I’ve had to take a long break from my treatments. It has been about 3 months and I need to do something about my upper lip hair.
Can I do something other than shave? What is best? and if I do something how long do I need to wait before the next treatment?
Will it effect my hair growth cycle or anything?
Also, are there any negative effects of taking a 6 month break between treatments?
no, you should only shave, clip, or use depilatories to avoid disrupting the hair cycles and making the hair more coarse.
The only negative effect of having a six month break is it will be like starting all over with the hairs that were not affected. They will be in different hair growth cycles ----- again. How many treatments have you had with laser on your upper lip and how much hair do you have now?
Dear Jessica,
The reason why I think it is a good idea to NOT wax your upper lip at this time is because you started laser hair removal in that area about a year ago and you still have hair there. Not doing anything will be very revealing. See how much of the hair returns.
I would not suggest that a woman have LHR on her face - especially for upperlip hairs that tend to be fine.
You might just have to finish your upperlip off with electrolysis.
I have had four treatments on my upper lip. The last treatment was at the end of November. The hair has just come back in the last two weeks, well come back to the point of being annoying.
The first two treatments were a waste of time b/c the settings were too low, so it is kind of like I only had two treatments on my upper lip. – The first two treatments were at 10J, 18mm with Candela GentleLase. My thrid was 12J and my fourth was 16J.
For 8 to 10 weeks after my fourth treatment the only hair that grew back was short, fine and blond. Now I have a lot more hair and there are shades of brown. It is better than before I started the treatments, but it is noticeable and I need to do something about it.
I know I will need electrolysis to get rid of all of the hair, but I’ve already paid for LHR so I will finish the treatments first. My mom had a really bad with electrolysis, so I’m hesitant to try it. – But that was years and years ago.
Anyways. I just want to be able to have a hair free face for the next three months, before I return for my treatments.
– Everyone agrees that hair removal creams would be ok??
Yes, you can use depilatory,but don’t depend on it long-term. I think you would be shocked at how many hairs you have on your upper lip if you just let it all grow out for 4 months. You need electrolysis now.
Arlene, do you feel my utter frustration for these people that start laser on the upper lip and spin their wheels, knowing that a skilled professional electrologist would have had them looking like there was no problem at all within 2-3 treatments totalling no more than one hours worth of time? Makes me sad for them. Maintenance sessions thereafter would have kept them looking finished until they were really PERMANENTLY finished in 9-12 months.
Your hair color sounds problematical for future laser treatments. I’m sorry that you have invested money for laser treatments that probably won’t work. The upper lip is easily and permanently treated with electrolysis for well under $500. Remember another thing, electrolysis works for all hair colors and Laser does not. Thanks to the glamour media and medical establishment in general, consumers like you are not given accurate information for the best hair removal options in the timliest scenario.
If I were you, I’d stop spinning my wheels and get down to the business of finding an electrologist, unlike the kind your mother had years ago. Many, many are well-trained and have updated their eyewear and epilators.
This post reminds me again of why I am thankful for www.hairtell.com.
Be smart about this and educate yourself before you spend more money for nothing.
Dee
I have sort of held out of the “don’t treat your face” argument.
But after hundreds of thousands of treatments, I think I can weigh in here. Electrolysis is a viable treatment option, but I have rarely seen hair so fine (as long as it is dark and not red/blonde/white) that can’t be treated by laser.
As far as site is concerned, the upper lip is actually easy to treat and responds as well as underarms. The chin, jawline, sideburn, neck area is much more difficult and requires a real understanding of what it takes to treat it so as to get good results. And those areas often time need more treatments than fewer and will occasionally stimulate more hair. But they all can be treated.
But the upperlip is different. It responds quite well and can be treated with only a few treatments (6 or so). I have tons of clients who are still working on their faces, but the hair on their upperlip is completely gone.
Price: We charge $59 for an upperlip and the 6th is free. So it isn’t even that expensive.
So, now that you have the best advice for free, Jessica, the rest should be easy. Since your hair is blond and shades of brown on your upper lip, your only option is electrolysis now. Thanks sslhr for your honest input on that.
Can you use the remaining money on your plan for some other area where laser will work?
Dee
I would agree that if the hair you’re seeing now is mostly blond and light brown, and mostly fine, electrolysis would be best. of course, you’ll need to sample a few and find a good one and you won’t have any problems. i’ve had laser on several areas, and did my upper lip with electrolysis in only a few treaments (probably 8-10 5-10 minute treatments, so very cheap).
I would inquire about the center letting you use the money you spent on the upper lip on another area of your body.
