A tip for those getting laser on large areas...

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

After struggling for a long time with treatments that seem to miss huge patches of hair on my lower legs (up to 40-50% some times), I finally decided to take action to prevent missed spots today:

I drew a grid on my legs before the appointment in white pencil. I have heard this advice offered before, it’s nothing new, but I want to emphasize what a DIFFERENCE it makes, even if you don’t think it matters. My laser tech seemed offended at first, and started telling me he never misses spots and that it’s just the hair cycle (yes, my hair grows in perfect one inch strips candy-striped around my leg, that makes sense). But in the end he proceeded.

Here’s the important part of my story: The treatment was SO thorough! Previously the number of pulses for both my lower legs in a session was about 250 pulses total, but today I snuck a peak at the log and my pulse total was 750!!! So I was right the whole time that he was only treating a fraction of the total area. A thorough treatment was over 3 times the number of pulses he used previously, and today’s session took twice as long, too. And my legs actually turned a little pink (they have never reacted in any way previously, despite using the highest settings possible every time).

So if your laser center doesn’t offer free touch ups, definitely try out a grid. It makes such a difference, I’m so pleased…

#2

Wow, I didn’t know it was done without a grid!

I’ve always had a grid (red pencil) drawn by the clinic. One girl did it too big and missed patches so I didn’t use her again :stuck_out_tongue:

If I think any boxes are too big, I ask them to divide it up further.

It should be standard!

#3

It should be standard, I agree! I got my boxes very uneven, so I’m sure there was still some missed. But definitely not 40%, thank god. I was really depressed about the wasted money, but hopefully my treatments go well from now on.

#4

A little bit not related, but with the Soprano it takes 10-15 thousand pulses to do legs.

#5

My clinic is amazing, I’ve posted this before but she has all these big stamps, ranging in size from probably 6" x 4" down to much smaller 2" by 1". The stamps are a big checkerboard which she stamps in red ink and then stamps your skin over your entire treatment area. If I’m being treated with a 15mm spot size for example, then she uses her grid which has squares 12mm in size. She then covers the area in ultrasound gel, and what happens is every time she fires a pulse, it disrupts the stamp slightly so she can easily tell if she’s hit that area. Because they’re 12mm squares and she fires the 15mm spot size, it guarantees overlap on the area. So simple but so genius!

#6

How long does it take to put those stamps?

#7

Oh 2 seconds, they’re really big. Stamping my forearms and hands takes maybe 5 seconds each. Put it this way, it’s just as fast if not faster than actually drawing a grid. Only thing is for Soprano it would be useless since it’s more for like Apogee or GentleLASE where she aims the red beam in the centre of it then fires, moves on to the next, fires etc.

#8

Drawing the grid took over 15 minutes. It was very hard, because it’s hard to keep lines straight on a curvy leg and I had to rinse areas and redraw them. Also, my white eyeliner pencil is very very soft, so I had to stop and resharpen it at least a dozen times during the process.

So yeah, stamps would have been much more awesome.

#9

Wow I never heard about grids and stamping. My daughter is getting full legs with 10 mm and she’s had 1 treatment on each leg but i was thinking that missed areas might be a problem because the spot size is only 10mm. I doubt very much that they have stamps but forgot to use them; the tech did use a ruler that she moved as she treated. Also, I did not ask about touch ups but I guess that discussion will come up sooner than later…:frowning:

#10

imokay, hopefully the discussion of touch ups WON’T come up for you, because I have never had a center honor their touch-up policy (if they even have one), and it turns into a fight. I am very very disappointed with that particular aspect of my laser treatments.

I think a ruler sounds more helpful than free-handing it though, so maybe you’ll be lucky and not have any missed patches.