I kind of don’t understand the purpose of hair mapping. I root in a circular pattern beginning at the hairline in the back and ending with the crown.The only parts I ‘map’ are fine hairs on the forehead and in front of the ears. I do it this way because I’ve found I get a certain rhythm when I’m rooting and if I stop I don’t get the same amount of hair in the next section. So I complete a whole round before taking a break. Does this make any sense?
If that works for you that’s great. I find that with my sections drawn out on the head my needle position and lay of the hair is more dependable.
There are no hard and fast rules. We all come up with what works for us through trial and error. 
2 Likes
I guess I’m trying to figure out if learning hair mapping would be beneficial to me. The tutorials I’ve seen have sections with arrows going in different directions. Are the arrows for the direction of the hair or the needle? They seem to go every which way and hair doesn’t grow every which way so I’ m confused.
This is a nice, simple one: http://www.rebornarthub.com/2014/02/reborning-tutorial-beautiful-rooted.html
The arrows are pointing in the direction the needle should be pointing. I don’t put the arrows in; she put those in to help explain. Hope this helps.
3 Likes
for the life of me i could not root a head so that it looked like an actual hair pattern. i then watched a head mapping tutorial and tried it out and it made a world of difference. i think its awesome that you can root without mapping 
but i know for me i would be lost without it.
2 Likes
I have never drawn arrows on the head…just the lines dividing the sections. Once you draw the lines and root you will see how easy it is to change the style by changing the lines. The people who do double swirls and other fancy styles map the head to keep the design easy to see and plan.