the procedure.
