I am having laser treatments to remove my facial hair. I just had the second treatment last week and so far have seen zero results after the first treatment.
I am thinking they are not using powerful enough settings to get the deeper facial hairs (as I have seen mentioned on other threads here).
After the second treatment I took a pic of the GentleLase screen to record the settings used, can someone familiar with that machine please help me decipher the settings? (see attached screenshot)
The picture is a bit blurry but I believe the boxes read as follows:
15/J/cm^2---- x ------- 30
1.5---------- x ------- 20
1984--------- 7029 ------- 10
Are these settings adequate for facial hair removal?
Note: I am a redhead, but my facial hair is very coarse and darker than any other hairs on my body, nearly brown in color.
I can’t see much in the screenshot because it’s blurry. We also don’t know what the spot size is from those numbers. You have to ask them what they used. It’s impossible to judge settings without knowing the spot size attachment they used.
If you didn’t see all hair shed 3 weeks after your first treatment, nothing is being affected. Either the settings are low or your hair is not dark enough.
Looks to me like 18 spot, 16 Joules 40/30/10 DCD. If that’s the case, setting is not bad for FIRST SESSION. I would definitely ask for settings next time.
I took a picture of some facial hairs I just plucked, and also one of my head hairs… you can see that my facial hairs are extremely coarse and quite dark in comparison to my head hair (and my head hair is quite coarse as well).
My body hairs are very thin and have almost no color to them whatsoever. The laser place that I am going to was straight with me and said that it would not work on my body hairs (which I already assumed), but their opinion was that it should work on my facial hair since it is coarse and relatively dark.
I think that they do not have much experience doing male facial hair though, what settings and spot size should I be asking for? (Note that I have very fair skin, type I with some light freckling on my face)
Well, I would ask them if they have experience doing male facial hair. If not, I would think twice before continuing treatment with that clinic.
Even though your hair is coarse, it is very red. Based on your description (light skin, freckles), it sounds like you are a true red head. That means your hair has lots of pheomelanin. Unfortunately, laser works best with those that have high amounts of eumelanin. I would be very conservative in your expectation of hair reduction with laser. Plan on electrolysis.
If Chris is correct about the settings, then they’re decent. If the hair doesn’t shed within 3 weeks when those settings are being used, it’s likely not dark enough for laser. Laser only “sees” dark pigment and doesn’t “see” red.
I am definitely a true redhead, but my facial hair does have a significant amount of eumelanin in it I believe. If I grow out a beard it looks practically brown in comparison to my head hair which is more of a strawberry blonde.
At any rate, laser should work on pheomelanin as well as long as there is a high enough concentration of melanin and the settings used are high enough. Pheomelanin and eumelanin actually have very similar absorption spectra, so alexandrite laser does ‘see’ pheomelanin. The primary reason laser doesn’t typically work on redheads is because our body hairs tend to have very low amounts of melanin in general, just like our skin; but that is not always true of head and facial hairs, as in my case.
I am an electrical engineer with specialization in optics and electromagnetics so I have a good understanding of the theory behind laser hair removal, and I know that in theory it should work for me as long as my skin can tolerate high enough settings. In practice, however, I have no experience with laser hair removal systems so I am hoping that you folks can help me determine what a safe range of settings is for my skin type (type I).
I have already paid for a package of 6 sessions so I plan to keep going to the same place for now. If alex laser continues to be ineffective after the next session I might try switching to IPL which they have there also.
I do understand that even if it works laser will not get full removal of all hairs, so I plan on finishing up with electrolysis regardless.
Thanks in advance for any further advice you can give regarding settings. =)
Glad to have a fellow science background ;). MD PhD here (physical organic chemistry).
The absorption spectra of both pheomelanin and eumelanin are similar in shape, but the absorbance of pheomelanin decreases much more significantly with increasing wavelength. Unfortunately, the absorbance of pheomelanin is minimal at the wavelengths used in LHR.
