I’m a 39-year old male with type II skin. After doing LHR on most of my body over the last year with decent results, I decided to try to thin out my beard. (I know, I know—I probably shouldn’t have started down this road, but I did, and am trying to make the best of it.) The clinic I visit has a GentleMax. I don’t think they have much beard experience.
On my body, we’ve used Alex 18 mm/18 j/3 ms pulse width for the legs, and Alex 18 mm/16 j/3 ms on my chest. (I’ve done electrolysis on my shoulders, upper arms and back because I’m wary of induced growth.)
I’d already done two treatments on the front of my neck with Alex 18 mm/14j/3 ms with very good results, so I was hoping that ramping up to that would work on the rest of my beard area. My beard is mostly dark brown/black, but there are probably 20% reddish hairs and maybe 5% have gone grey, mostly near the chin. I understand I won’t get these, but am hoping to thin things out enough that I can shave daily without irritation and avoid immediate 5-o’clock shadow a la Homer Simpson.
We’ve done three treatments on the beard area. The first was Alex 18mm/10j/3ms, and this was quite a bit more painful than anything on my body. I got some shedding on the cheeks/sideburns, but not much on the neck, upper lip and chin. (I didn’t expect great results with this first treatment at low settings—we were hoping to get rid of a decent percentage of the hair to make subsequent treatments at higher settings less painful.)
The second treatment was Alex 18mm/12j/3ms five weeks later. I got better shedding on the cheeks, but still not much on the lip and chin.
The third treatment was after four weeks with Alex 18mm/14j/3ms on the cheeks and neck. At my request, she switched to the YAG mode on my chin and upper lip at 18 mm/20j/3 ms. I tolerated the pain decently, and didn’t get any adverse skin reactions.
I got some shedding in the chin/lip, but the pattern is starting to look odd. The cheeks and under the jawline have done well. I’ve got a pesky patch at the upper cheek, about even with my nostril level, that hasn’t shed much. I’d be fine if the lips/chin remained darker because it looks natural. (If works come to worse, I’ll get electrolysis on the cheek patches, each of which is about the size of a quarter.)
I’m going in for round 4 tomorrow after 4 weeks. I’m not quite sure what to request. It seems odd that they’ve always used 18mm, even on my upper lip. I don’t know if going to 16j or 18j on Alex will do anything that 14 didn’t other than make me scream louder. I guess maybe I’m best off asking to go as high as I can tolerate on the YAG side instead of going higher on Alex. Should we think about increasing the pulse width as we go higher to lessen the pain? I’m about at my wit’s end with 18mm/14j/3ms on Alex due to the hair density—I don’t think I could go much higher but don’t really know how pulse width affects efficacy and pain. Any guidance would be much appreciated.