GenderLife Forum: The Information Exchange

Okay, so I got my first laser treatment on my face on Thursday, and was told that the hair would basically fall out on it's own between 2 and 5 days later. Well, that didn't happen. I hit 5 days of growth, had about 3/4 of a centimeter of hair sticking out, with about half a centimeter beneath the surface. How do I know how much was beneath the surface? Well, because I started plucking. First with my fingernails, and then I just got out the tweezers and went to town. Hurt like hell, too, lemme tell ya. I'll never complain about tweezing eyebrows and nose-hairs again. (Well, yes I will, but more because I like to complain.)

So, I pluck about 60% of my face (like a 12 hour project, lol... I need a job), and realized, "Hey, maybe this wasn't such a great idea." Durf. So, I looked fucking ridiculous, and I didn't want to sink another 8 hours into plucking, so I just shaved the rest. (My skin had returned to normal since the lasering... so it's not like I was shaving burned skin.)

So, anyway, I guess my question is... did I fuck up, and how badly did I fuck up? Has anyone else done this? How did it work out? What's done is done, but I'm anxious to know what my punishment is going to be. Ahhhh, stupid stupid stupid!

I don't know why they told you two to five days, I've never heard that and I've had laser done by three different places on different body parts. It's been a consistent three weeks for it to really start to fall out, but I do start plucking things after about two weeks. If the hair doesn't almost fall out when you tug on it a couple weeks after laser, it wasn't fried. Don't pull it out, or it may not get zapped next time!

That's also been the experience of my family and friends that have had laser.

I don't think you'll be in too much trouble from the plucking, just don't make a habit out of it, you don't want your skin to have the texture of an orange - which I'm told occurs after you've plucked for a while. The only downside to what you've done, to my limited knowledge, is that the hairs you've plucked will not go away permanently until they grow back and get zapped with the laser or electro, and you never know quite when those particular hairs will grow back. Maybe now, maybe later.

The other downside is that if you're prone to ingrowns, like I am, your face might be a mess in a few weeks or a month...

Good luck!

Cassandra

You likely interrupted the growth cycle, but that should be all, so no real damage, afaik. The laser needs a growing hair in order to effectively destroy the follicle, so you will probably just have to wait until the tweezed hairs are growing before lasing those areas. I'm sure your laser nurse/doctor/tech can give you better info, though.

I had laser, too, and as soon as the laser zapped a spot, the dead hairs would immediately pop out. The nurse would then gently scrape these hairs away. The few remaining dead hairs (10-15 each visit) were easy to tweeze once I got back to the car, since they were sticking out and easy to identify. I never noticed any hairs falling out after the day of the treatment, however.

Also, the laser hurt iNTenSeLy when applied at the desired power level (to effectively kill the growing hairs). After about 10 treatments spaced 6-8 weeks apart, my nerves were totally fried but my facial hair was reduced to about 15% of it's original density. Happy lasering!

Maybe it's different lasers, I so wish mine popped out immediately. I have a friend (GG) who hated the way her bikini line looked on her vacation - she had laser there a week earlier - and the black dots drove her nuts.

Anyway, what of laser was it that the hair popped out immediately? I should try that

It was a Lumenis One with LightSheer. I only had subtle redness and round areas of minor swelling - no black dots.

I was zapped with an alexandrite laser with the cryogen blast. It was on power level 14 out of 16, and my lip, sideburns, and chin line were honestly the 3rd most pain I've ever experienced. I can't believe I'm going to pay her to do it again as soon as possible. :'P

Only maybe 10% of the hairs were coming out really easy while I was plucking...

Guh. I should have just shaved to begin with. =(

darlin you can get home kits here there 200usd or 99pounds there ok....

http://www.ciao.co.uk/Rio_Scanning_Laser__Review_5569559

Actually you didn't "Screw up" In the real sense. No permanent Damage was done. So There is no punishment except to your pride. So begin again with the Lazer treatments and continue.

My laser experience was with the Elos system. It is basically usees both laser and the radio frequencies used by one method of electrolysis. Anyhow...it took about 2-3 weeks for the hairs to fall out, and I would begin tweezing them as soon as I could, because they would itch. Like Cassie said, if the folicle is dead, the hair slides right out with no resistance.

I thought the pain was brutal. I've had electrolysis as well, and there was no comparision. I thought electro was uncomfortable, but about a 1 on the pain scale. My laser treatments were a 6 even after ibuprophen, acetaminophen, benadryl, and bourbon. It was a 7 on my upper lip.

I'd recommend the benadryl because it will help control the redness.

I would recommend that you try TOPICANE 5 you can buy on the net. I have been clearing with lazer and electro and finished up in december of last year. Between using emla cream or topicane 5 there is no comparison on pain reduction be topicane 5 and emla.
and do as they tell you let it fall out you can shave if needed but let them fall out IMHO .

good luck
Ana

Claire,

No more plucking,shave instead. It takes approximately 4 months to several years before the plucked hair reaches the surface of your skin again.Also repeated plucking can cause distorted follicles. The growth cycle of your hair is Telogen, Anagen, Catagen and back to Telogen. The target hair must be in the anagen stage of growth to effectively destroy the blood supply to the follicle. In the catagen stage the hair has just started to pull away from it's blood supply and in telogen it has completely separated from the blood supply and the cycle begins again. You are not actually killing hairs, you are destroying the blood supply to that follicle.
I hope this helps.I am a trained electrologist in case you were wondering.I had over 10000 hrs training and have been doing electro since 2001.I have a only 2 TG clients at the moment and both go to their dentist and have the upper lip area numbed with marcain,novocain. It sure makes my job easier.

