What are the results of laser hair removal ?

Let’s get things straight from the beginning: results are remarkable if all scenarios are defined. This is the physician’s main role, who must determine the indication and describe to the patient the results he can hope for.

A few examples to help you understand.

A Black woman will not have the same permanent results as a Mediterranean girl with a light skin and dark hair.

Menopaused women will not need as much sessions as young women.

Patients suffering from pain hypersensitivity cannot be treated with high energy, so that they will require more sessions than a patient able to “endure” more pain using the same anaesthesia.

A man typically presents more regrowth risks than a woman, due to the importance of hormonal stimulation.

The treatment is less obvious in overweight people, because their bulbs are located – due to the nodes of fat - deeper under the skin, so that the residual energy of the beam is sometimes too weak to durably damage the hair structures.

The previous examples only vaguely describe how complex the cases we deal with are, so it is important for you to understand which factors are taken into account to predict the results of a laser hair removal.

In women

The treatment scheme will be the following: a first series of 6 to 7 sessions on average so as to obtain permanent hair removal on most of the hair treated and a very long-lasting hair removal treatment on the remaining hair.

The treatment – according to hormonal parameters and ethnic criteria - will be very satisfying for most of the patients, who will not need us anymore. However, a maintenance session is necessary after 1 or 3 years in case of hair regrowth (always very limited). Then, a few maintenance sessions will be planned during the next 10 years, in order to get even closer to permanent hair removal.

In men

The situation is more complicated due to a high hormonal stimulation. Many of our patients, who have undergone permanent hair removal several years ago, are still very satisfied. But some other patients will need regular maintenance sessions, just like patients with dark skins treated with the Nd-Yag laser. In all cases, the amount of hair will be reduced, as hair get thinner and more scattered after each session

It is advisable to opt for a series of attack treatments followed by consolidation treatments, without omitting a possible maintenance treatment every one to three years.

Predictive factors

The first parameter taken into account by the physician before a laser hair removal treatment is the skin colour (the phototype).

The darker a skin will be (high phototype), the more it will absorb laser energy, which can induce first-degree burns.

Moreover, a dark skin will act as a barrier limiting the transfer of energy to the bulb.

Dark or Black skins:

Such patients cannot hope for a permanent hair removal. The recent release of the new high pulse Nd : Yag lasers has significantly improved the prognosis in such cases.

After the attack treatment, consisting in 6 to 7 sessions, relatively close in time, one or two maintenance sessions per year will be necessary to keep a smooth skin. It will be possible to space the sessions with time, but not to stop them.

The moderate cost of the treatment - comparable to any other beauty cost – enables the patient to make up his mind serenely

Light or slightly dark skins

These patients can benefit from an Alexandrite laser treatment. We have used this laser for more than twenty years now, and it has become more and more powerful with time. Indications have thus been broadened, now including blond hair, provided that they are not too light or too thin.

The second parameter is thus the colour of the hair. The more a hair will be composed of dark pigments, the more it will turn light energy into heat. Patients with dark hair and light skins used to be the best subjects for a laser treatment, but things have changed now. Patients with light hair will have to be treated with more energy than patients with dark hair. But their skin is generally lighter, so that they will never be burnt. As a result, advantages and disadvantages are well balanced...

Light energy

The third parameter is the amount of energy delivered at the bulb level. Below a certain amount of energy, the treatment might only result in long-lasting hair removal. Irreversible lesions of the bulb, and thus permanent hair removal, will only occur beyond a certain threshold.

Pain threshold

The determining factor for the success of the treatment is the amount of energy delivered to the bulb. The cooling of the skin and the pain threshold are two other success factors.

Indeed, even if – quite surprisingly – many professionals avoid the pain problem, laser hair removal is painful, although it is less painful than wax hair removal or electrolysis. Pain is felt differently among patients: some patients tolerate high energies quite easily while others suffer a lot at medium power.

This is why we worked a lot on antalgics, to be sure maximum comfort would be provided to the patients when using high laser power as soon as the first session.

We systematically prescribe an anaesthetic cream such as the EMLA cream after the treatment of most areas (bikini, legs). When correctly applied following our instructions, the anaesthetic cream produces an excellent antalgic effect: patients only report a very slight stinging sensation, which they describe as a bit painful or not painful at all.

What to do if you get burnt?

Despite all our tests and precautions, burns can occur in any patient (except for those with a very light skin all year long). Some areas are specially affected, such as the inside of the thighs, in which friction always generates a bit more melanin, or the anterior tibia, the top of the knee, the calf; the areas exposed to the sun when walking.

Sometimes, patients do not expose themselves to the sun, but the simple fact of driving a few hours in the beginning of the summer wearing shorts or light clothes may suffice to be burnt…on the right knee, located right under the windshield.

The burns only occur on the most superficial skin cells, which are loaded with pigments. They are always first-degree burns and leave light marks on the skin that can be darkened by the sun once the treatment is over.

Up to today in the whole worldwide literature, sequelae have never been reported after a burn caused by a class IV medical laser. However, only a laserist is used to treating such lesions. So, if you get burnt, come and see us immediately.

Laser hair removal contraindications, Risk of stimulation or of burns

Let’s talk in a first place of “non” indications :

-very light blond or white hair, which will not store enough heat to damage the germinal cells. The laser light crosses the unpigmented hair without heating it. In such a case, electrolysis is the only alternative to laser.

-red-coloured hair do not respond to laser neither. The melanin it contains is particular, and does not absorb the beam well.

The real laser contraindications are

-the uncoloured downy hair or the presence of isolated hairs in an area covered by downy hair

-suntan, which increase the risk for burns

The downy hair

We are among the first researchers to have realised that laser can stimulate the vellus hair and thus induce the regrowth of thicker hair more difficult to treat. This is why the treatment of certain areas is delicate.

It is thus important not to undergo laser hair removal on a few isolated hairs, as it can induce a stimulation of the surrounding hairs. Electrolysis is well indicated is such cases, and will remove hair selectively without affecting the surrounding vellus hair.

On areas that have been shaved or hair removed for years (legs, underarms, bikini for example), the vellus hair has disappeared, replaced by a population of terminal hair. There is thus no stimulation risk.

The sun

The sun is the worst enemy of a laser treatment for understandable reasons: if the skin is tanned, the melanin it contains will be heated up just as much as the melanin contained in the hair.

Burns can occur in such cases, always extremely superficial. They heal in a few days.

Patients are told not to expose themselves to the sun during the treatment, so that the power of the shot can be increased progressively without injuring them.

This contraindication is less important with the Yag laser, but remember it does not give permanent results.

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