What does a succesful first treatment look like?

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

Hey guys. I’m male/20. I just had laser ony my forearms for the first time. Or actually it’s been over 2 months post treatment.

This question is posed to those of you who have had succesful laser reduction.

What does treatment #1 show after 8-10 weeks? How much hair is actually gone after only 1 treatment? Is the diffirence noticeable?(Also as a follow up if its no, after how many treatments was there a good noticeable reduction?) Did the hair become finer?

Again, I don’t mean to be rude but i’m looking for answers from people who actually were very satisfied with their results.

Thanks in advance

#2

Hi, have a look at page 12 of the link in my sig for my sister’s pics. She had pretty hairy arms for a girl and has had two treatments so far. You can see the level of reduction.

#3

I’m a guy and I’ve done several treatments on my arms. You won’t notice much after one or even two sessions. By three it starts to look a bit finer. I’m at 4 or 5 now cant remember but it’s much finer and I’d say 60% gone.

#4

Also one other thing, I find that arms are slow. For me I had really hairy arms. I’d do a treatment, and then by about week 3 they were 100% clear, like I’m talking everything not a single hair visible, not peach fuzz nothing. That would last a good 6-7 weeks and then the hair would start to very finely grow back spaced far apart. My last treatment was 10 weeks ago now and my arms have maybe 10-15% of the hair that was once there back but I’m not really sure that it’s done coming back. It seems to do this every time I find and is very slow growing back. I had similar results last time and found it was at least around the 12 week mark before I was ready to go for another treatment. I can post pictures later as well to give an idea.

Here’s some from a very old post, I don’t have any good before pictures but this is one to give an idea:

Then this one was probably 3-4 weeks after I think my 3rd session where you can see it hair free:

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Then lastly, this one below is probably 8-9 weeks after I think my 3rd treatment. It shows what I mean about the hair being fine and spaced apart. However by week 10 -12 it was much fuller, not as much as before and definitely finer but it doesn’t stay like this.

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I’ll post a current photo later and will see if I can find a better before shot. I think I have one that shows it better. I remember looking at old photos before thinking to myself that my treatments on my arms weren’t working that well and then I saw one that showed my arm and hand up close and I couldn’t believe that’s what it once looked like, so definitely is working!

#5

Hi stoppit. I took a look at your thread and your sister’s progress and I must say I recognize the same hair pattern post treatment. With her case it seems the hair has become really fine compared to before. With me right now(it’s been almost 9 weeks post treatment #1) the hair is much less visible from a distance, but if I look closely I still see most hairs as thick enough for further laser treatments which is why I’m gonna do a couple more treatments.

Thanks for your input.

#6

Hey edokid it looks like you’re having really good results. Your progress is definitely better than mine and your shedding is superb(unfortunately I didn’t experience complete shedding). What type of laser were you treated with? Thanks.

#7

Hey thanks. I’ll still try to post a current pic soon. My very first treatment was with GentleLASE but not sure the settings was ages ago. The rest were with Apogee Elite alexandrite 15mm and the very last one was Apogee Elite MPX alexandrite at 18mm. Had complete shedding each time.

Actually just remembered treatment 4 was Apogee Elite yag 15mm because I was a bit tanned. However with that I had maybe 90% shedding wasn’t quite as good.

#8

Hair grows in cycles, so with one treatment, you only affected hair in one cycle. You have several more to go. At least 3 treatments are necessary for decent results and noticeable difference.

You don’t mention the laser used or settings. This is important. The other posters above all had those results with good lasers at good settings.

Also, they experienced good shedding. If you had more than 10% missed, they should have done a touchup.

#9

As promised finally took a new picture, today is exactly 3 months after my last forearms session. Haven’t had much change in probably 3 weeks on here:

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I know it looks similar to the 8-9 weeks after session 3 photo from above but more hair came back after that one where as this hasn’t changed much at all.

This pic is after just 5 sessions, I think the hair is getting too fine to continue though. There’s a group buy right now $49 for 3 sessions on Soprano XL so I may get that just to do my forearms since even if I don’t get much more results, I’d rather spend $49 on 3 more treatments than $450 at my current clinic! One thing I wanted to point out too was there’s almost no hair on my hands when before I had a lot. Also my skin looks incredibly white in the picture, it’s just the lighting I’m more tanned than that and the results I have look very natural as well.

#10

This looks great, but honestly, electrolysis can come to the rescue now. A skilled electrologist using a modern form of flash thermolysis, could speedily get all the hairs or just the hairs you want gone for good.

#11

Hey edokid, looks great!

My arm hair has finally grown out (was not shaving it so I can wax) and now I’m waiting for someone to help take a picture as when I try, you can’t see the hairs very well.

The density and mixture of slightly thicker and thin hairs looks exactly the same as your picture!

#12

Thanks everyone, I’m thinking electrolysis now as well, although the results I have right now I do love. Might do electrolysis on my hands to get the last bits or what not so we’ll see!

I just used my iPhone to take the pics of myself!

#13

Yup, doing the same here. I would not even consider further laser on my arms but am very happy with the results.

My sister’s results should be pretty good too as her arm hair was really coarse to begin with. She is currently week 7 post treatment no.3 and barely anything has come through. So need to wait until about week 12 before we can see.

#14

You can tell I’m totally addicted to this though. I have a $150 credit still at my old laser place that has Apogee Elite, then I still have 4 group buy sessions for a smaller area at my current place, and I just bought another group buy today 3 more sessions. I’m not even sure where I’m going to use all of these lol!

#15

Well I had my second treatment over a week ago. It seems all the hair grew back from after the first treatment. I don’t have much confidence in this after seeing so much of the hair being back. I’ll see after the second treatment if there is some visible reduction, if not I will probably quit.

#16

You’re not understanding how hair growth works. The hair you saw now is not the same hair you treated in your first treatment. Hair grows in cycles.

Please read the FAQs.

#17

Yes you need to read the FAQs because with a statement like that 36tinkerbells you haven’t done any research at all clearly. You won’t see any noticeable result until probably session 3 or so.

#18

I know about the growth cycles and all of that. So I won’t see any diffirence after the first 2 treatments?

#19

You’ll start to around then but very subtle. Your best bet is to take lots of pictures along the way. It’s such a slow process that it’s easy to forget what it looked like before. I was looking at my forearms before thinking I was getting no results, then I was looking at an old photo album and saw a good shot of my arms and I couldn’t believe how they looked before. It’s just when spacing out treatments it can be close to a year by the time you’ve done 3 or 4. After 1 session though you pretty much won’t notice any difference at all.

#20

You need at least 3 treatments spaced appropriately to target all the hair in different growth cycles. If you understand how hair growth cycles work, you should realize that what you’re seeing now is now the same hair you treated.

After 1 session, you’ll notice a difference only when that hair cycles comes up again.