I've noticed over the last few years that I spontaneously find new hairs growing in new places. I'm planning to wait until my partner and I conceive a child and bank some sperm before starting hormones but would like to get rid of my facial and chest hair asap. I worry, though, that it might be wasteful to do laser before hormones if I'm going to have new hairs growing in.

What does everyone think?

now it a good time.  Once you begin full time it is harder, as a lot of us know.

I'd start on the face asap... all hormones do is slow the rate of growth and make the hairs a little finer. I started laser around the same time as hrt but wish I'd started sooner. HRT does thin out the chest hair (as in a percentage of follicles stop growing) depending on how much you start with you may want to consider it later down the track, but I'd wait to see what effect hrt has on it first.. maybe 2-5 years.

As Janet said, it's definitely harder after HRT.  I had 7 laser sessions before I began, and whereas the shriveled hairs used to take two or three days to grow out, they took 12 days after my last session.  Those shriveled hairs are like dark clumps beneath the surface (they really are shriveled up hairballs) that are EXTREMELY difficult to cover with makeup.  I'm full time and so the bumpy, dark upper lip is quite distressing to me when it's there.

Also, for electrolysis, it used to take a day and a half to grow enough hair to tweeze, and now it takes three.