Male hair removal on the face/neck

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#21

Hey guys, update to this. I did a test patch on my neck yesterday, gentleLase spot size 15 at 20j. Right now its a bit tender feeling just when I touch it, and it almost looks bruised, just very lightly. Like you can’t see it unless I point it out to someone. Is that normal? Like basically I can feel my neck and know exactly where the spot is, it feels smoother and feels almost like its raised a little. I can post a picture but its not bad bad or anything to raise alarms, just hoping it doesn’t last as doing my whole face not sure I’d want it to look and feel like this! Is 15mm/20j on gentlelase good for face? On my other body parts she uses 18mm at 16j. I want it to be high enough to work but not too high that it might be too much or what not. Thanks!

(By the way, what is the machine doing when they put the gentlelase head inside the machine? Then you hear it making loud pumping sounds, just out of curiousity!)

#22

Anyone? :slight_smile: Where can I find out what 15mm/20j compares to in the 18mm spot size?

#23

Did you ask them why they’re decreasing the spot size?

on 18mm, 20j is max, but on 15mm, it’s 30j due to decrease in overall power when you lower the spot size.

#24

She said they decreased it because the smaller size is easier on the face to get in the contours of the neck and so on. It might also have been because it was a test spot and they didn’t want to do a big area I’m not sure. I know how the power works but just wondering what 20j on 15 compares to, like would that be similar to 16j on 18mm? The areas still a bit red, it doesn’t hurt or feel burned or anything but you can definitely see where it was done which makes me concerned about doing my whole face now. That’s why I’m wondering if 20j is too high at least for the first treatment?

#25

It’s somewhat proportional. If you can handle 16J/18mm, then you may be able to handle up to 24J or so on 15mm. But they need to test. Plus, since it’s a different area, you may have some tan there.

#26

I’m still waiting to see, the hair just started to shed today but the area still looks darker so that’s my only concern as to why it changed colour

#27

If the skin is darker, it could be pigmentation, which means the settings were too high (or you need a weaker laser if turning down settings on this one would make them ineffective)

#28

The area is fine now but it was darker for a good week so not sure I want my whole face looking like that which is my only concern. So not sure what to do now, I might just do it anyway but just on my neck to see how it goes, or I’ll see if they can do it a bit lighter. Otherwise I was thinking of going the other end and trying something like Soprano XL in a test patch to see how my skin reacts to that, and if it works okay for the first session then I’ll go back to gentlelase. The skin wasn’t really darker, it just looked darker as in I could tell where the spot was. When I took a picture using my SLR with flash, you can tell where the spot is but its more like a little red around each actual hair. It may be though also that I wasn’t as closely shaved as other areas. When I would do my abdomen or forearms, the hair is coarse but not as coarse as on my face of course, so I could shave and look totally hair free. With my face though since the hair is fairly coarse there, even freshly shaving you can still sort of see the hair, it’s not like I can shave my face and look totally smooth/hair free, so I’m thinking it was almost more like a reaction to a larger presence of hair in the area, and more visible hair on the surface than other areas. If I go for the whole face then I think I’ll make sure I shave as close as possible, or for a few days before I’ll try to shave in both directions to get my face used to that, so that right before my treatment I can try to go for a really close shave and see how it works. The hair in the test patch is almost all shed now, so I’m going to give it another week or so then might just go for it, still debating, but it sure looks good in the area the test patch was done!

#29

If you’re having side effects, it’s a sign to decrease the setting a bit.

#30

If you had someone treat your arms, and they missed a total pulse meaning my arms have shed, but there’s one spot about 18mm that has hair fully grown back, would you let them do your face? I did my arms recently and there’s one spot completely missed right in the middle of my arm. There’s a one other place right on my left wrist bone where I’d say 60% of the hair has shed compared to 95-100% everywhere else. I was going to get my face done but to miss an entire pulse has kind of made me worry. I asked about a touch up treatment and they said they only do them in between sessions when you buy a package but that they’d do this one for free. To me this isn’t a touch up, this is getting what I paid for, as I paid for my forearms to be treated, not have spots missed… Not sure what to do, wish there were more places in Toronto with alexandrites.

#31

Hmmm…this is a little disturbing b/c of the somewhat questionable profittering motives behind their policy of “only when you buy a package” comment. However, I’d tend to agree with LAgirl’s assessment that the best policy is to err on the side of caution and decrease the settings a bit. Not to highjack your thread eodkid, but I recently want back to my awesome dermatologists and had another treatment. As I previously noted, I had been useing the GentleLase with an 18mm spot size and 12J and had excellent results. However some resistant hair right along my jaw line and at the point where my jaw meets my neck has never responded. Both the aesthetician and the dermatologist decided to increase to 14Joules @ 15mm spot size. I’ll try to post a before shedding and after shedding photo. Hope that will give you an idea of what my experience has been like so far…

#32

I actually went back for the touchup on my arm. She said she couldn’t have missed based on how my skin reacts (it gets all red and bumps up for about 5-10 minutes) so she said she would have seen the missed spot.

I did my face just not sure what settings, I believe 15mm at 20j since that’s what she wrote down. She doesn’t do 18mm because it’s too big for the face and she said it’s better to go small so she can reach the areas better. Either way though I hate this place and am going to switch.

#33

Latinkid - 12J on 18mm is a bit too low. I wouldn’t recommend using GentleLASE unless you can handle at least 16j on 18mm.

Also, changing settings on this machine to 14j on 15mm spot size is NOT increasing them, but actually DECREASING them. The overall power decreases with using a smaller spot size. To give you an idea, on 18mm max is 20j but on 15mm max is 30j, and they’re both at about the same effectiveness.