I am doing both laser and regular electrolysis right now, basically because I am in my late 30's and about two years ago (before I decided that I was going to transition) my beard started to gray. *sigh*
I thought that perhaps doing a number of treatments with the laser would weed out a great deal of the dark hair. I got a package deal for five treatments with the Alexandrite laser for $1280. My fourth is coming up on December 6 (my third was in September). This current wave has been growing in, which has been a bit depressing -- my upper lip and my chin now has obvious dark hair again, although I never really had "shadow" except a bit on my lip. I was impressed with the earlier treatments -- about two weeks after each, I would shed a ton of hair and be completely clean-faced except for the whites. The laser technician has the laser up on full (I didn't see the point in holding back), and boy did it hurt even with topical numbing cream, but the swelling for me would go down within a few hours, with no scarring or anything.
Meanwhile, I've done eight treatments so far with a regular electrologist, to remove the whites. She's been wonderful and skilled, I have no problems with her whatsoever and love her personality, but I'm paying $100/hour. I have been fighting with wondering if I should look around further, because of the money, but I tend to be shy (so it's a pain to meet someone new), live in a fairly conservative area (so I wonder how many people I'll have to go through to find someone sympathetic as my current gal), and just have enough in my life to deal with to want to backtrack and "re-find" someone.
I doubt I would find anyone less than $75/hour around here.
It's hard to tell what is "coming back" and what isn't. Basically, some hairs are sitting dormant, occasionally even in the same pore (it's not unheard of), so although it looks like the same hair coming back, it might be a completely different hair. My electrologist says once she kills that white hair, it is gone; it's just other hairs coming out after hitting their growth cycle; and she's been in the business 20+ years and keeps up with her training and certification.
There is just a lot of hair on a person's face. And it takes quite awhile to clear. I'm more concerned about the laser treatments, since the technology is newer and it seems that it's easy for a technician to do a "bad" job, compared to traditional electro.
