Dr. Vinay at Northwestern Hair
A paradigm shift — from transferring just the follicle to the entire hair unit — resulting in striking naturalness and infinite possibilities in hair transplantation. Invented and performed by Dr. Vinay Rawlani.
At Northwestern Hair, our advanced Micro PUE® hair transplant Chicago transfers the entire hair unit, not just the follicle, for less trauma and more refined, lasting results. This page explains how Micro PUE® differs from standard FUE, how hairline design shapes the outcome, what to expect from the procedure and recovery, what affects cost, and how to schedule a consultation in Chicago.
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Micro PUE® transfers the entire hair unit, not just the follicle. We’re not simply growing a hair shaft; we’re giving each hair everything it needs to thrive in its new home, so it keeps its natural texture, its sheen, and above all its naturalness.
Transfer of the whole hair unit — the most natural-looking hair transplant possible.
The naturalness of Micro PUE® and the discreetness of Discreet PUE®, plus the immediate result of transferring full-length hairs.
It started with No-Touch FUE, our refinement upon FUE. The moment we stopped crushing grafts — stopped injuring the shaft, the oil gland, the stem cells — the results got dramatically better. That told me something simple and important: every part of the hair matters.
Standard techniques only focus on the follicle. Everything else — the oil gland, the stem cells, the sheath — is a bystander. That’s why results are variable, and at times unnatural.
Our mission became to transfer the entire hair unit, not just the follicle. We realized that every part of the hair — the skin, oil gland, stem cells, sheath, and follicle — needed a different mode of extraction. So we invented Micro PUE®, multiphasic extraction. The machine changes its mode of extraction — vibration, oscillation, suction, and cutting — every 100 milliseconds as it navigates the different parts of the hair graft, extracting each in the best possible way. Then we combined it with our No-Touch principles, for the delicate handling of these perfect hair units. The result was a new form of follicular unit extraction, or FUE — which we call PUE, Pilosebaceous Unit Extraction: the extraction of the entire hair unit.
The technique became so advanced we can adjust the settings graft by graft — personalizing hair restoration not to the person, but to each individual hair, resulting in the most natural results we’ve ever seen.
Look closely — you can’t tell which hairs are Steven’s and which we transferred. That’s the whole point. These are Steven’s own hair units, moved intact: not just the follicle, but the functioning oil gland, the sheath, and the stem cells that surround it.
When a standard transplant moves the follicle alone, it grows a shaft that can come in dry, frizzy, or kinked — a hair that technically survives but never quite looks like the ones around it. Micro PUE® is different because we transfer the entire living hair unit, so each hair keeps its natural oil, texture, and shine. The result is hair that behaves exactly like the hair it grew up next to — because, in every way that matters, it’s the same. That’s why it can be combed, styled, and lived in without a single tell.
This is PUE — Pilosebaceous Unit Extraction. The name describes what it transfers: the pilo, the follicle at the bottom, up to the sebaceous gland at the top — the entire pilosebaceous unit. That’s the difference from FUE, Follicular Unit Extraction, which focuses on the follicle alone.
Every part of the hair unit has a job, and the transplanted hair only looks and behaves like your own when all of those parts come with it. Preserve the whole unit, and the hair has everything it needs to grow in naturally. That integrity shapes the final outcome in the recipient area and is a key detail behind undetectable results. Lose or damage a part along the way, and the result is compromised. So as we extract each graft, we move through it carefully, from top to bottom.
The skin is the strength layer at the very top of the graft. It has to be cut through sharply, and then it has to integrate back into the scalp smoothly — when it doesn’t, you get the pits and bumps that give a poor restoration away. This is where FUE falls short: it cannot stop cutting once it passes the skin, putting the more delicate structures below at risk of injury. Micro PUE® changes modes the millisecond it passes the skin, so those structures are never exposed to a sharp blade.
The oil gland lubricates the hair. Without it, the transplanted hair grows in dry and frizzy — scaly rather than smooth under the microscope — and it reads as “transplanted” because it lacks the natural sebum every native hair around it has. This matters most over the long term: in a patient whose surrounding scalp is still thinning, hair that brought its own oil glands with it keeps looking natural for decades. The oil gland is spongy and delicate, so Micro PUE® switches to vibration to extract it without injury.
The stem cells sit at the base of the oil gland and travel down the sheath to feed the follicle. They are the source of the hair itself — if they aren’t included in the transfer, the hair will not grow. Because they are so delicate, a slight amount of suction helps elevate them with the unit, without any disruption.
The connective-tissue sheath outlines the entire hair unit and separates it from the surrounding scalp. It protects the shaft and forms the tunnel the stem cells travel down to the follicle. It provides padding that keeps the hair from becoming kinked. It is best freed with oscillation.