SSLHR,
Being in a rush as usual, I forgot to mention to you in the above post that even if most clients present for laser hair removal with fine dark hair, or medium and coarse dark hair for that matter, there are a lot of lighter shades of hair in between. Many times, almost everytime actually, that I see an upper lip client for electrolysis, especially if she is older, I am treating a large number of offending hairs that are dark and a large number of hairs that are not dark. There are many hairs that are white, clear and blond, and they are not small. So, given that scenario, an upper lip laser client would still have to see an electrologist since laser can’t “see” light hair. My point is, why not start and finish with electrolysis in this area especially? Heck, the chin is just a little south of the upper lip and is not difficult or timely to treat either. There are a mixture of hair colors there as well. Same for the sides of face and jawline. A professional electrologist, using microflash thermolysis especially can count on pleasing the client pretty darn fast. There would be no chance of laser hair removal induced hair growth if a client had a skilled electrologist involved from the get-go. Being that laser is about the same price as electrolysis for treating dark hair on the upper lip if all hair was dark, you don’t factor in the money they would have to spend seeing an electrologist to attack the light hair, so is it really so cost effective?
Do you have an electrologist on your staff to fix the problem of getting all offending hair colors after laser has reached the “diminishing returns” end game? Or, just what do you advise the consumer at that point when they are left with white, gray, blond, red and light brown hairs in the end?
Thanks for helping me to understand this.
Dee
Thank you for your concern but I am pretty happy with my LHR treatments. I understand why you believe I should start electrolysis now, but for the same reason I am taking a 6 month break from my LHR treatments I could not start electrolysis. I am traveling with work and cannot commit to appointment times.
I need the hair removal creams for this break - I don’t plan on using them long term. So I wasn’t really ‘spinning my wheels’ on how to correct my upper lip problem.
As far as price, the treatment for the upper lip is the same. My clinic charges $595 for upper-lip but with the 15% discount they give for treating more than 1 area it come out to just a few more dollars than what you charge for electrolysis.
As to the effectiveness, I think SSLHR said that upper lip hair removal was just as effective as LHR in other areas such as underarms.
I would be happy if I only had blond hairs on my upper lip. If you look at the pictures posted in my journal you can see there are still a lot of dark brown hairs that need to be removed. When I started LHR I wasn’t really concerned with blond hairs. In fact I spent many hours at home bleaching my hair, so it would be blond instead of a dark brown mustache. I only made the comment about needing electrolysis to remove all hair to avoid changing the topic of this thread from LHR and my temporary fix to electrolysis - obviously it didn’t work.
i did look at your pictures and i don’t think you’ll get your money’s worth. but that’s up to you of course. we’re only giving our opinions. sslhr is right, but he’s talking about dark noticeable hair. most of your hair looks vellus and fine, even the brown ones. i had about as many hairs, but darker, and it only took lik 8-10 5-10 minute electrolysis treatments (flash) which is much cheaper than Dee’s generous $500 estimate. It was closer to $150-200.
Some people are intent and determined on doing the glamourous, trendy thing, and I’m fine with that. I think you’re done with receiving advice, jessica, and I apologize if I overwhelmed you with too much information.
I agree. Just want to make sure all the information is here, so that if/when people come back and complain that they didn’t get the proper advice (has happened a few times lately if you’ve noticed btw), we all have something to refer to 
Due to our advice, Jessica at least had them raise the settings from 10 joules already I believe (the two ineffective treatments she’s talking about).
When laser hair removal hit the market about a decade ago, the marketing campaign was filled with lies about laser being pain free and permanent and they referred to electrolysis as being part of the dinosaur age. It is the laser folks who have this history of trying to destroy the only permanent method of hair removal, electrolysis.
Every client who walks into the electrologist’s office after having had years of laser hair removal at several different facilities, with hair still on their faces and bodies, knows what is true and what is not.
What I find disturbing is folks come in here like they are experts on hair removal and they make blanket statements like, “waxing causes hair to become coarser”. Well then, how about suggesting that Jessica wax her upperlip, thereby making those hairs coarser and then have more successful laser treatments.
I don’t think sslhr has had a chance to answer my questions about laser hair removal on the lip, but I’m hoping he will soon.
The question still begs to be answered concerning what is the plan for clients who have had laser hair removal on the upper lip and are left with all the noticable blond, gray, light brown hairs that laser cannot see? Again, I ask, why not just start and finish with electrolysis since electrolysis can affect ALL colors of hair and will not stimulate more hair to grow in the area. Almost every upper lip client I see, under magnification, for upper lip hair,chin and neck hair, have clear, white, light brown shades in these areas and I’m just dying to know what the plan is after the laser has eliminated the dark hair only. Where does one seek help at the point of diminishing returns? We know, don’t we and you are correct that the consumer figures that out as well.
Look, Arlene, you and I will never agree about waxing causing hair to become coarser. We have beaten that issue to death. All I can offer you now is the statement that I respect your view even though I don’t agree with it.
Love,
Dee
Dee, the comment about waxing causing hair to become coarser is in this thread and was posted above by lagirl which is why I am referencing the comment. Any comment that you might have made regarding waxing causing hair to grow coarser was addressed previously.
Perhaps you see clients who have told you that the waxing caused hair to grow coarser. You will see those clients. You will not be seeing all of those clients who are not seeing those vellus hairs become terminal.
We see clients for more than hair removal and we see them over the course of their lives as they come in for various services so they are easy to track. So, when most of the people note that waxing has not caused their hair to become coarser, who am I do say differently – especially when there is no controlled study that makes yours and lagirls statement conclusive. Ya, that is what I find annoying, the opinions that are passed on like they facts.
