I heard about FMP and Joe through Tommy who is an apprentice. Although I have seen this type of…read morework being done from time to time on social media, I wasn't particular sold on it. More so, because I was pretty comfortable with having a shaved head since I've been BIC'ing my head since the age of 25.
Tommy showed me some before-and-after pics, and I was fairly impressed on how natural it looked. The after results looked clean and it just looks like a shaved head, but instead of this gap of baldness - - patients looked like they had a nice hairline.
Although I thought it was cool to see those results, I didn't get an urge to book my appointment and go through with it.
Months later, I found myself starting to pay closer attention to my bald head in photos. I have a decently shaped head and the bald-look fits me, but I just started noticing how, even with a freshly shaved head, you can tell my hairline was all the way back to the middle of my head. To me, it made me look a lot older (33M), and not in the best of way.
I finally booked my appointment for my first session. I read through the reading material with the pre- and post-care procedures and signed the waivers and got the process started.
My Experience:
First and foremost, Joe and Tommy are really detailed-oriented and particular, which are perfect traits to have for this type of trade/business.
Think about it, the goal of this procedure is to imitate natural hair follicles. It's random placement of dots on your head, but not random-random, but random with a purpose.. if that makes any sense. Not only does the ink color have to be similar to your existing hair, but hair strands come in different sizes and the results will need to show that. This means not ever dot should be identical in size.
I did a total of three session. The first session, they focus on my initial hairline placement and inked in a light first layer of pigmentation. From what was explained to me, they wanted to see how well my head would react to the ink. Would the ink stay? Is there discoloration of the ink over time? Was the hairline brought down enough? etc. These are the questions the 1st session would answer. The first session took about 4-hours.
The second session was about 3-4 weeks later, they brought down my hairline a bit more and made it look more of a natural look, rather than a hardline (like after you get a line-up when getting a fade). After the second session, I thought it looked great. I didn't think I needed a third session, but they advised me to just come in just in case I needed more of a fill-in. The second session took about 4-hours.
For the 3rd session, which was 2 months after my 2nd session, everything did look good, but you could tell there were some areas of my head that could use some fill-in. The third session took about 5-hours.
Now that it is all said and done, I can't tell you how glad I am that I decided to go through this process. Before, the thought of having my normal hairline really didn't matter to me. But now, being so impressed with their work, I can't stop trying to recommend all my bald friends to entertain getting it done. It's been so long since I've seen my hairline, I forgot what I looked like having one.
Thanks Joe and Tommy. I appreciate the great work you did!
I'd definitely check them out, if you are entertaining the idea of having this procedure done. Not all SMP is created equal, so do your research. But from my experience, and how I am as a person, I really do appreciate their attention to detail. ITS ALL IN THE DETAILS!
Tips:
- Read the material and follow the pre- and post-care. It's there for a reason.
- If you have any urge/inclination of getting it done, make sure to up your hydration and start moisturizing your head daily. This plays a huge role on the retention of pigmentation color!
- Be prepared for a 4-5 hour session. For me, 4-hours was bearable. When I hit the start of the 5th hour on my third session, I started getting extremely antsy.
- Your head is filled with a lot of nerve endings, so be prepared to feel a bit funny through out your body (depending on which part of the head is being touched). I got teary eyed, urges to sneeze, and feeling nerve sensations down through my legs at times -- it's normal.
- The sensation is not really painful, it's more annoying. If you have had tattoo work done, its similar to that. Tattoo work usually gets done in section and phases. After a section of the tattoo is done, the artist moves to another area. For SMP, some spots get touched over and over -- which is the annoying part.
- I found that listening to Classical music during the sessions relieved a lot of my anxiety.
- What also helped me was engaging in conversation to help keep your mind off the poking.