You spend countless hours clearing away unwanted body hair by shaving, and you’d really like to eliminate this time-consuming piece of your hygiene regimen puzzle.
Laser hair removal can certainly help get you on your way toward that goal, but you shouldn’t count on the procedure as a one-and-done treatment.
To better explain how our laser hair removal services work, board-certified dermatologist Dr. Bruce Saal and our team here at Los Gatos Dermatology explore how this innovative technique can help you ditch your razor for good.
At our practice, we use an innovative laser hair removal system called Candela® GentleMAX™, which delivers light energy into your hair follicles to disrupt their ability to grow hair.
To do this effectively, we need to deliver several treatments — usually 3-7, depending on the size of your treatment area(s). We spread these treatments out by several weeks so we target all of the hair follicles in your target areas.
The reason we perform several treatments over the course of a few months is that your body hair goes through four different phases of growth:
To ensure that we achieve maximum hair reduction, we need to take several passes over your target area to catch all of the hair follicles in the area.
After we deliver your last laser hair removal treatments, the hairs should all fall away, and you can enjoy these great results for months, or even years. If hair does regrow in your treatment areas, it’s usually much thinner, lighter, and far more sparse.
Most of our clients take care of any regrowth with quick laser hair removal maintenance treatments. Over time, these maintenance treatments become fewer and farther between as the follicles eventually die off and stop producing any more hair.
If you want to get on the road to ditching that razor, we can start whenever you’d like, though this time of year is ideal, because you can be ready by summer.
There's not much you need to do to prepare in advance, but we do ask that you stop waxing so we can readily see your hair follicles.
When you come in for each treatment, we first apply a numbing cream to keep you comfortable, and then we deliver the light energy.
In most cases, these visits take less than an hour, and you can get back to your day directly afterward. We ask that you protect your treatment areas from sun exposure during this time.
If you have more questions about laser hair removal or you'd like to schedule your first treatment, please contact our office in Los Gatos, California.
