Beard Removal

[Zandara]

I am wondering about removing beard hair. 10 years i had laser treatment for body hair that seemed to go well and the body hair has never really grown back (i was quite hairy). At the time i never had any treatment on my beard hair I am no longer young 55+ and most of my facial hair is Gray and i was advised at the time laser would not work well on Gray hair so i never went ahead.

Are things the same or are there now any new treatments for Gray facial hair. 

[azSam]

The general idea is, the lighter the hair is the less chance laser has to successfully remove it. With that said, I have several white hairs left that still get's zapped by my laser, and the laser still targets it just fine, turning it a dark black because it's burned.

Laser technology has come a long way, but if you're hairs are mostly white or clear, then electrolysis is your best bet.

My suggestion is to try a test spot or if you have the money to spare, do a full treatment and see what kind of results you get. My first treatment killed off 60% or so of my facial hair. So you will certainly notice if it was successful.

[Padma]

Effective laser treatment depends on there being pigment in the hair root to be heated up, which is what kills the root. Some grey hairs still have dark pigment at the root, which is why some grey hairs will get zapped - but mostly they're not going to be touched by laser. I'm afraid that like me, you may be facing a long run of electrolysis treatment .

[Dinky_Di]

Unfortunately the slow and painful electolysis will be the only way.

[justmeinoz]

The good news is that after the laser gets rid of the dark ones, the grey and white are sparser and don't show up as much.
HRT will slow down the growth a little too.  At least that is what I have found.  The few  that are brown or red and won't laser, I just reef out with tweezers.
Karen.

[Caith]

Unfortunately the slow and painful electolysis will be the only way.

There are a few electrologists in the US who are not traditional and who can treat larger areas more quickly.  Two of them are James Walker in Buffalo, NY and Dee Fahey in Columbus, OH.  The differences with these electrologists are that they use:
o digitally microprocessor controlled 27 MHz electrolysis machines (Apilus Platinum Plus) made by Dectro, Inc. 
o high-resolution magnification to perfectly see the hair follicles
o halogen/xenon lighting to completely illuminate the work area

The tradeoffs for this speed (and higher treatment energy) are increased reactive swelling and several (5 to 7) days of recovery time.  Some people cannot tolerate four to six hours of electrolysis every day for two or more consecutive days.  It's not comfortable, but it is tolerable.