Zapping the Hair for Good
- Posted on: May 15 2018
No one likes shaving. Well, maybe your 14-year-old son who has just started sprouting a few facial hairs thinks shaving is cool, but everyone else hates it.
Shaving away unwanted hair is annoying, as well, because you do it over and over and over again. If you’ve ever seen that American movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray relives the same day over and over, that’s what shaving is.
But you can say goodbye to the razors and the wax, to the plucking and the nasty depilatory creams. All you have to do is call Dr. Perron and book a laser hair removal series.
How lasers remove hair
How lasers get rid of hair is kind of a mystery. Some people think the laser actually cuts the hair. But that would simply be another treatment that is only temporary. What’s key is to damage the body’s ability to grow the hair in the treatment area. This involves two keys — laser energy and the hair follicle. For permanent hair removal, the hair follicle’s bulb, bulge, and papilla must be destroyed.
The vehicle is laser energy. At Dr. Perron’s, we use the GentleMax Laser for hair removal. We calibrate the laser to the wavelength where the melanin in the hair will absorb the laser energy. Melanin is responsible for hair color. When the laser energy is delivered onto the target area, the melanin absorbs the energy. It converts to heat and travels down the hair shaft into the follicle. When it reaches the follicle the heat damages the follicle so that it cannot produce hair. Sometimes, if the follicle isn’t fully disabled, hair growth function can return in a few months.
Timing is everything
Just like Johnny Gaudreau and scoring goals, timing is everything when it comes to lasers and zapping hair. Only actively growing hair responds well to laser treatments because the hair has the most melanin in that phase. But in addition to the anagen (active growth) phase, there are telogen (no growth), and cathagen (hair ejection) phases. The human body has around five million hair follicles; men have a few hundred thousand more than women. All of those hairs are in different phases at different times. Plus, different areas of the body have more hairs in anagen phases than others, because hair growth is more important in those areas.
That’s why it takes multiple laser hair removal sessions to get the maximum hair reduction. Each client is unique, but in general you can expect to need between four and eight treatments, spaced six to 12 weeks apart. These numbers vary by the body location of the unwanted hair. Also, some areas grow hair more densely. Compare, for instance, a man’s beard area with chest hair. Big difference in hair density.
Isn’t it about time to get rid of your unwanted hair permanently? Call Dr. Perron at (403) 228-7076 to make a laser hair removal appointment.
Posted in: Laser Hair Removal