Tips To Make Your Laser Hair Removal Treatment More Successful
If you want to get rid of unwanted hair, most of your options are temporary. Shaving, waxing, and tweezing all leave you with regrowth after just a short period of time. However, you do have other options. One of those options is to use laser hair removal. This process involves a low-powered laser that kills the hair follicles. The follicle is what allows the hair to grow. You will have to have a series of treatments to get rid of all the hair in the area. Knowing what you should do before the treatment and after can help make sure that you get the best results possible.
Before Laser Hair Removal
Do not tan: If you like to tan, then you should avoid it for several days prior to your hair removal treatments. That's because the laser works best on paler skin. The darker your skin is, the more the light from the laser gets absorbed before it can get to the follicle.
Don't wax or tweeze: Waxing and tweezing pulls the hair out by the root. The laser needs to have the root there so that it can absorb the light from the laser and get to the follicle so that it can be destroyed. You will need to wait for a few weeks for the hair to start growing back from waxing or tweezing. You can shave or use a depilatory cream because they don't affect the hair under the skin.
Get a close shave: If you shave the hair down very closely the day of or the day before your laser treatment, you are going to get a better result. There is less hair to block any light before it gets to the follicle. It will also help to reduce any discomfort that you may feel.
After Laser Hair Removal
Gently remove loose hairs: A few days after your treatment you may notice that you are seeing loose hairs. You can start getting rid of those in a couple of ways. One is that you can use a washcloth to wipe the hairs off. You can also pull the hairs out with your fingers or tweezers. You don't want to pull any hair that doesn't come out smoothly. That means that the follicle is still alive and that it will have to be dealt with during a later treatment. Some hair follicles will take longer to die off than others.
Take some OTC painkillers: There is some pain and discomfort associated with laser hair removal. With newer laser technologies, the discomfort should go away within a few hours. You can take some ibuprofen or acetaminophen to help deal with that. You can also soothe your skin with a nice soothing lotion that has something like aloe in it.
Laser hair removal is a semi-permanent hair removal process. You may have to undergo treatment again in a few years. It works best on people with light skin and dark hair. If you do the right things before and after treatment, you will get the best possible results.