Hello,
Over the past two weeks I’ve been to a few places to consult about laser hair reduction for my lower legs. I’m a female with Type III skin, the skin is VERY pale right now (I haven’t tanned since last summer), with beige undertones. The hair is almost black and coarse, with pretty bad ingrown hairs.
I’ve narrowed it down to two places, and I was wondering if someone on this forum might help me decide which one is best.
The first uses a Lightsheer laser. The technician has 7 years of experience and really took the time to explain everything to me and answered all my questions. During the spot test she steadily raised the Joules till she reached 45 J at automatic pulse. She said that she’ll keep it at that because she likes to be aggressive (which is good in my opinion). I’m very tolerable to pain so it wasn’t too bad. She uses a sort of sliding & pressing method. BUT at one moment her hand slipped and just flew off my leg and she didn’t act like it was a big deal… looking at my leg after it seemed like she didn’t start off again where she had left off, but it was just a spot check so that could be why she didn’t care. In her favour though, she overlaps almost 50% of the area she did when she does the next part.
She’s asking $50 more per treatment than her standard price because I’m tall (5’11)… although my legs are thin. I’m a bit surprised/offended because at all the other places the technicians thought it was really bizarre when I asked if they charge extra for height.
She wants $300 in canadian money per treatment, and estimates even as few as 3 sessions for me. As lower legs she counts from middle of the knee down.
The other place uses a Gentlelase machine. An important thing to note is that this is the only place with an Alexandrite laser in the surrounding cities of where I live, all the others use the diode laser. The technician has 8 years of experience and didn’t really volunteer any information to me (possibly because I told her I’ve already had a few consultations and she might have assumed I know everything already). She emphasized quite a bit that they are the cheapest in the area, and that their type of machine is the best. Also that they are very hygenic because they use a new head piece for each client. When I asked questions she answered all of them, but did not go in-depth.
She used 18J on the test spot, but I don’t know the other settings. She used an up and down method.
The price is $227 CAN per treatment, and she estimates it might take up to 6 sessions for me, with the last 2 of those being touch-ups (which would cost less). To her, lower legs constitutes from about 1.5 inches above the knee down.
Oh yeah, my skin reacted pretty well to both these spot tests. The swelling and redness went away within a few hours, although there are still some red dots after a week.
Which place do you guys think I should choose? And, are those settings good?
