What happens before, during and after laser hair reduction?

When you come in for a consultation, you should have some hair growth so the dermatologist can see the distribution of the hair and evaluate its caliber and color in order to assess what kind of laser to use. So don't shave for a week, and don't wax or bleach your upper lip beforehand. On the day of your laser treatment, you must be cleanshaven but not waxed. Hair stubble in the root will help capture the heat of the laser energy, but you don't want it above the skin because it will absorb laser energy you want reserved for the follicle. Numbing cream is applied for fifteen to twenty minutes and then carefully washed off. That takes the sting out of the laser, which feels like a hot rubber band snapping on the skin. As soon as an area is treated, little black dots usually appear; this is stubble frying and rising to the surface. Sometimes it looks as if you have more hair after the session than before, but it will shed in the shower. These dots are replaced by red goose bumps (follicular edema). This is an effect we want to see, the clinical endpoint that shows the treatment worked. The red bumps are the result of the laser inducing folliculitis as a result of trauma to the follicle. This redness lasts from a few days to a week (and if those little black specks of stubble didn't shed before, they now come out).

Hair grows and sheds in stages, and a laser captures only hairs in the active growth phase, when the matrix is activated. Since only one third of hairs are affected at one time, most people require three to five treatments spaced at monthly intervals to take care of the other two thirds.