ND:YAG on face

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

Dear forum members,

i m a skin type IV person. last couple of months i hv been reading on this forum about the laser hair removal and finally thought of giving it a try. I m uploading few pics of my face
for you guys to have a better understanding of my situation. http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/12/after6daysleftneck.jpg/ please check all the photos. the description of the photo is in the link.

I have really black hair on my face in the shave area and they are pretty dense also. the growth is so much that sometimes i shave twice a day.

So finally, i went for a consultation and patch test on my face.
the settings used were 25J, 10mm and 50ms on a ND YAG M5 machine.

after 6 days i notice a lot of redness and white zits.

can you guys please advice me if it is at all advisable for me to go for laser on face and if yes what can be the optimal settings so as to not have adverse effects.

please help

#2

Hi Arnie,

Laser can definitely be done on face and based on your picture a Yag is what you want. Even for lighter skin types Yag works very well on the face because it works best on very coarse hair and goes the deepest of any laser. I’m skin type 3 and had some of the best results on my face using Yag. Redness and white zits are normal and only last a few days, you just have to remember the face is a much more sensitive area so reactions are more common. Also based on your pictures you have a lot of dark coarse hair so it also reacts more because there’s more hair there than other body parts.

Did the laser hurt when you did it? I’ve never heard of the M5 Yag, checking their site I can’t seem to find specs on it so it’s hard to say as all lasers are different. 10mm is very small though, I’ve done 12-15 on my face before as larger goes deeper. 25 joules I think is also a bit low for 10mm as I believe I did 25j at 12 and 30 at 15 but not 100%. The biggest question I have is what did it feel like? Was it brutally painful?

#3

Do you know who makes it? One site looks like a professional laser called the M5 but the second link is to a $1300 eBay auction for an M5 yag laser as well…

#4

Hi edokid,

yes, it did hurt a lot. I could smell the burning of hair as well. afterwards i had some swelling even though i have a some cold pack (provided by the clinic) for almost 2 hours on my neck.

the lady who did it, has exp. of 6 years on the same machine and she told me that seeing the density and coarseness of hairs it is good to have atleast 2 treatments at 25J so that the density is less. then they can increase the energy.

also since the spotsize is 10mm and a circle rather than a square she told me that she wont be doing overlaps and i will have missed spots so as to not burn my skin.

also because of this she had the pulse width of 50ms.

i m a bit worried because today is 7th day and i haven’t seen any change in the redness. from today onwards i have stopped shaving that area. may be that helps.

for the make of the machine i’ll have to ask the clinic.

#5

Hmm well as long as they will go higher that’s good. I’m glad it hurt, if it didn’t then it def wouldn’t work so that’s why I asked.

The spot size thing is questionable though, you should always overlap to make sure you don’t miss anywhere especially on the face since you don’t want patchy results. I’m pretty sure all lasers are circles only IPL devices are square. Pulse width I can’t comment on, I’m not sure what mine was used at but def not that high I think 20 or less.

For me it’s only red for maybe 30 minutes after then looks normal. Sometimes I get the white pimples for a couple days then they go away. By day 7-10 the hair should start to shed if you tug on them lightly. That will be your indication if things are going well or not.