Soprano XL

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

Seeing some so-so reviews on the Soprano XL laser, so like to give my 2-cents.

Light skin, dark haired. Doing underarms at one clinic and bikini and legs at another.

Underarms are almost done, just need to go back for one more treatment and have found that I don’t need to shave almost at all. At first, when it’s about time to get another treatment I need to shave once to get rid of a little bit of fine stubble but anything that does grow back is sparse and light. Notice less and less hair regrowth now that my 6th and last treatment I booked is coming up.

Legs and bikini area was done at a different time from the underarms after I noticed good results with the underarms. Underarms take like… 10min or so.

Have had 4 treatments with bikini and leg area and the legs are DEFINITELY really good, I get a stubble after the shedding but that’s a few millimetres and just in time for the next session. The hair has not really grown back after the less session, maybe a bit along the shins…

Bikini is a little bit tricky, a little bit more patchy and it definitely isn’t as pain free around that area but there’s noticeably less hair there and it’s thinned out quite a bit plus there’s none of that stubbly feel from shaving. Legs and bikini area take around 1 hour-ish for me, I feel the lady that does the bikini and legs area for me is a lot more experienced.

So far so good, but I’m worried about long-term effects, of course. If it’ll last and so on. Is there anybody out there who’s tried this laser and have finished their sessions for more than a year? How are the results?

I’ll try to keep people updated on my own results.

And hi, this is my first post! :smiley: I’m a noob and not that knowledgeable on the different kinds of lasers but I went with the Soprano XL because of their pain free advertising… hopefully it’ll be okay for me.

#2

I have mixed feelings on the Soprano. I strongly believe no pain no gain, you have to feel pain to kill the hair. I first tried the Soprano XL on my underarms and legs over a year ago. On my underarms they spent quite awhile and it started to feel hot. My legs were done in maybe 15 minutes. I had full shedding on underarms, and none on legs which they admitted they probably used too low settings.

A place I go now for unlimited laser uses LightSheer but just got Soprano XL as well. I did LightSheer on high settings on my forearms, legs and chest. I had good shedding everywhere except legs, it was maybe 50% shedding. The last session we tried with the Soprano XL. One thing I noticed was she kept it on the area much longer than the first place I went, to the point that it started to get uncomfortable. Not painful but you definitely felt a lot of heat in the area. Legs, chest and forearms took about an hour and a half.

Anyway I didn’t expect much but I literally had 100% shedding on my forearms and chest. My legs actually did shed as well, except for both my knees which I think she just totally missed. The shedding results were the same as an alexandrite laser on the area. I’ve used Apogee Yag, LightSheer, Apogee Alex, GentleLASE, and Soprano XL on these areas all in the past and on my last treatment it was the closest to the alex that I’ve had. If I didn’t have good shedding I wasn’t going to keep going but I’m going to continue now to see how it goes since it worked well.

Honestly though, if you have a choice between clinics in your price range that offers other lasers like an alexandrite, you’re much better to choose that. People who do this because it’s pain free are in it for the wrong reason. Your permanently altering something on your body, so you can’t expect it to not hurt.

#3

shedding is 100% and everything on the soprano has been good so far. She seems to do enough passes on my legs and bikini area… but I’m a little bit wary with everybody telling me the soprano is so-so.

I actually got one of those groupon deals, hahaha. That’s why I went for the soprano and the whole pain-free thing totally sold me.

Not as pain-free as advertised though as I was still wincing a bit when she certain areas.

#4

There’s really 2 problems with the Soprano that make people question whether it will work or not.

The first is how it works. To kill a hair permanently you have to deliver enough heat energy into the follicle to permanently damage it. That’s why laser hurts so much. Soprano is pain free because it fires over and over and gradually heats up the hair instead of hitting it in one large burst.

Providing that the hair reaches the same temperature that another laser would provide, then it should work. The concern is that how it can it be pain free and still get the hair hot enough to permanently kill it? When I’ve done it before the area has got really hot which is good but other areas not so much, so that’s the main issue there.

The second issue is the method of use. Assuming that the device does work, lets say on a 6" by 6" area, the operator should pass it back and forth over the whole area for a total of 2 minutes for it to produce enough heat in that area. How do they really know when an area has been covered enough? Especially with legs when they’re doing long passes with it, would certain areas not start to cool down before they pass over it again? That’s the main concern with it. It’s also really new so hasn’t been out long enough to see if the results really work is all as well.

Almost all those Groupon and deal sites use Soprano XL it seems!