How do you deal with this after laser? I tried covering it up last night for my therapy appointment, and it just looked horrible, no matter what I did. It's almost like prickly orange peel skin. I assume it has something to do with all of those dead hair follicles that are stuck there - can't even get them with a close shave... Darn those Italian genetics...

Any tips? does this get better over time? This is my second treatment, and I remember the first was about as bad. Such a disheartening photo (for me) but here is what it looks like, yuck!!!


One more yucky photo to show what I'm talking about. Almost looks like little blackheads all over, and forget covering it up. Btw this is two days post treatment:

after a laser session your skin is basically like sun burned and you should avoid touching it or doing things that would make you sweet.  I wait till around the next morning to shave and I use Gillette Fusion ProGlide Power Razor, It basically vibrates and gives a super close have.

I didn't do anything for about a week after laser my skin was just too sensitive to shave. It sucks but you kind of have to just wait it out.

I think I lucked out because although for the first 24hrs I could feel the sunburn I certainly didn't have the kind of marking you have. But I did have some issues with pigmentation change. However they came right after few days. I am set to have my second treatment next week, I also am lucky enough to have a light beard cover. I assume those black dead hairs will drop out? I couldn't see any at the end of my session but you could see where they had been.

Yeah my first couple treatments were really bad. Horrible horrible acne. They gave me aquaphor to rub on it and I covered it up as much as I could with foundation as well (not that that's very helpful for the healing heh).

After my first laser session I had pretty heavy bruising and redness. It took almost two weeks for it to go away but after the first few sessions, my skin and hair started reacting more positively to the laser. To smooth out the prickly and dead hairs, do a light exfoliation while taking a hot shower about 24-48hrs after then try to shave a few days after that. Also when I started laser I was already about a year and a half into hrt and so my facial had softened up quite a bit by then, which helps a bunch with the prickly issue. This is coming from a person who has super hairy genetics

If I have a 5 o'clock shadow I use Skin79 BB cream, it is moisturising and works like a treat for covering up stubble, redness or soreness. Use your hands to apply all over the face then add extra with a stipple brush over prominent areas if required [emoji4]

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

Sorry your so sore after laser treatment. I found microdermabrasian by bodyshop really helps. Gives a deep cleanse but doesn't aggravate my skin at all. Im always fine to shave the next day then.

Wow! some horrible skin reactions mentioned in this thread so sorry to hear of them
I'm quite lucky in having really resilient skin, with my only issue being occasional ingrown hairs, but I get quite bad 'stuck hairs' a bit like the TA, although they are a lot finer and lighter than hers, it's the little bumps that bug me, especially near/below the corners of my mouth.. weird hair there :/
I'll say what I do, but I do have very resilient skin, and it might be far to aggressive for you... so please be careful.
I have slightly olive skin, Fitzpatrick scale 3-4 (3.5) so laser (yag) is really ouchie, I use tramadol to survive it now, as I've been about 7 times and she's turned it up really high, she's super careful but she is surprised my skin is ok with it, my skin basically feels a bit hot for about 10 minutes and then I'm back to normal The laser is really effective, but I have a lot of light and translucent hair, and I'm running out of dark hair...electro time soon 
Anyway, I exfoliate very thoroughly every morning in the shower with exfoliation gloves, I put wee bit of shampoo on them to help them slide over the skin but they still help to free the stuck hairs from their bumps.. I'm super careful to keep the gloves sterile, so rinse them with a bit of bleach before use every time.
I then shave, use a ingrown hair solution (Nad's), and then moisturise thoroughly, I usually give it two 'coats' lol.
I do this every day, and have no problems doing it the morning after laser, I'm just a bit less aggressive with the exfoliation..
This works well for me, and has gotten rid of 90% of my ingrown and stuck hair issues
I do have to stress, this works well for me but it might not work for anyone else, I do have really quite resilient skin.. so maybe some bits of this could help, who knows
Claire

In my non medical opinion, that is to be expected.

You have dark hair and fair skin, a perfect candidate for laser.

The hairs are more noticeable after treatment and until they shed over ten or so days, it will look like you have quite the shadow. The good news is there is good news. What is the good news you ask? Well, you just zapped away a bunch of hair. Just wait and see! You will never have a laser session on your face as ugly as the first one. On top of that, you may not even have to use makeup to cover your shadow after three or four sessions!

So, yeah recovering from the first session can suck... but with skin and hair like yours, you have it SO much easier than many others.

Grow your beard out for a couple days before shaving and going to your next session and you will REALLY see how much this first session got.

I always had breakouts and faster "growth" after the first week. It always went away for me.

I remember that! *Looks in mirror*, yep, still got some myself. I used to look a lot like that too, tho I think I have a bit darker skin color.

According to my gal, I had the thickest amount of facial hair that she has done so far! Sadly, not really a good thing in my case. It's definitely taken a long time to remove, two years this April I believe.

It wasn't so bad for me at first. I always had a permanent 5 o'clock shadow so it wasn't really noticeable, idt so at least..It got pretty awkward say maybe a year or so ago for me. Was still mostly in male mode, def in the closet bout everything too, and I had big areas of my face that were clear and then I had patches like that mixed in. It looked soooo bad, like I did a half-assed shave job and it was so noticeable! In my case, it takes about a week, maybe a bit longer, before it goes away and can get clean shave; so for about half the time (I think was going every 4-6 weeks), I looked and felt like hell. I got uncomfortable enough about it that I actually went to a drug store at like midnight one night and asked the sales ladies about trying to cover it with something my laser gal recommended...That was a huge thing, and totally awkward for all, lol...Still total boy mode for me then, still in the closet to most but ya, I started wearing a little bit of makeup all the time to cover it, while trying to keep everything secret.

I think it helped a little bit. I felt better about it after I started do that at least. I thought I got away with it, keeping it secret but at least some people noticed I later found out; they just didn't say anything at the time. For me personally, there was no way I could've gone out in girl mode during the times that it was bad; I would make up for it when it was ok tho, lol.

Thank you for the many replies! I think I'm seeing here that it can be a little different for everyone, but I am trying some of the things you all have and it seems like I'm finding what works! This was my second treatment, and hoping for as good of results from this one as after the first. Also hoping the patchy thing gets better over time, definitely have a few bald spots LOL.

I was able to cover it up and have a girls afternoon/night without lamenting too much about it, so that is good Definitely noticing shaving in general is far easier, as well as covering. Like before, I could not go against the grain on my chin or lip EVER, but now I can.

wow i am not getting this from my laser sessions.  I guess the intensity is to low

Quote from: archlord on December 14, 2015, 08:01:31 PM
wow i am not getting this from my laser sessions.  I guess the intensity is to low

Possible they have it to low, I'm no professional though. Worth asking your laser treatment specialist about it. One note though, my hair is very thick. Not super dense, but definitely thick. I recall reading from you somewhere that you have pretty sparse facial hair to begin with. So maybe that's why there isn't as noticeable of a reaction? Anyways, it took some time to see what the results of first treatment looked like, so I'll post up once I can see more of what happened with this session. I'm pretty sure they used a higher intensity, so it will be interesting to see if I note any more reduction.

Btw I saw the pic of your lips b4 and after, pretty crazy!! 

Shave close before your next laser session. This way more follicles and less hair is burnt. After two weeks all that stubble will fall out leaving smooth skin. After a couple of days exfoliate to help the dead hairs come out.