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RO Irregularity is built at two scales, and both are needed. Macro-irregularity is the shape of the whole line: shallow peaks and setbacks across the forehead, and a deliberate mismatch between the left and right sides. Micro-irregularity happens inside a centimetre: the tooth-by-tooth waver of the leading edge itself. A hairline with one and not the other still reads as constructed.
| Scale | What it does | |
|---|---|---|
| Macro-irregularity | Centimetres, across the forehead | Breaks the arc; makes the two sides unequal |
| Micro-irregularity | Millimetres, along the edge | Breaks the line into clusters and gaps |
| Sentinel hairs | Individual grafts | Stand forward of the edge, softening where it begins |
Sentinel hairs do the work no density can do. A few single hairs placed ahead of the main line, spaced unevenly and never in a row, make the boundary ambiguous. Without them the eye finds the exact millimetre where transplanted hair starts, however soft everything behind it is.
Symmetry is the giveaway. Real hairlines are asymmetric — one temple sits higher, one peak is deeper. A design mirrored precisely from side to side is the one thing that never occurs in nature, and it is the first thing a photograph exposes.
Related terms
- Hairline design principles
- Natural vs artificial hairline
- Temple point reconstruction
- Wrong hairline design
For the planning stage as a whole, see hairline design. For the proportional rules a design is measured against, see the golden ratio hairline paper.
