Waxing before LHR

Hi everyone,

I am a male who had laser hair removal before. Now, on treated areas, I have some hairs as strong as the ones before my treatments, and some other hairs progressed into finer hairs, but these finer hairs still can be seen by laser. I am considering having more laser treatments, however I have some concerns on uniformity. So, I have been looking for ways of keeping finer hairs and only eliminating/weakening coarse ones. Lately, it occurred to me that waxing some time before the treatment may help. Unfortunately, the success subtly depends on melanin formation behavior during the early stages of anagen phase of the hair cycle.

I know waxing induces anagen phase, and some time after anagen phase begins, melanocytes (melanin producing cells) should start forming melanin which is transferred into keratin material. I’d like to know if anyone has any information on onset time of melanin formation, and if there is any difference for coarse and fine hair onset time. It is obvious that waxed coarse hair make it up to the skin surface much earlier than fine hair. This makes me think, onset time should be earlier for coarse hair.

If the onset time is earlier for coarse hair, then I think I may wax f.e. 2 weeks before my LHR session and attack only coarse hair, since at that time fine hair follicles wouldn’t be ready to produce melanin yet.

Do all these make sense?

Any help is highly appreciated.

I don’t think it really works like that. Plus, coarse hair starts out fine when it’s first growing out about 3 weeks after being waxed. It takes a few more weeks for it to actually look coarse…

It may sound a bit odd, but when I get a wax, around the tenth day, hair appears as a pepper dot trapped in the skin. Then it grows under a very thin layer of skin for a couple of days, and it is clearly visible at this point. Finally it emerges and it is almost as thick as before waxing. This behaviour is the same if I pluck one single hair, and I am certain the root is pulled out.

And for some hair finer, I even wait more than a month to actually see the hair coming out.

Does anyone have similar issues?

It sounds like your hair may be breaking off half way when it’s waxed instead of coming out altogether with the root.