I’m really not sure about this. I’ve not heard anyone remark this either.
I think it’s just about making sure that as many as possible hairs are in the growth stage at the first treatment, which can be achieved by a single waxing session 2-3months before. You don’t need to be a regular waxer to ensure this. By the time of the second treatment, you are treating the next hair cycle anyway.
Waxing just once before your treatment is ideal because then everything that comes back is in the growth phase, and you’re not wasting energy on a large number of telogen hairs.
This will be true for those who wax just once, or for many years. However, people who have waxed for years often have distorted or deepened roots from all the ripping, and that can make laser a bit less effective. Conversely, years of waxing can also make fine hairs thicker, which makes laser MORE effective. My estimate is that it’s a wash.
So in the end, it’s pretty much equal for those who are regular waxers vs those who only wax prior to the treatment.
No, it doesn’t. What makes the difference is that all hair is synchronized during your treatment if you waxed 2 months beforehand, so it’s all in the same phase, which is great for treatments.
Forearms 9 weeks after 1st Treatment:
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/4790/arm9weeks01.jpg
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/3267/arm9weeks02.jpg
As can be seen if compared to the previous photo (@ 7 weeks) a good amount of coarser hairs have come up but still very patchy. I will go for my 2nd appointment at about week 12. I am just expecting to destroy the coarser hairs from each cycle. I do not expect a reduction of the finer hairs.
It looks like you’re having great results on your arms! Can’t wait to see the progress after the second appointment
Front Thighs, 12 weeks after 4th treatment:
http://img532.imageshack.us/img532/5765/thigh12weeksaft4th.jpg
I’d say so far it’s about a 80-90% reduction. My front thighs had lots of coarse hair, like my lower legs. Even just 2-3 weeks after a wax, my legs would look much hairier than this.
Waiting to see how much more comes up in the next 4 weeks. Not sure if I go with the reduction I have or try for further as most of the hairs are fine. I might try to see if I can get to a college and let the students clear the rest with electrolysis… would be a lot cheaper than a 5th Laser treatment.
By the way, I went for my 2nd 3/4 Arm treatment after 11 weeks. Between week 9 and week 11, more coarse hairs seemed to come through (I also didn’t shave what you can see in the week 9 pics); I was feeling pretty hairy so decided to have the next treatment.
She used 35J and a pulse width of 15ms. I could have gone higher (pain wise) but she was reluctant to just yet given my test patch burn. I forgot to ask if she test patched something higher for next time though… if not I will ask if I can drop in for that.
stoppit- from your pics, your arms & legs probably looked just like mine do now (i’m mixed s.asian too), thank you for putting the effort in to report and upload pics, it’s super-encouraging to see such results, even if it is too early to tell. i bet your legs feel amazing now! i can’t wait to get rid of this velcro feeling boohoo. before i go for treatment (next year probably) i promise to upload before/during/after pics.
Glad to know it helps!
Very happy with my results. A friend came over yesterday who I haven’t seen in a long time (she lived with my family for a while) and was asking me about LHR. I showed her my armpits and she couldn’t believe it.
Legs do feel good but I would like the rest gone too. I had very bumpy shins from the fine hairs that ingrow in a coil fashion and pigmentation marks. Laser has made it considerably better but obviously most of those hairs were too fine to destroy those follicles. I’d like to get this sorted out with electrolysis.
However, the rest of the ingrowns - the kind that you get after waxing that are trapped inside the skin, I haven’t had any of them since I started LHR and the scars from old ones are mostly faded 
Good luck!
My leg hairs are a bit thinner and lighter than what is on yours at the moment but I have looooads of them covering me and it would be nice to get electrolysis done on them but it would take ages.
I think I need to get a sample done.
How’s the arm? Are you finished with laser there?
Hey smurf… lol not yet. I just had my 2nd treatment 3 weeks ago.
Didn’t get complete shedding but didn’t expect it either. At least it’s only the finest hairs that didn’t shed very well.
I will be updating with leg pics tonight!
Hi everyone,
Picture update.
Front and Outer Side of Right Lower Leg
3rd treatment was on 30th September 2009.
4th treatment where I had it was on 13th Jan 2010.
If you zoom in you can see the finer hairs, especially around my knee.
I have some random coarse ones that I plan to get done with electrolysis. I will probably go to a College where they are teaching for this (and my thighs).
On the front and outer part of my leg you can see some pigmentation from ingrown hairs… along with some bumpiness from current ingrowns (fine hairs that coil). These have been causing me a lot of problems, although they are much less than before I started treatment and just ‘surface’ ones. I asked my electrologist to look at them today. She gently poked one and the hair just slid out; it was so fine you could barely see it. She said it’s just a matter of exfoliating properly and not wearing tights so much. I always feel cold so wear them under my jeans for a lot of the year!
Where is the hair? 
Stopit - That looks amazing for 7 months on after only 3 treatments! It looks like you’re close to being almost done with laser treatment. I still get ingrowns even when I exfoliate, but it definitely does help and is worth it. Good thing you told me about tights, as I didn’t realise it made it worse! I wear them under jeans as well in winter.
Is anyone able to explain why legs and bikinis take fewer treatments than underarms?
LAgirl - you also had three treatments on your legs, but how does your reduction compare with stopit’s?
At least with your arm the reduction there won’t look so patchy. Are you going to go with electrolysis on it after the laser or just leave it?
It shouldn’t take less treatments for legs and bikini than underarms. Not sure where you’re reading this…?
Legs have longer hair cycles, so it’s harder to tell what’s gone for good at first unless you wait 12-16 weeks between treatments there.
Thanks everyone
I could not have achieved it without this forum, so really, thank you so much!
I will update with front thighs soon too, not as impressive but still a very good reduction given how much hair there was when I started!
My underarms took 6 treatments whereas my bikini only took 3. I attribute this to the fact that bikini just had one kind of hair - very coarse and very dark! The underarms had a mixture over the whole range from very coarse to very fine. The first few treatments were at more conservative settings and really only targeted the coarser hairs. It was treatments 4, 5 and 6 that went much higher for the medium-finer hairs.
If you can cope with the pain and not get burns, you could start with higher settings right from the start and then I don’t see why it would take more than 3-4 treatments on the underarms also.
smurf - Not sure what I will do for arms. if I’m just left with fine hairs, I will probably leave it as is.
Did you wax prior to any treatments? That would also speed up the process.
That looks satisfactory! I’m glad your treatments are going well.
I just wanted to ask - in the second picture what is the dottiness? Is that the hair that needs to come out still by exfoliating?
^I explained what it is in that post.
