Are you tired of constantly having to remove unwanted hair? Are you looking for smooth skin that doesn’t grow stubble every few days (or even hours)? Laser hair removal could be just the right solution for you. At Complete Care Clinic in Paris, TX, we offer many types of personal beauty and health solutions, and laser treatments are some of the most effective. If you have a question, keep reading to get it answered!
Laser Hair Removal FAQs
How Many Sessions Will I Need?
Most people need between six and eight treatments to get the best results, but the truth is that everyone is different. For some people, it could be just three treatments. For others, it might take as many as 10 or 12. Why this discrepancy? There are a few factors to consider:
- What growth phase are the follicles in at the time of treatment?
- What type of skin do you have?
- What color is the hair being treated?
- How long did you wait between sessions?
In general, the greater the contrast between skin and hair color, the faster things go. That doesn’t mean it won’t work if your skin is lighter or your hair is darker: it just might take more sessions. Additionally, the hair will respond better if it’s in the active growth stage when we treat it. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to tell in advance where the hair is in the cycles of growth, but with each treatment, you’ll get more and more of it until you see the smooth skin you’re looking for.
How Long Does a Treatment Session Take?
The most important factor here is the size or number of areas you want to treat. A treatment that targets a small area like the upper lips or the underarm will naturally take a lot less time than if you’re treating the whole back or both legs. In general, expect to book about an hour out of your day for treatment. We can give you more specifics when you come for a consultation.
Are My Results Permanent?
The only completely permanent hair removal solution acknowledged by the FDA is electrolysis. The problem, though, is that electrolysis is painful, time-consuming, and expensive. It’s really safe to say it’s not a good solution for anything more than a few hairs in a small area. However, laser treatments are still considered a semi-permanent solution because they cause hair loss that is very long-term to permanent.
How Does It Work?
Laser hair removal goes to the root of the problem where other methods simply target the hair itself. With each laser hair removal treatment, laser light energy travels down the hair shaft. That energy turns to heat as it reaches the follicles, damaging them so their ability to grow hair is deeply compromised. Some of them will never be able to grow hair again. Others will only be able to grow thinner, lighter hair (and much more slowly).
Do I Have to Wait Between Treatment Sessions?
A lot of people are surprised to find they need to wait about a month between treatment sessions. There’s a good reason for this, though. Remember what we said about the active growth cycles? If you wait a few weeks, there’s enough time for more of your hair to cycle back into the active stage so it can be effectively treated. If you treat too early, the treatment might not do much good.
Conversely, if you wait too long between sessions, it’s possible you’ll slow down your final results. Some of the follicles will be badly damaged by the laser, but some will only be slightly damaged. The next treatment will finish them off–but not if you wait too long!
What Areas Can Be Treated?
Laser removal can target hair almost anywhere. Just about the only place you can’t treat is right around the eyes. The common places to seek treatment include:
- Upper lip
- Chin
- Neck
- Legs
- Bikini region
- Back
- Chest
- Underarms
This isn’t a comprehensive list, though! Just ask us about where you’d like to see hair disappear.
Does It Hurt?
Older IPL and laser treatments felt much as if someone had pulled a rubber band back and then released it: right at your skin! You’ll be glad to know those days are over. The lasers we used today are far more advanced, with specialized cooling technology that keeps you comfortable. We can also give you a numbing cream that will ensure you don’t find the treatment painful.
Am I a Good Candidate for This Treatment?
In the past, this method of treating unwanted hair didn’t work for people with dark skin or very light hair. Modern lasers can be adjusted to accommodate a much larger range of skin tones and hair colors. And this treatment is just as effective for men as it is for women. Many men seek treatment to thin out a beard to make shaving easier and razor burn less of a problem. Others like to remove the hair from their chest or back. Come see us if you want to get rid of your hair!
What Are the Benefits?
Long-Lasting Results
We can’t guarantee that you’ll never ever have a single hair grow in your target area again, but you are going to see long-lasting smooth skin. You won’t spend every day reminding yourself to check for stubble. You’ll be able to relax, knowing you have smooth skin. If hair does grow back, it will be slower growing, thinner, and easily treated with an occasional maintenance treatment. For some people, no hair will ever appear in the target area again.
