Sciton BBL - First Treatment - Joules?

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

I just had my first treatment (off of groupon etc…)

The machine used is a Sciton BBL.
I am type 3 skin, dark hair.

My question has to do with Joules/settings. The technician used 11 Joules, and mentioned the highest is 16, and she starts low and goes one higher every treatment. Should I be asking for higher settings sooner? First treatment today (at 11J) had no negative side effects. Treatment on one shoulder only was like 6 or 8 zaps (I did not count). Easily less than a minute.

As a secondary note, I was ‘annoyed’ to learn that a 2cm square patch (I am being very generous) on my shoulder counts as a full ‘underarm’, and she does the entire shoulder. What gives?!

Cheers :slight_smile:

#2

  • Are you male or female? Does that spot on your shoulder have coarse dense growth? If not, you are risking induced growth. We don’t recommend treating any spots with so few hairs. You can end up with more than you started, especially on this area

  • You always want to be treated at highest settings your SKIN can handle safely. There is no way to tell whether the settings are high enough to disable the hair permanently, so we recommend treating at high as possible to guarantee permanency.

#3

Male.

(1) What is considered coarse/dense hair growth? One shoulder only has about 15 hairs in a 1.5cm sq area. The other shoulder is about 2in sq size, not much more dense. The neck and lower back are much coarser/denser. Should the technician have mentioned this to me? Do you have a link to an article on the subject?

(2) Re Joules… is 16J really the max on the Sciton BBL? It seems little compared to what I have read on this forum, but maybe this laser is different. Should I be asking for the max J?

Thx

#4

If hair is not coarse like underarm or bikini or beard area, i.e. it doesn’t leave a shadow or stubble when shaved, it’s likely not coarse enough.

15 hairs or fewer shouldn’t be treated regardless because it’s unavoidable to touch the surrounding skin with no or vellus and and potentially stimulate induced growth.

Clinics that follow the industry and go to conferences know about these side effects. Others know and don’t care. It all varies. There are a bunch of articles online if you Google and maybe some posted by others on this forum - try a search.

Settings are individual to individual machines. I’m not familiar with this specific machine’s settings.

#5

Sciton BBL is not a laser it’s an IPL.