risk of increased hair growth.

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

hi there ive read about sometimes issues regarding stimulating hair growth and thought it may apply to me. although i have read it generally applies to mens shoulders, backs and womens face. i have been warned i may have hairs on my chest that also can be stimulated from laser hair removal. ive got a picture of my chest and the area i was advised from my electrologist to be treated.

picture was taken from my phone so not sure if the quality is good enough to see the hairs in their true, and also my test patch at 12J can be seen as the white-ish rectangle.

  • Is this true i should not treat the areas not highlighted in the red? i am thinking it will look strange only treated just that area, as it will be a bald patch for a while. To be honest i would prefer to treat the whole chest so it would be even and also i am paying for the lot :stuck_out_tongue: but what do you think?

  • Also i have been told i am a skin type 4, from the picture what would be your judgement could i handle a gentleLASE at 14J or possibly 16J, or higher? As the laser technician advised 12J for me.

Thank you very much for taking your time to read this :slight_smile:

#2

I don’t know if it will stimulate more growth. But you should be able to shave the areas the laser “misses” and since the hair isn’t as dense as on the face you shouldn’t have any odd looking lines or “veins” of hair (the shadow of the hairs under the skin that didn’t fall out). It should look like you have no chest hair, instead of no hair in spots and “veins” of hair around them.

I have “veins” of hair on my face and look rather odd, I assume where she didn’t overlap with the laser or it just didn’t work in that area. I am going to have my electrologist remove them as soon as I can afford another area of work.

Make sure you compare the cost of electro and laser. I was told since my chest was a large area (even though the hair density was much lower than the face) it would be about $1800 and my electrologist said she could probably do it for about that (large area but low density of hair).

#3

Stimulated growth is not an issue on coarse hair like you show in the picture. And it’s not an issue on this area really at all. Chest gets great results usually. Stimulated growth is a relatively rare issue when treating very fine hair at low settings especially on the areas you mention. No need for you to worry about that when treating the above area.

I’m assuming the settings you’re talking about are on 18mm. I personally (based on personal experience and advice of professionals) don’t think 12J is enough power to permanently damage the follicle. You look light enough in the picture, but it’s really hard to tell as the lighting etc makes a huge difference. The only way to know for sure is to test spot. Maybe ask them to test spot at 16J and see if they will be fine with it if you don’t get a negative reaction.

#4

okay thanks for your thoughts. well i think electrolysis for my chest would take too long and i didnt even consider it. whats opinions on that? just to let you know i do not and have not shaved my chest before if that makes a difference at all?

yes well i am pale in my opinion, so i think i should request the 16J test patch which should be no problem.

why not i try 18J aswell?

or should i leave that for later treatments when i should increase the power when the hair folicles becomes less course etc.

#5

lagirl you say i should not worry about any induced hair growth so does that mean i should shave my whole chest area and ask for the whole chest to be treated rather then just the areas i highlighted in red?

#6

Areas highlighted in red. It won’t work on finer hair most likely anyway. Max settings on 18mm is 20J. So you can test spot at anything you feel comfortable with. You don’t need electrolysis unless you want 100% of that hair gone. If you want a good 80-90% reduction, laser should be able to provide that for you.

#7

hi again. i had the areas treated as indicated in red above.

i just want to clarify that i shouldnt treat the fine vellus hairs around it? i would like to just clear the whole chest because now its a bit unusual hair a bare chest then fine hairs around it. would i really risk inducing hair growth, or does that just apply to the upper arms and back generally?

i would just like to hear peoples opinions on this.

many thanks

#8

just stick to the highlighted areas. it would be a waste of $ to treat the whole chest. the fine hairs that bug you would NOT be affected by the laser and would grow back soon after it was shaved for the treatment.

there is always the possibility that the vellus/fine hairs could be stimulated if treated enough times.

also you may find your chest (in the highlighted areas) will not be completely bald after several treatments and several months of letting the hair(thats left)grow back. OR you might have the bald patches…depending on how the treatments went.