Speed and Convenience
You have to come in for treatments, so it might not seem at first glance like you’re really saving time here. But consider the alternatives. Even if you have to invest in 10, one-hour sessions, how does that compare to the time spent shaving? The average woman will spend 85 days shaving over a lifetime, or around 40 hours per year. For the average man, shaving takes up 76 days out of a lifetime.
Plucking takes even more time and is simply too time-consuming to treat any large area of the body. IPL works in a way similar to laser, but it takes more sessions and the results don’t last as long.
How Should I Prepare for Treatment?
Six weeks before your first appointment, stop all hair removal practices other than shaving. Your laser will need something to target, so if you remove all the hair completely, as happens in plucking or waxing, there’s nothing for the laser to use to reach the follicle. Shaving is fine, and you can do that as often as you like. In fact, you should shave the day before your appointment.
You should also prepare by using sunscreen or staying out of the sun. The greater the contrast between your hair and skin color, the faster things will go. Finally, if you’re taking any medications that make you photosensitive, you’ll need to speak with your doctor about suspending them temporarily until after treatment. When you come in for your consultation, we’ll talk with you about what to do and not do before your session.
What Happens During Treatment?
When you arrive, we’ll first help you get comfortable, and if you haven’t shaved yet, we’ll take care of that. We then make sure we’re using the right calibration of laser to match your skin and hair. Calibrations take into consideration the skin tone, the thickness of the hair, and the color of the hair.
Then we’ll give you eye protection, and we’ll be wearing that, too. This protection is just out of an abundance of caution, not because there’s anything to worry about. We’ll apply numbing cream if you’ve requested it, and then we’ll pass the laser over your treatment area. You’ll feel warmth, but not pain.
What Happens After Treatment?
When your session is over, you’ll feel perfectly normal. There’s no downtime involved, and there’s no recovery period. You can go back to all your regular activities and normal schedule. The only thing you’ll need to do is treat your skin with a little tender loving care for a few days. Moisturize your skin and protect it from the sun. Don’t engage in any harsh exfoliation routines for a few days.
Over the next few days and weeks, the treated hair will slowly shed. This may even look like hair growth at first, but once those hairs are gone, they aren’t coming back. If any hair does grow back, that means the follicle wasn’t in the active stage when you had your previous treatment, and the next treatment will get it.
Can You Explain the Growth Stages and What That Has to Do With Treatment?
At any one time, you have hair in several possible cycles. There are three main stages: anagen, catagen, and telogen. The growing phase, anagen, usually lasts about four to six months for body hair and two to seven years for head hair. (That’s why the hair on our arms doesn’t grow as long as the hair on our heads!) Your hair will stay in that anagen stage for a set amount of time and then slowly move into the catagen phase, where growth slows down. Finally, it will enter the resting, or telogen phase. Hair usually stays in this phase for about three months.
Not all the hair in your target area is in the same stage at the same time, though it might seem like it’s all actively growing when you’re trying to get rid of it! But think of the hair on your head. If all the hair follicles were always in the same stage of growth, your hair would grow steadily for two to seven years, and then it would stop growing completely for months at a time. That doesn’t happen because their follicle growth cycles are staggered.
When your hair is actively growing, the hair is tightly connected to the follicle, and the follicle gets a heavy dose of heat energy to kill it. In the other two phases, that connection isn’t as strong, so not as much heat is delivered. That’s why you need a series of treatments, to allow for all the hair follicles to be hit when they’re in that stage.
Are You Ready to Be Rid of the Hair?
Laser hair removal near me treatments make it easy to be rid of the hair you don’t want, and modern treatments are comfortable and convenient. You don’t have to spend time worrying about whether there’s stubble showing before you agree to go swimming, and you can stop spending time every day getting your skin smooth.
If you’re ready to be done with all that, contact us today at Complete Care Clinic in Paris, TX. We will meet you for a consultation and give you more specifics. We can’t wait to put our expertise to work for you.