While you may not think summer is a great time to zap your unwanted hair, it’s really as good a time as any. You’ll need a series of treatments to remove from 80 to 90 percent of your hair anyway, so why not start now just as beach season arrives?
Laser hair removal is a popular treatment at AesthetiSpa; here’s the lowdown.
How does laser hair removal work?
Successful permanent hair reduction involves targeting the melanin in the hair shaft and the hair follicle. Once we set the wavelength of the laser energy to match your hair and skin color, we deliver the pulse of laser energy. The light energy hits the hair and the melanin absorbs it. That energy converts to heat and it travels down the hair shaft into the follicle beneath. This heat damages or destroys the follicle, precluding it from growing hair in the future.
The key is the phase of the growth cycle that the hair is in. To be truly effective, the hair should be in the anagen (growth) phase. When hairs are in this phase, they respond very well to laser energy because the hair is still actively anchored in the follicle. The catagen phase is an intermediate phase, moving from growth to rest. Hair in this phase still responds to hair removal energy, but not well toward the end of this phase. The final phase is telogen, which is the resting or shedding stage. Hair in the telogen phase isn’t affected by laser energy, as the body is already in the process of shedding the hair. This doesn’t allow the energy to travel down the shaft and damage the follicle.
Many hairs, all living as loners
You may think of your hair as all being on the same team. Truth is, they’re all a bunch of independent contractors (they were the original “gig economy”). Every hair on the human body can be in any of the above three phases. And since the average adult human body has around 5 million hair follicles (men a few hundred thousand more, women a few hundred thousand less), that means many hairs aren’t in the right phase. That’s why it takes multiple appointments to really get rid of 80% or more of your unwanted hair. At one time only around 20% of your hair may be in the desired anagen phase. To hit more and more of the targeted hair in the right phase, we recommend usually from 5-10 laser hair removal treatments.
Trust our expertise
It seems everyone is offering laser hair removal, but expertise is important. There are two factors that are important in determining the right type of treatment, laser wavelength and pulse duration. Longer wavelengths penetrate deeper under the skin. Pulse durations determine the amount of thermal damage that can be delivered into the follicle. Short pulse durations give more thermal damage, while longer pulse durations are safer for patients with darker skin.
At AesthetiSpa, our team has performed thousands of laser hair removal procedures, so trust our experience and expertise. Call us at 843-849-9925 and let’s get started getting rid of that unwanted hair.