Well, I had my first laser treatment today. I'm sure there are dozens of posts like this here, but I would like to tell my story
A little background. I had extensive electric epilation from early 1993 to late 1995 which took care of a lot. Then I got a job a didn't want to grow my beard for several days before hand, so I stopped. Never picked it up again, until now. I figured "Hey, they have modern techniques these days, laser and such, let's give that a try".
So this morning I had my first treatment with the lightshear diode laser, and it really wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. Mind you, the hair I still have is much more thinly spread than it would normally be since I have already had a lot of work done. The lady doing the treatment put the protective glasses on me, then put some cooling gel on my skin and then went at it. Yes, it stings a bit. Felt to me like pins and needles, and when she hit some "real" hair it stings a little more. You can hear the hairs explode (makes kind of a "tik" sound) and it smells like burned hair.
She also did my side burns, part of which hadn't been tackled at all yet so she turned the setting on the laser down for that. Yes, that stings. So I imagine that if you haven't had anything done before, it hurts a lot more than I experienced. One slightly disconcerting thing: when she was working on my sideburns I could see the flash of the laser through my skin. Not harmful, she reassured me. OK, I'll take you word for it. My eyesight seems to be unaffected.
Afterwards she put a cold pack on the treated area for a few minutes and then some aloe vera gel on it. Done in 15 minutes.
It is now about an hour after the treatment and it is pretty red, but it looks like it is going down already.
Oh, I have light skin and dark hair (which helps). Another by the way: the lady said there is a new method out now that works with sound waves.