The follicle seems like the most important part of the hair — and it is essential — but it’s now understood to be only one component of the unit. It’s where the shaft takes root and grows, fed by the stem cells and by a blood vessel that grows in through the sheath. It’s the basis of FUE, and it’s why the standard procedure works. FUE focuses on the follicle, and aiming for it will often capture the structures above on the way down — but “often” isn’t “reliably,” and that is the point of Micro PUE®: capturing the entire unit, every time.
The deeper engineering behind these modes lives on our Micro PUE® technology page.
The benefits of Micro PUE® don’t take a microscope to see. Every member of the team can see the improvement in the grafts with the naked eye as they come out of the scalp — perfect cuffs of skin, oil glands, shafts, and follicles. (The only part not visible to the unmagnified eye is the stem cells.)
More hair survives, too. In standard FUE, transection rates run 12–15% — the sharp cutting motion that’s only needed for the skin ends up cutting across part of the hair unit in the deeper structures. With Micro, that rate drops to roughly 2%, because it adjusts its mode of extraction level by level.
The greatest benefit of a Micro PUE® hair transplant is only fully apparent after the hairs grow. The naturalness of the hairs is striking, because the entire hair unit is present and functioning — supporting the follicle, which in standard FUE is left to stand alone. When every part of the hair is present and functioning, there is a far greater chance the transplanted hair looks like its natural self, which directly shapes the final outcome.
Combined with our Timeless Hairline and Timeless Crown design techniques, and close attention to every detail in creating a natural hairline, the ultimate result is flawless — natural-looking, undetectable results that help patients feel like themselves again, with more confidence. The hairs look natural from afar, up close, wet, and dry.
Because It’s Natural Hair and Not Just a Follicle
The greatest benefit of a Micro PUE® hair transplant is only fully apparent once the hairs grow in. Because the entire hair unit is transferred and functioning — not just a follicle left to stand on its own — the new hair doesn’t imitate natural hair. It is natural hair, and it behaves like it.
Combined with our Timeless Hairline and Timeless Crown design, the result holds up in every situation. Real, living hairs act like the rest of your hair no matter the condition — across the room or up close, dry or soaking wet.
Dry, the hairline reads completely natural: no pluggy tufts, no gaps at the part, just believable density from every angle.
Wet is the honest test. Water clumps and flattens hair, exposing any graft that doesn’t belong — yet the hairline still holds, because every hair is genuinely his.
Micro is the technology that makes whole-unit extraction possible. The name is an acronym, not a reference to size: Multiphasic Iterative Collection by Reticular Otomy — reticular otomy meaning the release of the small connective attachments (the reticula) that anchor the hair unit to the surrounding tissue. Micro can change its mode of extraction every 100 milliseconds, so it removes each part of the hair using the motion best suited to it.
The device draws on five motions and blends them as it descends. It cuts through the tough skin with rotation. It vibrates delicately around the spongy oil gland and the fragile stem cells rather than cutting them. It oscillates around the sheath so the connective housing separates cleanly without being stripped. It uses light suction to elevate the delicate structures with the unit. And it shakes — a flicking release — to free the follicle and bulb with the blood supply intact. Micro is infinitely adjustable: not just the mode, but the length of each mode, its intensity, and mode-specific settings such as the arc of oscillation, all tuned to the hair in front of us.
A hair unit passes through five distinct tissue zones from the scalp surface down to the follicle. Each has different physical properties, so each gets a different mode and intensity. A typical extraction takes about 500 milliseconds — at one mode change every 100 milliseconds, that’s five changes, matched to the five layers.
| Layer | Tissue | Mode of extraction |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Skin (outer dermis) - tough outer layer | Rotational cutting, to access the tissue beneath |
| 2 | Oil gland - spongy, easily ruptured | Vibration, to dissect around it rather than cut through it |
| 3 | Stem cell zone - directly beneath the oil gland | Gentle vibration at reduced intensity, with light suction to lift the stem cells with the unit |
| 4 | Stem cell zone - directly beneath the oil gland | Oscillation, to separate it cleanly without stripping |
| 5 | Follicle and bulb - the deepest structure | A shaking, flicking release to free the follicle with its blood supply intact |
While the Timeless Hairline and Timeless Crown design lets us adjust for every patient’s facial shape, Micro PUE® lets us adjust for each patient’s individual hairs. Patients who previously had suboptimal results from FUE can now expect natural results from Micro PUE®, because of the level of customization to their hair. Candidacy starts with an honest consultation to see if you’re a good candidate, including whether you have stable hair loss and realistic expectations.
Whether your hair is fine, curly, previously operated on, or completely absent, Micro PUE® tailors the extraction to your individual hair to achieve naturally beautiful results. For men and women, the right approach depends on the pattern of loss, the degree of hair thinning, and the overall treatment plan. The procedure can also be done discreetly, and can transfer full-length hairs for an immediate result. Here are the patient types Micro PUE® can help.
