I am hearing all these negative remarks about lasers from a lot of people on this board, and was just wondering…is there anyone out there who has seen results? Iv had it done 2 times with gentlelase, and if no one is seeing any results I should just save my money. I don’t know id like to hear some positive stories from anyone on this board about their laser experiance. Thanks a lot guys.
I have had about 90% hair removal on my chest and abs, and about the same on my back. When I started laser treatments, I had so much chest hair that I couldn’t see my skin if I let it grow wild. I would start sweating the minute I got out of the shower I was so hairy! It took about 45-60 minutes to shave and I would have to do it every day if I wanted to maintain a hairless look. I tried just trimming it at first but it was not satisfactory.
I started with the Apogee 40 and had very good results. I have an excellent practitioner who knows how use the maximum amount of fluence suitable for me without having skin damage. I had some scabbing with the Apogee but it was only temporary. I had about 50% hair removal after two treatments. The later treatments did not remove as much hair but that is normal. There was still noticeable improvement after each treatment and the remaining hair was much finer and much less tendency toward ingrown hairs.
This last year my practitioner switched to the Lightsheer and it has been even better than the Apogee. I can be treated at a higher fluence, 45J vs. 40J for the Apogee and there is less post treatment pain and scabbing. The diminishing returns are not as prevalent with the Lightsheer as it seems to work better on finer hairs and goes deeper into the skin, reaching the deeper follicles.
I am to the point where I am considering doing the remaining chest hair with electrolysis because there isn’t very much left and a lot of it is white which the laser won’t get.
I am a type IV skin type and I don’t get treatments in the summer or fall, only during the winter and spring. It takes 3 months for my summer tan to fade enough for laser treatments.
Yes, laser has worked great for me and I highly recommend it. Your lack of success may be due to practitioner lack of experience and confidence to use the higher fluence levels to kill the hair follicles. This is just my opinion, but I think that too many are overly worried about a little bit of scabbing or redness after treatments but maybe that is necessary to use the higher fluence levels to permanently reduce the hairs.
My practitioner’s opinion of the Gentlelase is that it is not a very good laser. She said they had tried it and were not impressed with it at all.
If you have had no results I would consider changing practitioners and lasers too.
Hope this helps.
RJC2001
Well, I have pretty positive results with my laser treatment. I have black hair (bit brownish). I would guess due to dark and thick hair, laser works pretty well on me.