Tria to to *reduce* dark hairs under the skin.

First off, I’ve read this forum up and down, and actually have a few questions for specific members, so if they turn up I hope they don’t mind answering a few.

Down to business, I don’t plan on a ton of hair removal, but I do epilate my chest. However, I am a very fair skinned male with very dark, deep-rooted hair, which in certain spots is still noticeable beneath the skin. I find it irritating, but not worth paying for and scheduling around office visits when all I want is a reduction of the darker hairs in addition to my usual epilation.

However, I’ve done 10+ ipl treatments to remove my facial hair because it tends to get ingrown (starlux system, which isn’t the best, but not bad) and to get good results on my chin and jaw the tech has had to go up to the limit in terms of energy that they’re comfortable using. Which odd given my combination of pale scandinavian skin and very dark hair. But the male beard is stubborn anyway, and other areas of my face responded slightly better.

If those in the know with this home system think from experience that Tria would work even moderately well for some chest hair on someone who had stubborn-ish facial hair, I would not hesitate to take the plunge.

And even the lower energy settings at the clinic did provide temporary thinning and reduction, which I would be perfectly happy with if I could accomplish this on a few small areas on my chest at home. I expect areas other than my face to respond much better anyway. (The treatments worked wonders on my neck from the very start, even though that wasn’t the primary target area)

If Tria would at least lessen the parade of thick dark hairs which become visible under my skin long before I have the opportunity to yank them, I would consider it the best $500-ish I have ever spent.

Pain is not an issue. At all. I’ve handled every energy level my clinic felt was safe to throw at me without numbing cream or even an aspirin. To give you a gauge of my pain tolerance, before I went in for laser I had resorted to epilating my full face to try to avoid the number of ingrowns I was getting from shaving. Yep. Full male beard. Heavy thickness, and coarse, deep hairs. If there’s a glimmer of hope for results, I will put up with anything.

So in short, I hope somebody here can give me some idea about the efficacy of the Tria (or Silk’n if that has worked as well) for a 20-something male who, while not having a lot of body hair, has very dark hair that is easily visible below the skin. The problem area I’m most keen to treat is just around the areola, since that’s the fleshiest and it’s hard to get at short hairs. Thanks for any help here.

You say pain is not an issue, and that you are willing to do anything that would work, but you seem to have already eliminated electrolysis from your cannon of possibilities. Why is this?

Thanks for the attention. I’m trying to avoid electrolysis (as well as any other intensive treatment) for several reasons.

The first is simply the time involvement. I’m a graduate student and work full time. Also I live over an hour from the city and prefer the best-qualified practitioner I can find, which is certainly not local. And investing in a (decent) home setup is not cost effective for my minor goals (not to mention I could use that money for tuition).

The second reason is that I actually am not certain I want permanent removal. Patchy chest hairs are not cool on 25 year old who works out. But if I permanently disable hair growth in a few areas now when I’m young, I’ll have to keep up with if I get even slightly hairier as I age. I only need a small area visibly reduced, a permanent solution would commit me to a much more area to look right.

Nothing is ever off the table or ‘eliminated from my canon’ but I have yet to see an electrolysis solution that fits with my goals, time and resources as well as home IPL or laser would.

Edit: I am not unaware of the potential collagen damage caused by IPL but given the relatively low energy of the home devices and the areas being targeted, my concern is slightly less. However, if my situation were slightly different, I would be doing electrolysis.