Post laser lotion? I can’t say that I’ve heard of that. The only thing that I’ve ever put on a treated area was a little aloe right afterwards. I’ve not had a bit of problem. Of course, your skin might be really sensetive. You might not need to put anything on your legs, too.
I would definitely agree with davidkafricks observations about the Harmony on finer hair. … The Harmony includes wavelengths from 650-950 nm and that may account for the effectiveness on finer hair.
So what makes an effective laser/IPL machine? What should I be looking for? I’ve done a quick investigation of the different clinics here, and virtually all are using the CoolGlide. It’s amazing - the local sales rep must be very good! Other tha the CoolGlide, I’ve found 2x Aurora machines, 2x Energist Ultra IPL, 1x Photoderm IPL.
RJC, you say the Harmony’s range is 650-950nm. Is that a wide range, and is a wide range desirable? The Energist Ultra covers 530-1000nm. This is probably at the top of my list of options right now, so I’d love to hear peoples’ opinions of it. Here’s the spec sheet:
http://www.polartechnics.com.au/products/EnergistUltra/EnergistUltra.htm
[quote]I would definitely agree with davidkafricks observations about the Harmony on finer hair. … The Harmony includes wavelengths from 650-950 nm and that may account for the effectiveness on finer hair.
So what makes an effective laser/IPL machine? What should I be looking for? I’ve done a quick investigation of the different clinics here, and virtually all are using the CoolGlide. It’s amazing - the local sales rep must be very good! Other tha the CoolGlide, I’ve found 2x Aurora machines, 2x Energist Ultra IPL, 1x Photoderm IPL.
RJC, you say the Harmony’s range is 650-950nm. Is that a wide range, and is a wide range desirable? The Energist Ultra covers 530-1000nm. This is probably at the top of my list of options right now, so I’d love to hear peoples’ opinions of it. Here’s the spec sheet:
http://www.polartechnics.com.au/products/EnergistUltra/EnergistUltra.htm [/quote]
I’ve never been treated with that machine. It does have a wide range of pulse widths and fluence levels which is a good thing. Spot size is a little smaller than that of the Harmony though. Other than that the specs look good. It would at least be worth getting a test spot.
For hair removal, they may filter out the lowest wavelengths.
Again the most important thing is practitioner skill.
RJC2001
Aitaronz,
I just PM’ed you with a guesstimation concerning electrololysis for your upper arms and shoulders. Thanks for PM ing those pictures to me.
Dee
Thanks Dee. Can I post your PM in the public forum? I have no privacy concerns with anything you’ve said, and it just adds to the general knowledge pool. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
EDIT: Here it is…
I actually have to say that you don’t have as much hair as I first thought I saw. It’s long and that always makes a problem look worse than it is.
I roughly calculate a total of no more than three hours for each side to clear the hair that is present if someone were to use microflash electrolysis and double that number if blend is used. All electrologists have different speed at which they work, so I am giving you a general idea of what I could do. If you have the luxery of having a good thermolysis practitioner or two where you live, I definitly would go for thermolysis. But if a blend practitoner is all you have, then that would be okay, too, just slower.
I’m still wondering about LASER induced hair growth on these areas and why that happens. Maybe one of these days there will be an evidence-based study released explaining such an odd occurence.
If it takes 6 hours total to just clear the areas, you may want those six hours spread out over 5 or 6 weeks, but it is not uncommon for someone to book an electrologist for the whole day and just get it all done at once, if you can tolerate it. Once you are cleared, you are not finished because of the hair growth cycles. Not all hair is present at the surface at the same time. You will have new hair popping forth over the next 9-12 months, so don’t be discouraged, just keep the momentum and get the new hair when it is tender and young. These are hair removal principles for success whether you are having electrolysis of LASER.
Two other questions for you:
- How many treatments would my arms require post-clearance, and how often?
- Is electrolysis suitable for the rest of my body (legs, chest, abs), or would laser/IPL still be more efficient at this stage?
Many thanks
Oh,yes, that would be fine to post my PM to you. I wasn’t sure whether to answer you here in the forum, so I erred on the side of keeping things private.
