sorry to bother, but wanted to ask a question about lasering blond hair (some of my arm hair is blond). i recently read about a cream that is “fda-cleared” for lasering; it claims to add melanin to the hair shaft, which then makes the hair a legitimate candidate for laser hair removal. does anyone know if any of these creams work? i live in nyc and have been going to assara for their $599/month unlimited hair removal sessions. getting great results, BUT would like to remove some blond hairs I have on my upper arm. the specialists at Assara have been telling me that that’s not possible. they added that syneron/synron (spelling?) claims that their laser removes blond hair, but themselves are not sure whether or not that really works.
it’s called meladine. you can run a search here. i believe the consenses is that it doesn’t work. it doesn’t make the root dark, which is what laser needs to target. only electrolysis for blond hair.
i’ve never had a laser hair removal treatment. i think i’m going to try to set up a consultation next week or the following week after i’ve done more research.
i think i’d be willing to try meladine for my blonde hairs, even if some say it doesn’t work (what if it happens to work for me?). it seems many people make the same comment about laser hair removal not working generally, yet many claim it works, and that they’re satisfied customers.
assuming for a moment that meladine would work. would it only work with an Alex treatment? i know that generally the alex is for light skin, and that the yag is for tanned and dark skin. that means the YAG doesn’t target melanin, right?
i don’t want to run into problems as the summer approaches and i start to tan.
when people talk about whether laser hair removal works, they’re always talking about dark hair. it doesn’t work on blond hair AT ALL. it would be a waste of your time and money as you will find out by doing the research you’re planning on doing. electrolysis is your only permanent solution currently. above, I stated why it doesn’t work. so, no, it won’t work for you and anyone who tells you it will is only looking to get your money. there is a scientific explanation for why it will not. so the “what if” statement doesn’t apply here. if the root is not dark, laser won’t target it, so your hair won’t die. that’s all there is to it really. some people here are struggling here with DARK hair that doesn’t have enough pigment because it’s fine. there is no question that blond hair doesn’t have enough pigment. it doesn’t.
there is one company that says that their machines work on blond hair - i think the machine is the comet. havent seen the device at any of the laser centers i’ve been to, so am pretty much out of the loop on this one.
it doesn’t. people with machines that have the RF component claim that, but if you read people’s experiences and professional opinions, it’s just a gimmick and really doesn’t work. we have yet to see anyone with results on blond hair here in the last 2 years.
I just finished a year long study of the syneron diode machine (RF). The results were interesting. Basically, it did OK on black hair but not as good as an alex used as a control. Surprisingly it did have some mild reduction of red hair. There wasn’t much of a difference after 4 treatments but looking at the photos, there was some slight reduction of red hairs. Though I am not sure anyone would have noticed the reduction if we hadn’t had photos to compare against. And this was not enough of a reduction that anyone would have been satisfied. It was more of a loss of a few hairs and the remaining hairs being maybe a touch finer.
Blonde and white hairs didn’t respond at all. And finally, everyone said it was incredibly painful.
Meladine doesn’t work. At all.
Now if you still insist on trying these technologies for blonde hair, just send me some money and your coordinates and we’ll aim the laser in your direction. It should be just as effective.
sslhr, have you done any controls on time intervals for lhr? i.e. comapring the industry wide 4-8 wks to the 12 - 20 you recommend? The plastic surgeon at the place I go to would be very interested in seeing them and I know I would be jumping up and down to be able to produce that for him.
I just posted this on another section of this website; just realised that it was probably posted in the wrong place…so I’m posting it here too. Sorry for the duplication.)
Does anyone know if there health risks in lasering the entire body? I am really averse to hair (except hair on my head) and am taking full-advantage of their new program. I’ve been poking around the web, but haven’t found any useful info on health risks (or lack thereof) associated with lasering 70-80% of one’s body. Is there anything interesting out there on this topic?
no. this has been discussed before. there is nothing in research pointing to adverse effects. the light from lhr lasers is not cancerous if that’s something you’re thinking about.
on the other hand, i would urge you to make sure you laser mostly the dark coarser hair. what parts are you doing btw?
im actually doing pretty much my entire body: legs, bikini, arms, and underarms. i would say that 90% of the hair is dark and maybe 10% fine/blond hair. since i dont pay extra for treating additional parts, I allow them to glide over the few blondish areas too…
I would ask them to avoid the areas with fine and vellus, and blond hairs. You should read the “laser induced hair growth” post that’s right near your to see why. you don’t want those area to be stimulated to start growing darker terminal hairs.