Laser for reddish-brown hair?

[OCTrisha]

I am currently on low-dose HRT and am considering starting laser hair removal to help deal with the dysphoria and to assist in the transition process in case I do decide to go that route.

Although my facial hair is mostly brown, it does has have reddish tones (not true "ginger" or strawberry-blonde, but really reddish brown).  My skin tone is pretty white.  Does anyone know if laser will be effective for me? 

I had a consultation with a laser studio today and the nurse/technician thought it would still be effective based on the darkness in my beard shadow, but I'm going to go back in a couple days with more growth in hopes they can give me a more confident opinion.  (Ya, I know I shouldn't necessarily rely upon the word of someone trying to sell me services, thus my question here in this forum...)

Any help is appreciated. 

Thanks,
Trish

[LizK]

Good luck with it...yes the laser place is wanting to sell you the stuff but you can bet they want you to keep coming back. Red hair is not considered ideal for laser but by the sound of what you say, yours is very dark so it may well be fine. It might be worthwhile to even have a test patch done

[OCTrisha]

I went back to the laser studio today and spoke again with one of the techs after a couple days facial hair growth.  She (accurately) assessed that hair is about 1/3 brown, 1/3 red and 1/3 white... so she thought that the laser treatments would remove the brown, which I figured, but would only thin out the reddish hairs. 

I'm not surprised, but still pretty disappointed.  I could live with having to go w/electrolysis for just the white hairs, but knowing that the majority of my face couldn't work with laser is a big letdown.  Today is one of those days that feels like all of this is just too big of a hill to climb. 

[LizK]

Whilst I understand your disappointment that the laser could not deal with more, you might be very surprised at the result you get with laser...it might be worthwhile having, when you consider that 1/3 laser can deal with and another third it might affect...Lets say you need 150 hrs of Electrolysis for a full clearance and you can reduce that by 1/3,  that's 50 hours where you don't have to have Electrolysis and I am sure you would love to take 50 hours off your total? The likelihood is that it could be more depending on how many of the darker red hairs can be zapped...could save another 10 hrs...I was disappointed to find out laser couldn't do my entire face but I was grateful that it has taken care of 60% of it...leaving only 40% for electrolysis which is turning out to be close to the mark as far as time taken....

[OCTrisha]

Whilst I understand your disappointment that the laser could not deal with more, you might be very surprised at the result you get with laser...it might be worthwhile having, when you consider that 1/3 laser can deal with and another third it might affect...Lets say you need 150 hrs of Electrolysis for a full clearance and you can reduce that by 1/3,  that's 50 hours where you don't have to have Electrolysis and I am sure you would love to take 50 hours off your total? The likelihood is that it could be more depending on how many of the darker red hairs can be zapped...could save another 10 hrs...I was disappointed to find out laser couldn't do my entire face but I was grateful that it has taken care of 60% of it...leaving only 40% for electrolysis which is turning out to be close to the mark as far as time taken....

Thank you for your reply, Elizabeth.  I'm trying to figure out whether I even want to purse hair removal at all at the moment.  You make some really good points, but I don't know whether I want to transition, so I also don't know whether laser makes sense for me at this point.  But your points are valid... it's something I should consider. 

[esphoria]

I have the typical irish reddish brown (leaning on brown hair) for facial hair....after laser and how much fun I felt I'd say the process was pretty effective....I only have had one treatment so far but it seems to be working.  I don't think you'll have a problem unless you have significantly more red in your facial hair then I do

[rmaddy]

One thing that might help with consumers doubt is going to a provider who does both laser and electrolysis.  There will be less potential incentive for them to sell you something that isn't going to work.

I got really good results with laser, especially body hair, but on the face as well.  Thing is, you're still going to need electrolysis in the end.

[OCTrisha]

Thank you everyone for your responses to this thread.  All of your perspectives were valuable to me.  I decided to give laser a try and also start electrolysis (focusing on my neck and my white facial hairs - so sobering when you're only 40 years old!). 

I had my first appointment with the electrolysis technician today... she only worked on my neck and I hardly felt it.  It seemed to go well, but I know it's a marathon not a sprint. 

I still don't know whether I'll ever transition or not, but it feels good to start getting rid of some of this hair.  At the very least, it will make shaving in the morning that much easier. 

[Bari Jo]

Thank you everyone for your responses to this thread.  All of your perspectives were valuable to me.  I decided to give laser a try and also start electrolysis (focusing on my neck and my white facial hairs - so sobering when you're only 40 years old!). 

I had my first appointment with the electrolysis technician today... she only worked on my neck and I hardly felt it.  It seemed to go well, but I know it's a marathon not a sprint. 

I still don't know whether I'll ever transition or not, but it feels good to start getting rid of some of this hair.  At the very least, it will make shaving in the morning that much easier. 

Glad you started.  Yes it's a marathon and then some.  I'm trying to fit in as much electrolysis that money and time will allow.  I don't want to make shaving easier, I want to never shave again!    Which laser place you going  to?  I'm going to new look in Irvine.  I've only had one session for my chest, and 5 weeks later, the only growth I have are white hair.  I'll do electrolysis on those too!

[rmaddy]

Some of the body hair will drop away on HRT.  Not the face, unfortunately. 

[Maddie86]

I have strawberry blonde hair and my beard has always been a little more on the red side. I saw a laser technician back in May for a consultation and she said my skin type is type 2 and she thought that laser would work for me but it would just take longer. I decided to go ahead with a session, which was $300. I felt like I just threw my money away. I know I shouldn't expect results after one session, but I didn't feel confident going back. I found another place that did it that's much cheaper and when I went for my consultation with them the first thing their tech said was that it probably wouldn't work with my facial hair color. BUT, I'm wondering if sun exposure had anything to do with it. I know you're supposed to try and avoid sun exposure but I work outside a lot, so I can't, and after that first laser session my facial hair pretty much turned blonde. I'm going to wait until December and see if any color comes back to it and if it does I am going to try getting maybe one area of my face worked on, probably my mustache, and i'll see how it goes.

I've had 2 sessions of electrolysis so far, one back in July and one in August, and I have another one 2 weeks from today. Not ideal but I had a hard time finding a place in my town that could even get me in! I think I have 2 appointments scheduled in November and 2 for december, so hopefully things start moving a little faster. for my first 2 sessions she removed hairs from my cheek areas but she did it kinda spread out. I think I'm going to ask her to just start on my neck now and only work on that for a while. my neck is the area that gets the most irritated when I shave, so once that's all cleared I probably won't have an issue shaving my face every day. as of right now I can only shave my face every 2 or 3 days. it sucks.

[OCTrisha]

Hi Maddie,

I had my first laser treatment two and a half weeks ago and still have 9 more sessions planned over the next 9 months.  They were upfront with me in saying that laser might only remove half of my reddish-brown hair and thin out the other half.  They also told me that I'd likely see only a 10% reduction in hair after each session. 

So... based on all of that, don't necessarily get discouraged after one session.  Even laser is a marathon - not a sprint (unfortunately!).  Also, I've noticed that most laser places will give you a much better deal by buying a package of sessions instead of just one-off sessions.  This might make a lot more sense for you if your color is dark enough to get some benefit from laser (I can't tell from your pic, unfortunately). 

--Trisha