President Donald Trump was supposed to be discussing crime and security when he abruptly wandered into unexpectedly detailed territory: how a particular hair product can make someone appear to have exactly “4 percent” more hair.

The oddly specific observation came Friday as Trump addressed law-enforcement officials in Garden City, New York.

Trump was arguing that retailers are forced to place everyday products behind locked glass because authorities have failed to punish shoplifters. He listed several ordinary items that customers may have difficulty retrieving without assistance.

“You want a toothbrush or a little toothpaste, or you want to get a little Dove soap,” Trump said.

Then came the unexpected addition.

“You want a little of that good hair that can puff up your hair a little bit more, so it makes it look like you have 4 percent more than you had—they charge you for it.”

Trump did not identify the product, explain how he calculated the 4 percent improvement or say whether he had personally used it.

But the striking precision immediately attracted attention because the president’s hair has remained one of the most recognizable—and most discussed—features of his public image.

“Give me a break,” Trump continued before returning to his argument that inadequate consequences for criminals had forced stores to secure basic merchandise.

The comment could have been an improvised joke or an exaggerated example. There is no evidence that Trump has measured the apparent volume of his hair or that a commercially available product reliably creates a 4 percent increase.

Still, the remark arrived during a week in which observers had already been scrutinizing changes in his appearance.

At a Wednesday event in Las Vegas, Trump’s hair appeared noticeably fuller or “fluffier” than usual to some viewers. By Friday, it also appeared darker in photographs from his public appearance.

Lighting, styling products, camera settings and recent grooming can all affect how hair looks in photographs and videos. Those visual differences do not establish that Trump underwent a treatment or changed medications.

His public medical history, however, has made the subject more intriguing.

Medical information released during Trump’s first term showed that he took Propecia, the brand name for finasteride, a prescription medication commonly used to treat male-pattern hair loss.

Finasteride can slow hair loss and, in some patients, produce limited regrowth. Like other prescription medications, it can also carry side effects and should be used under medical supervision.

The drug has not appeared in medical information publicly released during Trump’s second term.

That omission does not necessarily establish that he stopped taking it. Medical reports released by presidents do not always contain every medication or personal health detail.

After questions arose in June, the White House said Trump’s report reflected “all medications deemed clinically relevant to disclose at this time.”

“No additional undisclosed conditions or procedures materially affecting his health status were omitted from this report,” the administration added.

Trump’s meticulous approach to his hair has also been described in several books.

In Fire and Fury, author Michael Wolff claimed that Ivanka Trump had explained the construction of her father’s hairstyle to friends. Wolff wrote that hair from the sides and front was drawn upward, brought together and swept backward before being held in place with stiffening spray.

The book also referred to alleged scalp-reduction surgery. Trump has not publicly confirmed every detail contained in Wolff’s account, and the description should be understood as the author’s reporting rather than an established medical record.

More recently, New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote in Regime Change that Trump’s longtime aide Walt Nauta routinely carried makeup, hairspray, Tic Tacs—and a pair of scissors.

The scissors reportedly allowed Trump to trim hair that became long enough to extend over the back of his collar.

Taken together, the accounts portray a politician acutely conscious of a hairstyle that has become inseparable from his personal brand.

Trump’s golden-blond sweep has survived decades of television appearances, magazine covers, political rallies and relentless jokes. It has been flattened by rain, lifted by wind and inspected through countless high-resolution photographs.

That history is why one throwaway remark about a product making hair look “4 percent” fuller became more memorable than the broader argument surrounding it.

The president may simply have chosen a random number for comic effect. He may have been referring to advertising language he encountered in a store. Or he may know considerably more about volumizing products than he intended to reveal.

Only Trump knows the answer.

But after a week of fuller-looking, darker hair—and with his former use of an anti-balding medication already documented—the strangely precise claim guaranteed that audiences would look even more closely at his next appearance.

For a president famous for making sweeping claims, it was one tiny number that stole the spotlight.