Hair through thick and thin

Some heads of hair appear thicker than others. The thickness of
the hair shaft is a factor in how full hair appears: A coarse, thicker
hair shaft has more bulk than a finer hair shaft. The texture is also
very important.
In Caucasians, heavy, coarse hair isn’t a common trait, but if you
have it, your hair appears very, very thick. People with fine, thin
hair often have a “see-through” look, particularly in bright light,
even if they’re not balding; a natural higher density may offset this
look to some degree.
A good way to tell whether hair shafts have lost bulk between
childhood and adulthood is to think back to your childhood memo-
ries. We always ask patients the following question: “When you
were about 10 years old, do you remember members of your family
rubbing your hair for good luck?” With the 10 year old with coarse
hair, every aunt and uncle coming for a visit would rub his hair for
good luck, commenting on his healthy head of hair. People who
don’t recall this generally didn’t have coarse hair.
So when we see a man with see-through hair but normal hair
densities, this question can illuminate the changes in hair bulk as
aging occurs.
We’ve seen fair-skinned individuals color their hair to a lighter
color so that the contrast between their hair and skin color is mini-
mized, making their hair look distinctly fuller. When hair and skin
have similar colors (such as blonde hair on white skin), the cover-
age appears fuller than if there’s a high contrast in the colors (such
as black hair against white skin).
In a hair transplant, this contrast may dictate the surgical tech-
niques employed by the surgeon and the amount of hair that needs
to be moved in order to obtain a fuller look.