Thinking About Laser Hair Removal? Here’s What You Need To Know

The hair on our body is very natural. Apart from just giving defining features like eyebrows, eyelashes, beards, and moustaches, body hair also helps in insulation and protecting body heat. However, the growth of body hair depends a lot on genetics and hormones. Not everyone needs the natural insulation that body hair provides. In addition, the hair on the body is unwanted by many who desire smooth skin and a silky feel on touch. Shaving, waxing and tweezing are some of the more commonly used methods to remove body hair. But these methods often result in body hair making a return sooner or later and often must be repeated quite often. In such situations, laser hair removal is an option that might be a great alternative.

Among the most common cosmetic procedures that are consulted with a doctor, laser hair removal is probably one of the safest and less time-intensive ones. In the procedure, a low-intensity laser beam is focused on hair follicles. When the pigment in the follicle absorbs this high-intensity light, the hair strand is destroyed from the root. That is the simplest way to understand how this procedure works.

Let’s look at the benefits of using this procedure as opposed to traditional treatments of waxing or shaving. There are many sensitive areas on the body and depending on your physiology, your skin might be extra sensitive as well. Using pulling and chafing procedures like waxing and shaving can hurt your skin in unwanted ways. The laser is known for its precision. In this procedure, only the hair follicles or dark coarse hair can be targeted leaving the surrounding skin unscathed. Along with precision, the procedure can eliminate hair in an area of 3 cm diameter in almost a second. If you calculate the time taken for the procedure based on the areas you want to treat, you can easily estimate that the shortest time could be as less as 1 minute. It is a less known fact to people who aren’t doctors, that injury causes faster regeneration. If you consider the small area a hair follicle occupies, it is no surprise why the stubborn hair keeps appearing after a tedious waxing session. The laser effectively destroys the hair follicle, rather than causing stress on the surrounding tissue to kick start the process of regeneration for the hair. The small burns heal, but after a few sessions, the hair mostly doesn’t grow back.

The procedure through cosmetics still requires consultation with a dermatologist. If you decide to go along with the procedure, make sure your doctor knows about any dermal sensitivity or allergic reactions that you might have. Try and avoid waxing, plucking or electrolysis for at least a month and a fortnight to allow the hair to be as full-grown as possible. Before and after the procedure, a similar amount of time should be spent avoiding exposure to the sun.

Lastly, after these initial preparations on your part, during the treatment, your body hair will be trimmed to several millimetres above the skin surface. The equipment will be calibrated according to the tone, colour, density and thickness of your hair and the area of the body. Based on the size of the area being operated on, your procedure can last anywhere from 1 minute to a few hours.