With the hairline forming part of a face's frame, achieving a natural hairline is an art needing to be mastered by any good hair surgeon. An unnatural or unaesthetic hairline can be greatly improved by an expertly performed FU transplant. This will optimally design the hairline, taking into account natural hair density and achieving optimal harmony through expert fine-tuning. The possibilities open to corrective surgery are however not just dependent on the competence and know-how of the surgeon, but also on the availability of appropriate donor hair. The corrective methods used to repair an unnatural hairline include completely removing any disturbing grafts, removing individual undesired grafts or placing follicular units between the mini-grafts.
A hairline that is too low looks unnatural and unduly "wastes" donor hair. This is why grafts below the natural hairline are completely removed, restoring the hairline's natural look. The grafts removed can be recycled, extracting from them individual FUs and using these elsewhere. The complete removal of grafts can also be necessary when the grafts have resulted in undue scarring, when hair grows out of them in the wrong direction, or when their arrangement looks unnatural. In some cases it is possible to hide or correct such deficiencies by implanting individual follicular units, though in many cases the grafts need to be completely removed. Grafts implanted in the right direction and aesthetically arranged can still look unnatural from an overall perspective. Such a so-called ‘pluggy look’ can be alleviated by using FUE to remove individual follicular units from the affected area. In cases where larger areas are affected by unnatural-looking grafts and where more is involved than just removing individual hairs, the traditional punch technique can be used to remove the hair.