Shaving and anaesthesia before the treatment

Shave 24 hours before the treatment

It is generally recommended to stop waxing or tweezing 3 weeks before the laser session. Shaving or depilatory creams are allowed during this period.

You will shave the area to be treated 24 hours before the session to eliminate all the hair protruding through the skin. Thus, the risks of skin burns due to hair destruction will be avoided, and laser energy will concentrate on the minimal stem length.

In order to treat more sensitive areas or areas with high hair density, we will prescribe an anaesthetic cream that you will apply two hours before the session. But hair removal will then be a bit less efficient, and it is preferable not to use this anaesthetic cream on dark or slightly tanned skins, as pain is a clinical sign essential to detect superficial burns.

Shaving must be avoided on areas covered by downy hairsuch as the upper lip or any other face area, as well as some areas on the thigh. Shaving may induce a stimulation of such delicate hair, so that it will only be destroyed during the first session by an unfocused application of the laser beam. The laser light will not penetrate very deeply under the skin surface during this first application, but the vellus hair will be reduced to dust and smoke…The area is then cleaned up to remove all combustion residues, and the real treatment can begin.

EMLA application 2 hours before the session

An anaesthetic is systematically applied on the areas to treat, excepted on the face, where the hair are too thin to induce pain.

The area, shaved the day before so as to avoid the shaving rash, will be generously covered with the EMLA cream prescribed on the prelaser visit. The cream will be applied two hours before the session, avoiding skin penetration so as to obtain a shiny or whitish film on the skin surface.

Once applied, the cream must absolutely be kept moist: the area must thus be wrapped in cellophane similar to kitchen cellophane…Wrapping the legs – a cylindrical area – is quite easy. On the bikini area, we recommend you to begin with the lower back and to come back to the front, just like if it were pampers. The isolation of the area will be completed by X and Y wrapping schemes on each root of the upper extremity. Make sure the cellophane is applied as far as the middle of the thighs, so as to keep the entire area moist.

The plastic film will only be removed once in the laser room.