The Removal of Hair Permanently: One of the important questions concerning permanent laser hair removal that we get asked every day is: “Just how permanent is removal of hair by laser? Can it really work for the long term?”
This is a vital question! To get an idea for how permanent laser hair removal is you need to have an understanding how hair grows and how laser hair removal works. Let’s investigate both of these topics.
How Does Hair Grow?
Hair originates from structures termed follicles under your skin. The root grows in the follicle, and the part of the hair that shows above your skin is termed the “shaft” of the hair. Your body hair grows in a cyclic way. At any one point in time, the hair in some of your follicles will be actively growing; other hairs will be dormant, and yet others will be in the process of shedding.
How Laser Hair Removal Works
Reduction of excess body hair or even permanent removal is now possible for most skin and hair types. Laser hair reduction therapy works by targeting hair root cells under your skin. It is possible for the laser rays to hone in on your hair root cells because of the melanin these cells contain, which makes them darker than the ambient tissues.
However, the result is that the efficacy of laser hair removal services is dependent on the contrast in color between your hair root cells and your skin. That is to say, it works best on people with very white skin and very dark hair – where there is a strong contrast between the dark color of your hair root cells and the pale color of your ambient skin tissues.
Even in ideal patients, however, the lasers do not kill off all of your hair. Why is this? Because the lasers can only hone in on actively growing hairs. As we saw earlier, only a proportion of your body hair in any one body area will be actively growing. This is the reason why laser hair removal treatments are usually spaced 4 – 6 weeks apart – so that different follicles will be active at your next visit, and can be effectively “zapped”.
Conclusion
Because of the mechanism by which laser hair removal works, while it may disable a significant proportion of the follicles it will not cause a 100% stoppage in all body hair growth in the treated area. However, an 80% reduction in hair is entirely possible – permanent laser hair removal is a real solution for unwanted body hair.
Ingrid Preube
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