I applaud how devoted and committed you are to educating the public on your own time. Sometimes we get it wrong, sometimes we get it right and sometimes its just nice to hear someone say, “Hey, I don’t know for sure but I think…”
Thanks, Arlene. I feel very alone at times. I think I’m trying to do something bigger than me. Where’s the AEA? This question is not an invitation to bash the AEA. I simply wish they would take a higher profile in the medical community, at the very least, to find and correct misinformation about electrolysis. This, and other websites take my time, seriously, but I’m a natural born multi-tasker with lots of energy.
This whole area of induced hair growth is something worth discussing at another time. No question that it happens, but the real question is what does it mean and what do you do with it?
It is hard to say what is more cost effective, laser or electrolysis on the upper lip. One has to factor a number of issues, which also includes the time and effort required of the client. I don’t think there is any question that laser is quicker than electrolysis as far as time of client (I agree that the total calendar time it takes to finish laser is quite long, just like it is for electrolysis). Ultimately, I think the cost effectiveness depends on the client.
Many of the clients I talk to just want to get rid of their black hair and are less concerned about the white hair. For those clients, lasers can be very reasonable. Other clients want to get rid of all the hair, white and black, and that is more of an issue. Then I think it depends on how much white versus black hair. If they have only a few black and many white, then they really shouldn’t be on a laser or at least they need to know what to expect.
I think the bottom line is to start from the point that neither electrolysis or lasers are a complete solution. Though if you had to only pick one to treat the most people then I would have to pick electrolysis just because lasers, for all their value, have some significant limitations. But we don’t have to pick just one and lasers have significant benefits that electrolysis doesn’t have; speed, convenience, and scalability.
The last one needs some explanation. Basically, if I did just underarm treatments all day at one of my centers with just one laser, I could treat about 1,600 clients in a year (assumptions: 5 txts per hour and 6 txts on average to complete). A electrologist could do about 200 clients in a year (assumption: approx 20 hours to complete). If I am wrong in my assumptions about electrolysis by 100%, then it would only be 400 clients in a year.
The point of all of that is that is that there aren’t enough well qualified electrologists out there to treat the demand, even if everyone wanted to treat their hair removal needs with just electrology. Only lasers have the scalability, speed, and clearance needed to meet demand. And this makes sense since electrolysis is more labor intensive and requires more technical skill. One way of overcoming this limitation is to train more electrologists, but that is easier said than done. And the lack of scalability makes it harder to generate the revenue needed to support that solution.
I always kind of thought that the professional electrology associations misunderstood lasers. Rather than seeing them as a threat, they should see them as an opportunity. Even if an electrologist doesn’t want to use lasers, lasers generate demand and have an impact on what people want, which is to remove hair. That can’t do anything but stimulate demand for electrologist’s services.
As far as your second question. We have been struggling to deal with this very issue. At first, we researched the possible devices that can treat white and red hair. That cost over $60K and nothing panned out. We’ve talked about bringing electrolysis services in house and we are looking in to it, but I am not willing to do that unless we can do it right. And that is easier said than done. It is an expertise that we don’t have and will take time or money to acquire. And we are still trying to get good at laser hair removal. So electrolysis has been a long term issue that we are pursuing. Just don’t know where it will end.
For us, the other problem is that I have yet to find an electrologist where we are located that I feel comfortable sending clients. Either they are close to retiring age and scaling back their practice or I just am not sure how good they are. For example, I don’t know anyone in San Antonio that uses microflash electrolysis. But again, I haven’t pursued finding out aggressively. So this is an unanswered issue in my mind that we will eventually need to address. And there is an opportunity to offer our clients a more complete solution.
But part of the problem is that electrolysis will never drive the revenue that laser can provide (see scalability). So there is an opportunity, but it will not provide the same return on investment (time, money, and resources) that other investments in the business will return. So it languishes down the priority list for the time being.
To address a few things:
I don’t think the issue of whether waxing causes hair to become more coarse has been proven for 100% either way, so at this point all I tell people is that it’s a possibility that they should be aware of.
Arlene, you have a very one-sided point of view and are not willing to look at the other side. If you read this section of the forum, there are many people scared of electrolysis due to horror stories they’ve heard or seen on their friends and relatives who’ve had bad experiences with bad electrologists. And regardless, if their hair situation sounds like it would be best tackled with electrolysis and not laser, I always point them in that direction and try to disspell their fears (I have done both and very happy with both)
I also have to agree with sslhr that laser actually stimulates demand for electrolysis a lot of times if the laser operator is educated on hair removal and/or if they read these forums. I would probably have never seriously considered electrolysis if it wasn’t for everything I learned here, after which I was successfully able to get both laser and electrolysis treatments. I think you are doing yourself a disservice by blantantly denying the fact that laser has its benefits (noone’s denying that it has limitations too as sslhr pointed out as well). You’re only looking at the people who came to you after going to uneducated laser operators. It would be same as sslhr denying the benefits of electrolysis after seeing clients who were scarred by incompetent electrologists. Both methods are good in good hands, and both have their limitations. As long as you and the client know them, there should be no issues.