Top 5 Popular Questions about Laser Hair Removal

Will Laser Hair Removal hurt?

Laser hair removal can be uncomfortable but shouldn’t be painful. The lasers of today are much more advanced than those of the past and with great cooling systems, your treatment shouldn’t feel any more than a wax.
After treatment, your skin may feel a bit warm but you can apply a cool compress or aloe gel to relieve this. If the skin is extremely painful after treatment, this is not normal and you should notify your practitioner immediately.

How Many Treatments do I need?

Hair grows in cycles and depending on the part of the body that you were lasering and depending on how many cycles  – it may be in the area of 6 to 8 cycles. Therefore it should take 6 to 8 treatments to remove hair from an area. In saying this, however, where an area is still influenced by hormones, new hairs can emerge. In one square centimeter, there are approximately 1000 hair follicles; 20 of those may producing hair that can make the face look quite hairy. We can remove those 20 but there are another 980 follicles that can start growing hair, therefore we say hairs that are produced hormonally such as on the chin, lips, breasts and stomach in women tend to not be permanent. You’ll continue to have touch-up treatments. This is also why we say hair removal in areas such as bikini line and underarms should be done after puberty in order to not have to require follow-up treatments.

How Long Should I wait Between my Treatments?

Hair grows at different rates all over the body. On the face, they grow the fastest and on the lower leg, they tend to grow the slowest so the time between your treatments will vary between areas. We usually say 3 to 4 weeks on the face, 4 to 6 weeks on the bikini line + underarm, 6 to 8 weeks on the legs and arms. As you progress with your treatments not only does it reduce the hairs but also slows down the growth so you may be able to spread these out even further.

Can Laser Hair Removal be Done on Dark Skin?

The simple answer to that is yes, but it must be done with the correct sort of laser. Not all lasers are suitable for dark skin. The other possibility to note is that people with dark skin tend to have very dark hair and therefore we can use lower energies to be able to get the same result as the concentration of melanin is much higher. We cannot however treat a normally light skin person who has a suntan as they won’t have this concentration of melanin in their hair and therefore lasers that a specialized for dark skins won’t work.

Can I get Laser Hair Removal on my Blonde or Grey Hair? 

Unfortunately no, because lasers use light which needs to be absorbed by a Croma. In this case, the melanin in hair gives the hair colour; we cannot treat fair or grey hair as there is nothing for the light to be absorbed by. There have been many lasers over the years that have claimed to be able to treat fair with great care by adding extra technologies into them such as radiofrequency but none of these have survived very long as they have been found to be quite ineffective.

Contact Us if you are interested in any of the treatments here.