Spotty regrowth -- always?

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

Hi there,

I’m a male who’s had about four or so treatments in various spots (back, shoulders, upper arms) with pretty decent results everywhere, except a bit of stimulated hair in the upper back. Other than that, post 6 months, definite reduction. Mild spottiness/ uneven regrowth in the upper arms. This was (i think) a Gentlase. Sessions were fairly spread out (i.e. more than 6 weeks in between). Mostly happy there.

Recently shopping around for another practitioner (old one shut), and a fairly well advertised one in the Islington area of London said to me in a consultation: “You will experience spotty regrowth” and showed me pictures. When I asked, “what about if I just want even reduction, not elimination, in an area?” they looked at me like I was crazy. “People want the hair completely removed.” she said. (Also, in their spot tests, I felt 0 pain with their settings, compared to a lot of pain I used to get.)

So my question is: Is that true about the spotty regrowth being inevitable? Or is this just because they were using the Cyonsure elite? I like honesty… The pictures they showed as examples looked pretty bad.

Second question: where can I find a list of trusted practitioners in London? I looked at the other forum, and the ‘practitioners outside the U.S.’ forum has not has a single reply since 2011! Is this the place to ask? I hope so. :grin:

okie

#2

We can’t help much unless you can ask them for the name of the machine and settings used (joules, spot size, pulse width). If you didn’t feel much, the settings are likely too low or your hair is too fine, or both. Either way, not a good sign, but we need to know the settings. Also, need to know your skin type. Cynosure Elite is a combo machine with both Alex and Yag settings. We need to also know which they used.

There is no list really. They change a lot too. You can run a search on the forum for places people have discussed and recommended.

#3

They 100% definitely used the Alex, my skin type is definitely III, and again, I pretty much had reduction everywhere except my upper upper back and shoulders, after about four sessions (near max settings), on the Gentlase with my old practitioner. But this isn’t a typical ‘were the settings good, here they are, I have spotty regrowth’ question, it’s different and perhaps even easier to answer, let me shorten it and reword it because I might’ve given too much background and people missed the question through the noise:

Is it really true that spotty regrowth is inevitable like the practitioners at the second clinic said? Again, they were armed with the Cynosure Elite. They had this little folder they show everyone, and in it it had pictures of example spotty regrowth – which I didn’t really have with my old practitioner. She literally said, ‘no, it’s not possible to do a reduction, since it grows back spotty and not even’ which is the opposite of what my previous practitioner had said (and previous was right in my case for the most part). Second half of the question: is it something with that particular laser, the Cynosure Elite, that causes spottiness?

And no, I can’t find any recent searches about London clinics, sadly (NO results for “London” in subject line, for this particular forum).

#4

I had laser on my legs with the goal of reduction not full clearance. For me I did get patchy re-growth mostly notable on my shins. My right shin has a large gap which is annoying. The machine was an Alex 20 joules and I think spot size 15. Sorry it was a year ago I forget a little.

By the way I would love to have hair on upper arms gone. You mention you had but I’m scared of making it worst. I’m skin type 2/ black hair