﻿The Truth about Female Hairlines Today’s video is sponsored by Squarespace.
From Nusbaum and Fuentefria 2009 “Hair transplantation for hairline reconstruction
is gaining popularity in women with frontotemporal thinning and congenitally high hairlines and those
who have undergone cosmetic facial procedures.” Many men suffer from male pattern baldness and so
the science of hairline restoration is much more rigorous for men than for that of women. In this
video, I’ll be going over hairline aesthetics for women as that is a feature far less discussed, but
there will be another separate video for men very soon. If youre a guy, I recommend you still watch
the video as many of the points of widows peak and temple recession still apply to you.
Your hairline does define or more correctly frame your face. As a general rule a higher
hairline makes eye and nose features appear more masculine. Contrary to that, lowering a hairline
helps feminise a face as it is a neotenous feature and one thing common with most juveniles are
juvenile hairlines, even if you have particularly masculine nasal and ocular (eye) features.
Before we start, let's take a quick dive into the common myths about female hairlines, and while we
are there, take a second to think if you ever fell victim to these convincing fables. First,
there is a myth circulating that 1. female hairlines are naturally high. As just stated,
the opposite is actually true, with the average female hairline starting 5.5cm above the glabella,
that is the middle spot between your two eyebrows, whereas male hairlines will typically begin
6 to 8cm above the glabella. With that in mind, hairline surgery to reduce the distance between
the glabella and beginning of the hairline or the trichion, will reduce the size of your forehead,
which corresponds to a more feminine face. There is a slight distinction to make however as larger
foreheads are a neotenous feature for both men and women, in other words they resemble that of a
child, but in terms of dimorphic aesthetics, it is best to have an appropriately sized forehead
to your facial thirds or following the average 5.5cm and 6-8cm for your respective gender.
The second myth about female hairlines is that 2. Female hairlines have dense hair all the way
across. This myth has served to differentiate men from women, with the common myth portraying
that men usually lose hair around the corners of their face or their temples.
In reality, women experience frontotemporal corner hair loss just as readily as men
do. The difference between men and women is that for women, their hair only thins out, a
process of minituarization, whereas for men their hair minituarizes to become virtually invisible.
Regardless of this, for women this results in whispy and fine hair which exposes the scalp to
both sun damage and makes it more visible. With these two myths in mind, let's take a deeper look
at the scientific study by Jung and colleagues that defined the different hairline shapes for
women and also recommended refined hairline correction techniques, focusing on a female Asian
population to extrapolate their results. The study recognised the reality that hair
transplantation has been a highly effective technique in reducing wide foreheads and
recontouring the hairline. It utilised data from 234 female volunteers and a further 350 female
patients with a wide forehead to classify hairline contour in Asian women and to find a way to make
an ideal and refined female hairline.This was done so by classifying the women into the 5 main
hairline classification groups. If we look here, the round hairline shape, in which roughly 27%
of people have, is characterised by an overall round shape without a frontotemporal recess.
For context, frontotemporal refers to the top and middle of the forehead, and a recess means that
it goes back or recedes at this location. Here a frontotemporal recess in a round hairline refers
to the apparent pushing back of the hairline compared to the head. The M-shaped hairline, found
in around 28% of females in this asian sample is defined by a deep and retruded frontotemporal
recess forming a shape of the letter M. This shape is very typically associated with Males.
Next, the rectangular shaped hairline, also found in around 27% of the female sample is defined by
a straight frontotemporal hairline which is parallel to the lines of the upper forehead.
This shape also has a slight temporal recess as can be seen here. The fourth main category
of hairline, much less common with only 10% of females having it is the bell-shaped hairline.
This shape is characterised by a normal forehead width, but a vertical height that is more than
2 cm higher than normal. It is obvious to see in this shape the considerable frontotemporal recess,
and this is the typical shape of a hairline for a balding person. Finally, with only 3% of females
having this style, is the triangular hair shape, This is the only shape with no temporal recess,
and a straight line from the mid frontal point to the temporal point.
While quite uncommon, the hairline can actually be particularly attractive when styled just
right. As I’ll explain in a bit, this is actually quite common in modelling, despite making up a
small fraction of the population. While we are exploring the truth about
hairlines and hairstyles, let’s all take a second to explore the truth of life,
which is of course, the fact that every good person should like this video and subscribe to
the QOVES channel. In all seriousness, it really helps the QOVES team understand our audience
and continue to deliver as much quality and relevant content as we can.
