Does Apogee use same settings as GentleLASE?

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#21

Does anyone else here have much experience with Apogee? I’m just concerned with the settings. Here’s my deal, my last post above was after I did forearms. She only did 17 here and I really had to talk her into it, she wanted to do 15 because forearms have more colour to them due to getting more sun in general. I found it did hurt though almost the same as GentleLASE 18mm/16J. I’m sure someone on here before had told me when I did 15mm/20J on GentleLASE that I should do 15mm/22J on Apogee but the 17 seemed so high.

Here’s my concern though. I went back and did underarms, full face, and then my stomach for a final session. On my underarms, she went higher I think around 18 or so. On my right, I have about 95% shedding and on my left I’d say maybe 90-95%. My face is different though, all over it I’d say there’s maybe 50-60% shedding, and on my upper lip and chin maybe 20%, so not really amazing results.

Someone in another forum was saying they were getting 20J on the 15mm on Apogee and couldn’t handle more. I know I could handle more but my tech really insists on using the settings she gives. The thing too though is she’s been doing it for years and from talking to her she really seems to know her stuff, so I don’t think she’s using settings to purposely extend my sessions or anything like that. I’m just concerned if I’m wasting money on too low settings. It’s just that she’s been in business for so long and treated so many people that when I ask for higher settings it seems like I’m the first person to come in and ask such a thing!

#22

Most people don’t get involved when it comes to settings.
You need to understand that there is a very fine line between pain that is ok and pain that causes burns. If they burn you and as a result you can’t go to work for a month, then you have a good reason to go to court against them, and it doesn’t really matter what you told them to do, it’s on their head and in my opinion it’s not worth it for them as a business to take such risks.

#23

Oh I completely agree, that’s what she’s always worried about is burning me when going too high. AGain I don’t mind the settings she uses, I was just wondering more if there were people with experience wtih Apogee that knew what settings they used, since I’ve seen some people on here mention telling the tech they can’t handle more than 20J due to the pain, but to me she doesn’t even go close to 20. I’d just feel better knowing others have had success using the same settings as me is all :slight_smile:

#24

You’re not comparing pulse width here, which is important too, as well as spot size. 18mm spot size penetrates deeper and 3ms on GentleLASE (fixed) is different from Apogee’s 10ms (that’s if she went as low as possible… you don’t mention the pulse here, which is variable on Apogee). Both of those could make a difference on the face, where hair is deep.

#25

That’s true forgot about that. I know she adjusts it as she does areas. Like when she was doing forearms then moved to my hands she mentioned changing pulse width. I’ll ask her when I go again. She had said come every 4 weeks for the first few but that seemed way too soon to me, however I’m just shy of 3 weeks now but I’m pretty much done shedding, so there’d definitely enough to go for another session, hopefully not at full price since the results weren’t ideal. So I’ll see what she suggests.

One thing I was thinking, she had said the face has twice as much hair as the rest of the body. On a male with lots of facial hair, is it possible that one session just can’t hit every single hair since there’s so much to treat? When I was doing IPL at my first place, she said you can’t do face because the hairs so close together the laser has trouble targeting individual ones. Just wondering if maybe that’s why she’s saying go every 4 weeks at first, since one session maybe can’t hit them all? (Note I’m not patchy, so it’s not missed spots. The shedding is uniform, just like I said 50-60% on cheeks and neck and maybe 20% shed on upper lip and chin, but again uniform).

#26

I noticed most companies say to do 3-4 weeks between the first and 2nd treatment and then spread it longer.

#27

I don’t know about “most”…I haven’t seen noticed that. Either way, there shouldn’t be anything to treat at 3-4 weeks. At that point, all the hair should have shed. Face has shorter hair cycles, but even then, one shouldn’t need treatments more often than once every 6-8 weeks.

You should be getting a free touchup on your face at this point if there is that much hair left still at 3 weeks. Laser targets all hair in its sight. Did they overlap by 10%?

The issue is not that laser can’t target all the hairs because they’re too close together. The issue is weaker than necessary settings were used and didn’t affect those hairs. And by weaker, I mean either depth or heat applied to disable the follicle.