Apologies if these seem like stupid questions, but I’m just wanting to get a better idea of what to expect with my laser treatment!
Quick background - I’m a 24 year old female with a lot of facial hair (full beard area), Caucasian skin, hereditary excess hair, fairly dark. I made the mistake of shaving when I was younger and have had to live with that decision ever since. Hair is coarse and strong from prolonged tweezing and shaving. I’ve been having electrolysis since the beginning of this year, around 30 hours in total. There has been a slight difference on one side of my face, but I have so much hair that it’s going to be a very long process.
I have been lucky enough to be offered free private laser treatment at my hospital, as the head of the photobiology department is a family friend. So I am going to focus on reducing the hair through laser treatment before getting some residual electrolysis to clear the rest up.
I’ve just had my first proper laser treatment and it was excruciating! Thankfully it was over in about 2 minutes, as I just let him get on with it. My face was horrendously red afterwards for an hour or so, which I expected, and this morning you couldn’t really even tell I had laser treatment, my skin seems fine.
What I’m confused about is the shedding process. I understand that it will be at least a week or so, perhaps more, before the hair begins to shed. But how does it work? I tried gently tweezing a hair to see if it would just slip out, but it was strongly attached to the follicle, so I left it. I gently pulled on a few more hairs to see if they would slip out, but they were also firmly attached. (don’t worry, I’m not plucking them, I stop pulling the minute I feel a bit of resistance) It seems that all the hairs are still firmly attached. What I’m wondering is, does this mean that they aren’t going to shed? Or in a week/two weeks time will these hairs be ‘released’ and shed?
I had a few singed hairs that I could just brush off my face. What are these? Are these just hairs that were on the surface of my skin and got burnt? So they haven’t really been ‘killed’, they’ve just been temporarily burnt off? Or does the burnt-ness mean that they actually were killed?
Also, I got my whole beard area treated, does this mean ALL the hair from this area will shed? Or will it only be the hair in the growth phase which was successfully killed that will shed?
Sorry if these questions seem stupid, I’m just very confused at the moment!