The best setting for you is the most aggressive one your skin can handle, as determined by your practitioner. For that reason, it’s a good idea to get test spots.
I would call and confirm the settings used in your last treatment. If they are indeed 16J/18mm, that is a decent setting. We don’t really recommend going below 14J @ the 18mm spot size on this machine. If you were treated at 16J/18mm and no shedding occurs within 3 weeks, you will need to switch to electrolysis.
If you don’t see shedding, nothing is happening. That’s the bottom line. Getting multiple treatments with no shedding afterwards is somewhat pointless.
Some IPLs may be worth a try. Which one do they have? The problem with IPLs is also that many don’t know how to use them well.
Theoretically, you might be able to get something with a Ruby laser (if anyone still uses one) or an IPL that mimics the bandwidth of Ruby. But, precisely as you mention, the smaller wavelengths penetrate less deeply.
Let us know what the settings used for your treatment were, and how shedding goes.
Good news, I have found some settings that work for me!
My previous treatments were at 18mm spot size / 16 fluence.
A few weeks ago I found this PDF from candela describing the relationship between spot size, fluence and energy delivered at a given depth: www.candelasales.com/Files/A005.pdf
It states that the best course of treatment for coarse, deep hairs is to use smaller spot size with higher fluence in most cases. Since, according to their model 12mm spot size with 40 fluence should deliver 50% more energy at a given depth than 18mm spot size with 20 J/cm^2 fluence
After reading that, I went back and had spot tests done with
18mm spot / 20 fluence
15mm spot / 30 fluence
12mm spot / 40 fluence
12mm / 40 J/cm^2 yielded significant shedding, while 15/30 yielded some shedding and 18/20 had little if any.
Fortunately since I am a redhead I have type I skin so I can handle the 12/40 setting with no adverse effects
I believe that’s true as well even though most people say the larger the spot size the deeper it goes. I did my face first with alexandrite on the Apogee Elite at 15mm, forget the settings but they were high. On my chin and upper lip where it’s very deep I had very little shedding. We switched to the yag at 15mm which does go deeper and it all shed. We then did 2 sessions using the alex again but at 12mm , and all the hair fell out actually better than it did with the yag.
I think you’re reading that document wrong. It’s actually the opposite. Larger spot sizes penetrate deeper. Your issue is not that the hair is too deep. It’s that the hair is probably NOT that deep, which is why smaller spot size may work better.
I’m not sure how you’re testing this since you’d have to treat the exact same spot to compare correctly.
I am reading the document correctly. It doesn’t say that smaller spot size penetrates deeper, however smaller spot size with higher fluence may be a better treatment in light of the fact that GentleLase limits the fluence that can be used with 18mm spot size to 20 J/cm^2.
See table 2 of the document and the notes section on second page, it clearly states that the energy delivered at all depths is greater for 15mm spot with 30 J/cm^2 compared to 18mm/20.
All of the test spots I had done were on my chin, of course its not a perfectly accurate comparison since the hairs in each spot treated have slightly differing thickness, depth, etc. Nonetheless, the results make sense in light of the information above.
The total energy delivered decreases as you decrease the spot size. All that document says is that you need to increase the joules if you do this to compensate for this fact. Depth is a separate issue. Lower spot size makes it penetrate less deep, actually. Some clinicss use lower spot sizes to target finer hairs for this reason.
Yes, exactly. For that reason, coarse and deep hairs such as male facial hair are best treated with smaller spot size at high fluence (assuming that the patient has light enough skin to withstand >=30j)
The setting which works best for me, 12mm 40j, delivers 50% more energy than 18mm 20j at every depth, according to the PDF from Candela which I linked to above.
12mm 20j would not penetrate as deep as 18mm 20j, but 12mm 40j penetrates deeper and delivers more energy.
More energy doesn’t always mean better. When you drop the spot size, it doesn’t penetrate as deeply. What works better for whom depends simply on the type of hair you’re treating and how deep it is.
