I had my first laser treatment against facial hair a couple of days ago. The initial redness of the skin went away within less than a day, but instead my skin's been bursting out in what looks like acne, but I suspect that it is inflamed hair follicles. Is this normal?

Also: what percentage of hairs did you get rid of with the first treatment? For me maybe five percent of the hairs came off during the treatment, but very few after that.

So is this normal, or should I suspect incompetence/bad equipment? Very grateful for input, so that I can figure out if I should make another appointment with the same studio.

Hi
I had 5 treatments with alexandrite laser, provides better results and less complications than diode laser. Not on HRT yet, but decided to go, as the only way to get rid of the 5 o'clock shadow. It is worth to mention that my facial hair is half dark and half grey. Results on dark hair after the 1st treatment were amazing. After a week they started falling, or could be easily pulled with fingers or tweezers. Grey ones were not affected. I was not shawing during this period, as first the hair folicules die and then your skin is pushing them out, this will allow them to have enough length for pulling out with fingers or tweezers. If you shawe then might end up wut a lot of very short, milimeter or less hair, that will get stuck in skin and look like a dark spot. After the second week all of dark hairs were gone. Of course I did not have patience to wait them to fall and pulled them with fingers or tweezers. Remember those with dead folicles should come out easy , do not pull those where you feel tension or resistance, they are not ready.
When dark hair was gone I just shaved the grey ones. I plan to treat them with electrolysis.

Be ready that some hair will grow again after 2 months (which was the recommended time between laser treatment sessions), but if you are on HRT it should be much less than before.

Re acne like skin. This is normal, unless there is big inflammation and redness. Should be gone after 5 days. The reason for this is the cebum. Cebum is the oil produced by your skin to lubricate skin and hair. After the laser you have a very thin layer of dead skin, burned by the laser. Treated hair grows slowly, but the cebum is still produced and blocked by the dead skin layer, there is no hair that could penetrate the skin and allow cebum to get out.
I had the same, but would define it as a very mild acne. The best thing you can do is to wash you face gently with face skin cleaning product   and water.
In case you notice excessive inflammation or redness the best thing us to consult your hair removal specialist.

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That happened to me. Sometimes it lasts up to about 2 weeks, then it starts to heal. Usually it heals and then its time for my next session. However since the results are amazing, its worth it.

This happened to me, but I was over treated.

As for hairs coming out, some of them were still coming out at 2 weeks.

Yeah one time they were really concerned about my sun exposure. So they turned it down a bit. It took closer to 3-4 weeks for the hairs to come out that time.

Trillian: Thank you for your input! With regards to the effect, it sounds like I should probably try to be more patient. We'll see - tomorrow it's been a week, so I'm hoping the hairs will start falling out.

I have very coarse, dark and dense beard growth. I know that because of this the technician used a very low intensity setting so as to not inflict too much pain and/or skin damage. I therefore suspect that I can't expect the same swift results as you describe.

As for shaving... I guess I should try not to. I hate the stubble, though. I planned to skip shaving this morning, but then I kinda did it anyway. :/

Being a science geek I've been looking in the scientific literature for comparisons between alexandrite and diod lasers, but every article I've found has stated that the differences in both desired effects and side effects are small to none. Most of the studies are relatively small though, and I haven't found any studies on removal of beard growth, so maybe that is different?

With regards to the inflammation, I would neither characterise it as mild, nor as severe. It's enough to be annoying, but does not seem like cause for real concern. It's slowly improving, so that's good. :-)

Quote from: awilliams1701 on September 23, 2015, 12:45:50 PM
That happened to me. Sometimes it lasts up to about 2 weeks, then it starts to heal. Usually it heals and then its time for my next session. However since the results are amazing, its worth it.

Thanks, that's comforting!

Quote from: jessical on September 23, 2015, 01:02:41 PM
This happened to me, but I was over treated.

As for hairs coming out, some of them were still coming out at 2 weeks.

How do I know if I'm over-treated, though?

I got a few second opinions on it.  I had a large amount of redness as well.

I bruised pretty badly after my first laser appointment. It got better by the 3rd. The power of the machine was gradually increased each laser session.

I still shave every day. I was recently very sick when I had my wisdom teeth pulled and didn't shave for nearly 4 days. It was a LOT thinner, but it was all lighter colored hair as in the color the laser can't treat. Shaving may not help the hairs fall out faster, but it doesn't hurt it either. I have almost no dark colored hairs left. I'll need to get electrolysis soon for the rest, but I still have at least 1 more laser session.

I just had my third laser treatment and already the results are very noticeable.  My 5 oclock shadow is lessened and I notice that even the grey hair is thinning out and not growing as quickly any more.   I have sensitive skin so my laser technician gave me something called "Laser Enzyme Gel" by Elta MD Skincare.    It definitely helps heal the redness and reduces the severity of the break outs.   I also am careful to use sunscreen whenever I am outside.    I need to shave for work but that doesnt seem to have any negative impacts.

All in all I am really pleased with the laser treatment.