Post-clearance needs depend on many variables because every case is individual. So it is not easy to give you a “numbers” answer. What I can tell you is, successful results come to to those that get in to see their electrologist when they see new hairs coming to the surface. Waiting too long to attack the new growth can prolong treatments. I’m not talking years here, but rather a minimum of 9 months-12 months to bring you to permanency with appointments scattered every 2-3 weeks after the first clearance and then the gap gets wider as less hairs appear.
For the rest of your body, I would trust what RJC and lagirl are telling you. When nothing is being effected after a certain point, then you can switch to electrolysis to get the coarser, clear hairs that remain.
Your situation was mentioned on the consumerbeware forum yesterday and one of the laser practitioners mentioned that re-lasering your arms and shoulders a few more times should get the hairs that were stimulated by laser??? So, some food for thought??? I have no experience with such a situation, so maybe our consumer laser experts can help out on if you should re-laser your uppers.
Thanks,
Dee
Wow - famous, am I?! Do you have a link to the discussion? 
I’m considering IPL for the shoulder/arms too, but I’ll get a patch test done and see how it goes. Part of the reason for this is that I’d like to have one or two treatments on my lower arms as well, just to thin the hair. It’s certainly not terribly thick anyway, but it looks a little funny when the rest of me is hairless!
I thought you were concerned about perhaps stimulating more hair if you lased the area again? It may be erroneous on my part to think this,but isn’t there the possibility that an IPL can stimulate hair growth?
Well, here’s the post string. Consumerbeware, more specifically, Kitty who is the owner of CB, does not allow any mention of hairtell or hairfacts on her site so that is why the link is botched. Don’t take it personally that others can’t link on and see.
http://www.consumerbeware.com/forum/disp…;PagePosition=1
Dee
I am concerned about it stimulating more hair growth, but as was mentioned before, it may be that laser can also zap the hairs it may have stimulated. I don’t know - I’m just keeping all options open at this stage. When I go for a few patch tests with IPL, I’ll throw this question at the practitioner.
Having read the post on the other forum, I feel I should clarify my thoughts on the whole hair stimulation issue… I’ve been very careful NOT to blame laser for the new hair. There are several other possible causes:
- My age, 24. It may have happened at this age anyway.
- I’ve been periodically been prescribed prednisone for a chronic sinus problem. It’s possible this triggered something.
That’s not to say I think laser is completely innocent, but I certainly can’t find it “guilty beyond all reasonable doubt”! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />
Just an update - since the last post I’ve been exploring my options…
It seems nearly impossible to find a laser clinic with anything other than a Coolglide laser. Almost every practitioner I’ve spoken to says the Coolglide machines are the best available. Even the owner of an Energist Ultra IPL machine says hers is no better. A clinic that had both Coolglide and Aurora said they’d only treat me with the Coolglide anyway.
I’ve had a test patch done by a beauty therapy place, using a Ellipse Light IPL. They zapped 2 patches on my abs (one for the thick hair and one for the finer stuff) and a patch on the thick hair on on my thigh, and a patch on the blond-ish hair on my knee. Very little pain - in fact, I could barely feel the knee patch at all. Minimal follicular edema too - only a bit on thigh and the coarser abs hairs. Being a beauty clinic, their price was 2-3x that of other more “no-frills” medical clinics (and since it’s IPL not laser, they’re not required to use a registered nurse, either). I showed them the more reasonable prices of other clinics and await their response.
I also saw the doctor who taught the practitioner I’ve been using up till now. He works for a different company, but during my previous treatments she had often mentioned how good he was. Certainly, I was impressed - he was able to answer every question I asked (and there were a lot - my appointment with him lasted nearly an hour!). He didn’t try to gloss over the problems of young men producing new follicles, and frequently acknowledged there were a lot of things we simply don’t know the answers to yet. He said that although 80% of people saw best results with the Coolglide, around 20% found IPL the better option. He also said that people often got good results by switching to different machines using different wavelengths. His own machine is a Coolglide Xeo, so as well as having the Nd:Yag laser, it also has an IPL handpiece. I’m seriously considering trying the Coolglide IPL - has anyone had any experience with this?
I’m also trying to find a local Harmony IPL operator, as I’ve heard good reports about this machine.
Finally, I’ve also had my shoulders waxed in preparation for electrolysis. I’ll do one treatment, then reassess whether it’s going to be a viable option or not.