Treatments in the summer

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

I looking for a bit of advise on whether to start treatments (back and shoulders) now, or wait until the end of summer. I’m thinking that if I start LHR in the next month or two, my hair will be less manageable over the summer.

Normally in the summer, I manage with a combination of waxing and Nair. This works well as I can plan in advance to be hair free for a period of time when going camping or such. Razor’s can be inconvenient and a bit embarrassing when going out for a few days with a group of people. I also spend a lot of time outdoors on weekends at the pool, and want to be hair free for as much of the summer as possible.

Also, I’m not much of a sunbather, and always use high SPF suntan lotion when out.

Is this something that can be managed with LHR, or am I best to wait until fall?

#2

The answer is yes and no :stuck_out_tongue: Probably not what you want to hear. If you plan well enough then it can be managed, assuming you’re still light and not tanned.

Here’s the deal, waxing of course is a no no, so while doing laser you can forget that. You need to wait at least 6 weeks since you last waxed before laser as well. You’ll have to shave the area then go for treatment. Now this is where you have to plan, because for at least 2 weeks I’d say, the hair will look like you shaved it and that it’s growing back, but around day 7-10 up until even day 20 it will be falling out. After 3 weeks though, you’ll be totally smooth, and you should remain smooth like that for around 6-7 weeks then it starts to grow back. It will grow back finer and thinner so it will look more natural. The dark coarse hair will go first so shaving it when it comes back probably won’t look too too bad. That’s why I say you have to time it though because it’s those first 3 weeks when it will look iffy. After that it should look completely smooth for weeks. When it does start to grow back though, you can’t wax it, you’ll have to keep shaving it until your next treatment so that’s where it can be a bit tricky.

Summer is hard to start laser especially if you want it to look completely normal. Like for me on my forearms, I shave then do treatments and I find it doesn’t look that bad growing back then it falls out and I’m completely smooth for at least 2 months. It grows back very slowly and only a few hairs at a time, so it looks pretty natural, like as if I just don’t have a lot of hair. But if you don’t want it to look like you have ANY hair, then that will be an issue since you’ll definitely see it when it grows back. For me, yeah I like them to be smooth but it doesn’t look unnatural when it grows back, so your back may be different…

#3

All the hair that has been treated with laser will fall out in the second or third week, and the next phase of hair should not grow back until 6 weeks after that. So if you time it right, you can have a month and a half without any hair for all your camping/pool activities.

I would be more concerned with any tan you may receive. You really don’t want to be getting tan right before (or during) laser sessions. If you really mean it when you say you will use enough lotion to prevent any tanning, then I say start now.

Of course, all this assumes that your back and shoulders are appropriate for laser. Many people have bad luck with this area because they don’t realize the hair has to be very coarse (like armpit or leg hair). Otherwise, laser often induces MORE growth in this area after a little while. So just do your research, and never let them treat you with low settings (those are more likely to induce extra growth than very high settings).

#4

In the back and shoulder area hair can still be growing until age 30 or so, and as said before it’s not so dense so induced hair is possible.

What you should watch out from is tan, because when you tan your skin will be a lot more sensitive and if you add laser on top of that, you can end up with some VERY nasty burns.

#5

Can you post photos? Most men’s shoulder hair is not coarse and dense enough for laser. It needs to be like the underarm hair. If it’s not, you can actually see MORE growth, not less.

You can start treatments whenever your skin is light enough. The lighter it is, the better the results will be because higher settings can be used.