This is a wonderfully informative forum, and I have learned a lot from it by lurking for some time. Now I thought that I would pose my own question…
I am interested in removing my chest hair, either temporarily or permanently, and am curious about my options. I am 27, white with pretty dark hair, and untanned in this area of my body. My chest hair growth is sort of middle-of-the-road, densest right over my sternum and spreading out from there in ever-lighter amounts. The hair ends at the base of my neck, but it does poke out of shirt collars. It doesn’t go much broader than my nipples, and it ends an inch or so below them.
WAXING thoughts:
Waxing seems like the first thing that I’d like to try, to test the waters and see what I think of the look and feel. (If I should cross-post this on the waxing sub-forum, please let me know; I’m unsure of the forum protocol for this sort of thing.) However, if I do end up liking the results and want to pursue more permanent hair removal, I wonder whether waxing could (1) induce more growth than I currently have, and/or (2) negatively impact future laser treatments. Any thoughts?
I have never had any waxing done, and am pretty clueless about it. How long would a typical treatment last before I would start to see regrowth? After the hair begins to grow back, what length must it be before I could have it waxed again? How much can I expect to pay for a chest-waxing treatment? How would I go about finding a waxing place that would do a good job? If I decide that periodic waxing is a better option for me than laser, are repeated treatments harmful in and of themselves?
LASER thoughts:
If a preliminary waxing would not necessarily be a bad thing in terms of future laser treatments, and if I love the hairless look and feel, then I would probably want to pursue laser. Is this likely to work well on my chest? (I did have some laser treatment elsewhere several years ago, before I found this forum, regrettably…and the results were no good at all, but I blame the “chain clinic” practitioner and my own ignorance more than anything. It sounds like the technology has changed a good bit since then, too.) How many treatments am I likely to need, and will I be totally hair-free between treatments as I await regrowth, or will some hair not fall out at all after a given treatment? Hypothetically speaking, if I were to start laser treatments around the first of the year, following a typical treatment schedule, by what time might I be finished for good? How can I find a good local practitioner (central NC)? Finally, since the clinics that I have Googled aren’t posting prices, can anyone give me an estimate of what each chest treatment might cost, or what I could expect to pay for a “package” deal?
One last broad question: on the beach, at the gym, and elsewhere where guys close to my age (let’s use the range 20-35) go shirtless, how is it that the majority of them seem to have hairless chests? Are most of my contemporaries shaving, waxing, pursuing laser or other more permanent options, or are they naturally smooth (which would be awfully unfair to me!!)?
Many thanks for letting me bombard you all with these questions, and for any information that you can provide me. If pics would help you to assess my situation, please let me know and I’ll post some.