Hairlines are where Micro PUE® matters most. Our Timeless Hairline Design shapes the hairline to fit your face and your personality — and to evolve and mature with your hair over time. Micro PUE® then lets us produce the perfect hair rather than just transfer a follicle or an entire hair unit, so every hair looks like its most natural self in its new location. The most beautiful, natural, and undetectable work we offer.
Fine hair is one of the most easily transected hair types. A fixed rotating blade cuts through thin hairs without the clinician knowing, resulting in a dead graft. Because Micro PUE® adapts its motion to each hair, it dramatically reduces that transection risk. Fewer hairs are injured, so more grafts survive — the extra survival that patients with fine, thin hair, who have fewer grafts to spare, absolutely need.
Tightly curled hair curves under the scalp instead of running straight down, so a fixed straight blade transects it — which is why this hair type fails a standard FUE most visibly. With Micro PUE®, we no longer have to cut these hairs out. We apply light tension with suction and then vibrate or oscillate around the entire hair — whatever each individual’s hair needs — freeing it along its real path. Brittle, fragile hair benefits the same way.
Revisions are the hardest cases of all: old grafts sit encapsulated in scar tissue, and the tissue planes are distorted. With Micro PUE®, we change the mode to work around the scar that encapsulates each hair — sometimes more cutting than vibration, sometimes the reverse, adjusted graft by graft. That has raised our success on revision hair transplants well beyond what we used to see.
Megasessions became possible. Six thousand grafts is easy, and cases beyond ten thousand grafts became a reality. Many clinics cap out around 3,000 grafts in a single day. That’s because we are no longer coring out a cylinder of tissue around every follicle. We extract the hair unit out of its natural envelope within the scalp, with minimal trauma and minimal impact on the scalp’s blood supply — so the scalp tolerates far more grafts in a single day, meaning more coverage, greater density, or both.
Coring our grafts leaves scar that can send tentacles into adjacent follicles, trapping them and making them difficult to extract later. Because we move each hair as a unit within its soft-tissue sheath, we limit the scarring left in the donor area — so the donor area stays healthy and workable for the next procedure. To date we have dozens of patients in whom we’ve extracted over 15,000 grafts across procedures, roughly double what was previously thought possible.
Micro-PUE plays a vital role in young patients. Having hair at a young age is immensely important for one’s self-confidence. Micro-PUE allows us to extract grafts with less transaction rates and causes less collateral damage to adjacent hairs, leading to the ability to extract more grafts over a lifetime. With appropriate planning through the timeless hairline design and timeless crown design, Micro PUE gives us the confidence to start treating men at a younger age who can truly benefit from a hair transplant.
A Micro PUE® hair transplant is a team effort. Every graft is examined under magnification as it comes out of the body, and the Micro device is adjusted to make the next graft better — graft-by-graft personalization. That feedback loop is physically impossible for one person, which is why every procedure takes a three-person team that works together every single day, at a caliber unmatched in Chicago.
The three are me, Lyda, and Dee. Nobody rotates in. The technique sits well beyond the sophistication of a standard FUE — it requires a deep understanding of graft anatomy and of how each mode of extraction can be used to optimize the result. Together we bring over 60 years of combined experience, and we pioneered the Micro PUE® hair transplant in Chicago.
Every procedure is scheduled only when all three of us are available. That’s not logistics. That’s the technique.
I’m glad I did it. I felt every decision, every doubt, every healing milestone my patients now face — and every refinement since came out of knowing what it’s like from that chair. No-Touch extraction, graft survival, design language, the sequence of the day itself.
I made those changes on myself first, so they’re already made before you take the step.
My hair grew back. So did a whole new standard for care.
I want you thrilled with your result for the rest of your life. That’s why I don’t approach this as another procedure. It’s an artistic commission that lets me apply the best science has to offer.
I’ve had a transplant myself. At the time, I thought it was a complete procedure — everything it was supposed to be.
Looking back, I’d never perform a transplant on a patient the way mine was performed on me. The planning wasn’t there. The grafts weren’t what they could have been.
A Micro PUE® hair transplant in Chicago is $14 per graft — double the $7 per graft of No-Touch FUE. The reason is the process itself: the settings change between every graft, and each graft is evaluated under the microscope during the procedure so those settings can be improved for the next one. That is far more involved than a standard one-person extraction.
Not every hair has to be done with Micro. It can be combined with No-Touch FUE in the same procedure. The most common plan in our office is Micro PUE® for the hairline — where looking natural matters most — and No-Touch FUE for the mid-scalp and crown. This is Sequential Extraction, and it gives a better result at a lower total cost than running one technique across the whole scalp. During your consultation, we discuss the options clearly so pricing reflects your actual treatment plan. For megasessions, revisions and the most discerning of clients, the preference is to use Micro PUE® for all grafts — maximizing the number of hairs extracted and keeping every graft as healthy as possible.
| Technique | Cost per Graft | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| No-Touch FUE | $7 / graft | Density-building in mid-scalp and crown |
| Micro PUE | $14 / graft | The hairline and any zone where grafts are clearly visible |
Northwestern Hair Studio, our educational content program, saves patients $2 per graft. Financing is available through CareCredit, PatientFi, and Cherry.