What a great idea! I wish I had known this before I entered the dungeon of pain. Thanks, Melanie.

It was a suggestion from my electrologist. I was numb from my ubber wip to my lower eye sockets, it was great. I tried to get the wife to take and whack my nose with a brick or something while I was still numb so I could have my health insurance pay a great portion of my rhinoplasty. But noooo she would do it and I ,well I oppose violence, am a poor aim and would probably duck at the last moment anyway.

Yes.


Could be much worse. You could have driven off a cliff.


Chances are many other foo people have.


You'll have to wait longer until your next session. Unless you've damaged your skin with the plucking.


Too much Warcraft.


If I told you, it wouldn't be fun.

I know a girl... that plucks... her whole face... as her means of hair removal. She's full time and simply doesn't have the money for electro or laser. She knows it's bad for her skin, but she has so many other things going on that are far worse, skin is the last thing on her mind. She's a fool and knows it, but she's a terrific, lovable, sincere fool.

Nope, she's not.

Plucking when you're in-between laser treatments is an entirely different matter.

So what is your alls take on at home laser treatment?

I found something that may be of interest to everyone here.It's a drawing/contest for some free laser treatments.It ends on june 30th 08 and I'm pretty sure it's for USA residents only.

http://www.americanlaser.com/lasergame.html

Sounds like something that could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands unless the brand is k-tel or Ronco.Seriously,it's probably about as good as some of the home electrolysis units "as seen on TV". I used to give an hour of free electro if they have one of these units and brought it to me.

Little update: I'm not breaking out any more than usual, having plucked the hairs. However, I am now very aware of where the laser got a good kill rate. She was cautious for the first treatment, but I'm going to see if I can get her to crank it up, at least for the chin, upper lip and jawline... Didn't get much better than a 50% kill rate, especially on the chin.

It's better to have more treatments than getting burned.

I've seen a girl who got badly burnt by laser ("flash" thermolysis) and it produced a scar about 4" long by 1" wide across her upper lip.

A 50% kill rate is very good. In time, that may be as low as 30%, but a normal course of laser treatments is usually about 4-6 treatments plus 3-4 touch ups.

So with an average 30% kill rate, after 5 treatments you have:

(0.7)^5 = 0.168 = 16.8% of hairs left, concentrated on some areas.

Add 3 touch ups in those areas and you have about 6% of hairs left, with most of them white.

An average beard has about 10,000 to 20,000 hairs. That means you'd have about 600-1,200 hairs left after the laser course is done.

That's about 3 hours of blend electrolysis.

With me, the kill rate was about 60% after each session and 50% long term (can only calculate that post facto, of course) so I was left with about 0.4% of hairs. That is, about 50 white hairs that took forever to grow (and I got rid of half of them already with half an hour of electro).

Well, on the less-dense areas of hair, I got damn near 100% kill rate. (Or, at least, the hairs popped out very easily, as though the root had died... I guess we'll see if they come back.) In the denser areas, I guess some of the surface hair blocked the laser from reaching the roots, or perhaps the roots are deeper/hardier.

I'm in no great danger of scarring, though... we did a test site at the higher setting and it was fine... she just turned it down because we thought we could get away with it.

I was under the impression that laser hair removal was non permanent, and electrolysis was the only treatment that was. Did I hear incorrectly?

Laser was temporary hair reduction back in the 80s. In the 90s, it became permanent hair reduction and it's been improving since. Even though it's not total permanent hair removal (as electro can be), for some people is good enough to kill almost all hair for good.

As I noted before, three years after my last retouch and I've had basically no re-growth beyond a few white hairs.

"Flash" thermolysis is a type of electrolysis, not laser. And it is known for being more scarring than blend or pure thermolysis.

I just had my first laser treatment about 3 weeks ago. I won a $400.00 gift certificate at Pride Fest. My main problem is I had been epilating for the last year with no success. Now that I had my orchi done I've already noticed that my facial hair growth has slowed to half of what is was normally. But I was told only to shave and to stop tweezing the hairs, they need the hair for the laser to work. I go back on the 21 of Aug and I already have a nice batch that have regrown to be lased.

>Laser was temporary hair reduction back in the 80s. In the 90s, it became permanent hair reduction and it's been improving since. Even though it's not total permanent hair removal (as electro can be), for some people is good enough to kill almost all hair for good.

You're mistaken. At least in the USA. The FDA, who regulates such items, still does not permit laser to be advertised as permanent hair removal. Some people do this anyway, but laser IS NOT cleared as permanent by the FDA.

The company I'm using has a two year guarantee on their process. I hope it works as advertised.