As mentioned earlier, it is the M shaped hairline that is most typically associated with males.
While certain anomalies may be seen as attractive, a general rule is that for
females to be considered most attractive, they should have feminine features that show off
sexual dimorphism. This M shaped hairline is defined by a spot known as the ‘widows peak’.
As such, the study sourced 350 females with an M shaped hairline, defined by the wide
forehead with a deep frontotemporal recess, and gave them a hair transplant to correct
their hairline. By correcting the triangular areas that are receding the greatest amount,
shown here by the triangle A2 to B1 to A1 on the right side of the patient's forehead, the
researchers could gain volume to that area, reduce the receding hairline, which in turn reduces the
peak of the M (A1 on the diagram), and turning the M shaped hairline into a round shaped hairline.
Many surgeons in the past have employed a one size fits all preference for the round shaped
hairline but that is not necessarily accurate as you’ll see near the end of the video.
By correcting the frontotemporal recess as well as the temporal area, they managed to
create adequate proportions for the forehead and the face. By classifying a wide range of Asian
women’s hairlines, the researchers uncovered and practiced a surgical method that could be
useful not only as reference for women with a wide forehead who are considering a hair transplant,
but also for hair restoration surgery to create a good facial balance.
Going back to Nusbaum’s study from the beginning of the video, they looked at a Caucasian sample
and found that female hairlines exhibited cowlicks more frequently than men. They also used a
different method of classifying temporal recession into concave and convex shapes. Most importantly
for you however are their guidelines that they developed in response to their research for hair
transplantation surgeons to follow. The widows peak should be about 5.5-6cm form the glabella,
similar to other studies. The lateral mounds, which are these horn like shapes created by
temporal recession are defined to be around 4cm from the frontal midpoint and the temporal
recession is most commonly some variation of the concave shape which is in accordance to
the other studies and samples. Convex and straight shapes like this are quite rare,
as they are a characteristic of a juvenile hairline, much like that of a young teenage boy
or a young woman and so due to their rarity, they have a higher prevalence in modelling standards.
From these examples we see straight and convexes as far as the eye can see,
with the exception of a few such as Bella Hadid who has a concave triangular shape.
Iris Law literally has the hairline of a 13 year old with almost negative temple recession.
Despite one type being more common in the population, as with many things in modelling
(if that is your benchmark for beauty) the uncommon is often deemed more desirable. Mind you
this particular study looked at Caucasian and the previous looked at Asian faces, with Black women I
do not think this applies. There’s an even mix of black models such as Alek Wek with heavy temple
recession and Marie Fofana with very little. In my experience, temple recession is a maturing
feature in the sense that it matures and sophisticates a face. Faces with incredibly
juvenile hairlines give the face an expectedly childlike appearance. On the other hand,
faces with an appropriate amount of temple recession, most of which is caused by natural
androgenicity, can make a face look older but more refined. Even audrey hepburn had temple recession
and that works perfectly fine with her face. The difference between her and the average person
is that even in her late 50’s, her hair had plenty of density and her hairline
did not recede an inch from her young 20’s. If you do have thinning or increasingly wispy hair near
your frontal region or your temples extend beyond what you would like them too, then it may be worth
considering visiting your doctor as often these are lifestyle indicators such as stress.
To answer the question, the demand for hair transplantation surgery has greatly
increased in women. While many women naturally develop the appropriate hairline for their face,
perhaps it is due to the microplastics in our diet, or residual hormones in the water,
excess hairline minituarization is becoming quite common. In other words the temples are recessing
past what is normal and this is partly why women are getting more transplants than ever before, to
restore their natural hairline. Another partial contributor is with current beauty standards
where most women in modelling and on screen seem to have a disproportionate number of juvenile
hairlines. This obviously influences beauty trends, whether consciously or subconsciously
and so the desire to mimic their hairline is entirely a legitimate concern.
Although circumstantial, Park et al’s study 2014 found that Koreans preferred the M shape
followed by the rectangular, round and lastly triangular. They also preferred figure 2B of a
2:1 ratio between the lower-midface to upper face. Unsurprisingly, excessively
large foreheads were the least preferred and this correlates to surgical hair data which shows many
women getting a hairline reduction to reduce the forehead height. The preference for the M shape
follows back to what I mentioned before, about temple recession creating a more refined look,
upto a reasonable point obviously, and this is shown in this separate survey where the Korean
men did not prefer the overly juvenile hairlines. Having sufficient hair density near the temples,
seems to be more important than worrying about what type of hairline you have.
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