A Full Hair Transplant Day, Start to Finish
Jim is a hairstylist in his late 30s — funny, easy-going, and someone whose entire career runs on knowing what a good hairline does for a face. So when his own started receding, he decided to take control of it with Micro PUE®. One day. 3,200 grafts. Here’s where he started, and where he ended up.
A Full Hair Transplant Day, Start to Finish
Every hair transplant at Northwestern Hair begins with design, before a single graft moves. We paired Jim’s restoration with Timeless Hairline Design — a hairline built to look right the next morning and still look right as his hair changes over the decades ahead. Jim had opinions, of course; he’d been drawing hairlines on other people for fifteen years.
From there, the day runs under local anesthesia, start to finish. A hair transplant typically lasts 6 to 10 hours depending on graft count and complexity.
Extraction is where Micro PUE® separates from standard FUE. Evaluating each graft under the microscope takes longer, but the grafts come out so much healthier that they need less processing and the day actually moves more smoothly. Thin, brittle, curly, or previously operated-on hair is handled with ease. In our experience the process runs roughly twice as efficient — which is what makes megasessions possible and lets us treat a larger area in a single session.
Because the grafts come out in their natural form, they’re less bulky than the core-like grafts a standard FUE produces. That opens up insertion into small slits rather than cores — two to two-and-a-half times as many grafts in the same recipient area, and the feathered, denser hairline Micro PUE® is known for. Insertion is more meticulous and takes slightly longer, so the length of the day lands about the same as FUE for the same graft count.
Pain is identical to FUE, because both run under full local. Jim’s discomfort was a few minutes in the morning and a few in the afternoon, while the donor and recipient areas were numbed. That was the whole of it — and he was back to normal activities within a few days. What you won’t see in the video is the part every patient notices when they meet Jim. As a stylist, he already knew the power of a good hairline — but going through it himself gave him something training never could. He didn’t just restore his own confidence; he now helps our patients style and care for their new hair with real empathy and understanding of what it means to reclaim your look. He got his hairline back, and we got a better stylist.
About Hair Transplant in Chicago
A hair transplant moves hairs from the sides and back of the scalp to areas where hair has been lost. Transplanted hairs don’t recede over time because they come from skin without testosterone receptors. Once transferred, the body re-vascularizes the grafts and the new hair continues to grow naturally.
A Micro PUE® hair transplant extracts the entire hair unit — follicle, oil gland, stem cells, and surrounding tissues — by making the whole hair the focus rather than the follicle alone. Transferring the hair as a complete organ produces transplanted hair that grows in healthier and looks more natural.
The difference is focus. A standard FUE hair transplant has always aimed at the follicle — the bits, the devices, and the handling all point there, and the rest of the hair is incidental. Micro PUE® makes the entire hair unit the focus. Because the extraction is customized graft by graft, transection drops from the 12–15% typical of single-mode FUE to roughly 2% in our hands.
At Northwestern Hair, pricing is per graft: No-Touch FUE $7, Micro PUE® $14, Discreet PUE® $21, Long-Hair PUE® $28. Most procedures combine techniques through Sequential Extraction, so each graft is priced for the technique it needs.
Start with the surgeon’s involvement, experience, and the quality of their before-and-after work. Reviewing well-lit before and after galleries can help you judge consistency and transparency before you book a consultation.
Most patients see visible results around six months, with the full result at twelve to fourteen months. With Micro PUE® we’ve seen regrowth as early as six weeks, and about 30% of hairs may not shed at all.
No. Depending on the pattern and stage of loss, treatment may start with FDA-approved hair loss medications or other medical therapy before hair transplant surgery is considered. A consultation helps determine the right plan.
Only at our Chicago flagship at 3 E. Huron, Mezzanine Floor — the only location with the advanced technology that makes the procedure possible. Our Winnetka, Deerfield, and Clarendon Hills clinics handle consultations and other hair restoration services, including non-surgical treatments such as ACS Non-Surgical Hair Restoration and scalp micropigmentation where appropriate.
Every Micro PUE® hair transplant in Chicago starts with a consultation with Dr. Vinay Rawlani, where you can discuss your goals, candidacy, and treatment options — in person at the Chicago flagship and the Winnetka, Deerfield, and Clarendon Hills clinics, or virtually for patients outside the area. Our physician-led practice is built around personalized care from consultation through treatment, so you begin with clear guidance tailored to you.
