Norwood–Hamilton · Stage I
Norwood 1 (I)
No patterned recession. The hairline still forms a dome; temples are not notched.
No account needed, and nothing is stored.
What it looks like
From the front, the hairline peaks at the midline and falls away toward the temples. There is no M. The crown, seen from above, matches the density at the back of the head. A small widow’s peak can sit on an otherwise full Norwood I; it is not recession by itself.
Typical measurements
Face-normalised units: H is glabella to chin, so the numbers do not depend on the phone or the distance. These are the anchors the pipeline uses; they are not a diagnosis.
- Mid-frontal height
- 0.50 – 0.64 H
- Temple bald-column share
- ≈ 0%
- Vertex vs occipital
- ≥ 0.85
- Scalp loss-area
- ≈ 0.00
O’Tar Norwood’s 1975 paper treated Type I as the control: the hairline a man keeps, or the one he matures into, without the patterned loss the rest of the scale describes. Two shapes both count as I.
A juvenile hairline sits low on the forehead, often with a rounded or slightly peaked centre. A mature hairline has moved up on the order of a centimetre (about 0.1 H in this pipeline) but it still domes: the midline is the highest point, the temples are not cut out. The engine treats a flattened dome plus a high-ish midline as the first hint of II, even when no column is frankly bare.
What Norwood I is not: thinning that is even all over. If scalp shows through everywhere and the hairline has not receded, the report flags a diffuse pattern rather than calling it I and walking away. Diffuse thinning can be androgenetic, telogen effluvium, or female-pattern loss; the number alone does not sort that.
How it gets mixed up
A slightly higher “mature” hairline is still Norwood I if the temples are not notched and the dome is intact. Norwood II starts when triangular recession is actually there.
How to get your number
Five photos (front, left, right, crown, back), a sixty-second history, about three minutes. The report costs $7, needs no account, and stores nothing. You get the roman stage, a continuous index, a genetic vs. environmental split, levers ranked by evidence, 5- and 10-year paths, and a signed link. Look at a sample report first. Details of the geometry and the papers behind the anchors: Method & sources. The rest of the scale: Norwood I–VII.
FAQ
Is a widow’s peak Norwood 1 or 2?
A widow’s peak on an otherwise full, domed hairline is still Norwood I. Norwood II is triangular recession at the temples: a share of the temple zone where a scan across the forehead finds no hair at all.
Can Norwood 1 still shed a lot?
Yes. Shedding is a history question, not a geometry one. A full hairline with heavy recent shed is why the report asks about illness, diet, stress and deficiency instead of forcing a higher stage.
norwood.fyi is an informational tool, not a medical device, and not a substitute for a dermatologist. Staging between adjacent Norwood grades has about 65–78% agreement even among experts; the report shows its confidence and the measurements behind it.