Sometimes it feels distressing to live in a society that dictates how a person should look. A balding head, for instance, connotes ugliness and frailty; while a beautiful head of hair implies the opposite. Balding people tend to think they are an eyesore to the society so they get down to anything just to get their hair back – to be accepted once more, to belong, and heaven knows what else.

What’s more distressing is when one doesn’t have the luxury to do anything about this “imperfection.” Wigs and toupees have always been the first option. They are hair replacement systems which are non-surgical and cheaper than any other medical hair loss treatments.

Besides hair transplantation, other surgical hair replacement techniques widely practiced around the same time were flaps and scalp reductions. Flaps involve cutting off a balding scalp and lifting out a large lot of hair that is still attached to the other end – giving almost abrupt results. The difference between hair transplants from flaps is in the maintenance of the blood supply. Flaps stop the hair from entering the resting phase unlike with hair transplants. A scalp flap surgery is only limited to cases of alopecia occurring in the frontal area. On the downside, the scars they leave were ugly and they make uneven hair regrowth patterns (slot formation). This is probably why flaps have become rare nowadays.