All about my laser (body) hair removal

Or, how laser didn’t hurt as much as I thought except in the bank account.

I was a really hairy person, which means I’d normally be a great candidate for laser hair removal. This method is best at reducing the amount of body hair you have in large swaths (as opposed to electrolysis, where they fry them one by one). But… my hair was pretty light in color, and laser works best with a high contrast: pale skin and dark hair. Pale skin? Check. Dark hair? Not exactly.

Throw in the fact that some of my hair has turned white (as not-dark as you can get, I guess), and I went in to my laser experience knowing there were sections of hair that would not be affected at all (mostly on my chest and in my beard).

But, as my hair-related dysphoria progressed, I decided to take the plunge anyway. The consultant I met with said, “If I can see your follicles, the laser can see them, too.” That may have been a marketing line, but it was still nice to hear.

Let’s not bury the lede, I am amazed at what laser hair removal did for me. I do not regret the money spent. I still needed a lot of electrolysis. (A lot of electrolysis, that process is sloooow.) I heartily recommend it for me. You will need to decide for yourself.

Here are some things you need to know about laser hair removal. Caveat: I am not a hair removal technician, so don’t quote me, but this is the gist of it:

• Laser hair removal is not officially “hair removal.” It is, by government definition, “hair reduction.” If you have a lot of hair, you will have less afterwards. You will still have hair.
• Hair follicles grow in waves. At any given point in time, only some of your follicles actually have hair growing out of them. Others may have hair coming out of them, but that hair is no longer growing (it will eventually fall out, say in your hairbrush or your tub, this is true for hair on your body as it is for hair on your head). Still other follicles may have just dropped a dead hair, and may not be actively growing a new hair yet. Laser only works on actively growing hair follicles, so you will need to come in several times to “clear” one section of your body.
• Because of this growth pattern, they will want to wait as much as five weeks (or ten if you are near the end) between treatments for an area, to let the follicles grow. This means a full course of laser treatment can take a very long time.
• Sometimes, hair follicles don’t die. In fact (and this is true in electrolysis, too) a treated follicle may still make new hair, though it may be thinner and lighter and easier to treat the next time. Multiple treatments are necessary to get results you will like.
• Testosterone can fuck with your hair removal. Like the bastard it is, it kills the hair on your head, but tries to make all your other hair faster, better, stronger. It will behoove you to do something about your testosterone level if you really want hair removal (of any kind) to be successful.
• Hair removal in the groin (my place delightfully calls it the “Brazilian” area) can take a while and is also not perfect. It can reduce large swaths of hair there, but if you want it all gone, electrolysis will also be needed.
• If you’re getting hair removed in the groin, you’re gonna be naked, and someone is going to peer at your nether regions.
• They will begin by treating your area(s) at a low laser intensity. They will do this level a couple of times, maybe, and then they will turn the power up a little. Repeat. Turn the power up. Repeat, etc. They are checking to see how much your skin can tolerate. The heat, the pain, and the amount of time the marks on your body remain will also go as you continue to show up for procedures.
• They want you to come in with the areas they will work on shaved already. So yeah, since I was working on the whole body I was spending the whole day before shaving my entire skin, basically. The laser works best with hair as short as possible, so the energy does not have long to travel (and dissipate) before reaching the root.
• (Edit to add) When you leave a session, the area they worked on will have a grid drawn on it with a soft white crayon. It is so they remember where they have been during a session (nobody needs to get zapped in the same place twice right away, ouch). Be aware of this if you are planning to go somewhere right after. It comes off with a washcloth and some water and some (gentle!) scrubbing, or the next time you shower.

You want to talk about the pain. I have a very high pain threshold. I know this about myself. My laser technicians can essentially “machine gun” the laser along my skin, and fly through a procedure. This is not the case for many people, and your mileage will most definitely vary from mine.

Some areas of your body will be more sensitive than others. Ankles, for example, or the back of the knee. This may also be different for different people.

Towards the end of my course of treatment, they had raised the laser power quite a bit, and in one memorable instance, I commented after that I now understood what people meant when they said laser hurt a whole lot. Like, “Oh, this is what they mean. Ow, ow, ow, ow.”

Okay, those are the basics of what laser is like. Now, this is how it went for me:

• After a little looking around, but not a ton of research, I chose to go with Milan Hair Removal, a national chain with several locations where I live. Why? I liked the free consult. They (at least at the time) only offered lifetime packages, rather than hourly packages. So, I could buy a full course of hair removal for, say, my arms, however long that took. I could come back in years later for a touch up if hair returned. I could go to any other location, nationwide. As long as Milan Hair Removal remains in business, of course.
• I chose to have them work on my entire body. I had hair in quantity everywhere. It was thousands upon thousands of dollars. Five figures thousands of dollars. Be sure to call and ask before setting your heart on this path.
• It took me just shy of two years to get to the point where I was ready to stop. I am not hairless, I have lots of little, thin, light hair: I am still a little fuzzy. I will probably shave here and there when I am interested in doing so, armpits, maybe my arms. I will go back in to have them work on my forearms again. My chest and my face still need daily shaving (see: white hair, electrolysis takes a long time, etc.). My groin remains pretty hairy.
• That said, it takes a lot of up close squinting to see the hair on my legs. It is definitely there, and I will shave them before the start of shorts season, but that may be the only time I shave them all year. My belly, back, and shoulders are fine. I can’t see my butt, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
• I mostly quit because I wanted to get some tattoos, and Milan (and other laser places, I expect) won’t work on tattooed skin.
• Fuck it’s cold in those treatment rooms. I guess the laser machines need it to be cold. They have towels you can use to cover the parts of your body not being treated at the moment.
• At Milan, the front staff, the technicians, the manager, everyone there was incredibly affirming and supportive of my identity as a transgender person. I was not shy about that (I never am) and they were not just professional, but welcoming. After my vulvoplasty, when they were doing some work in Brazil (as it were), the woman working with me was complimentary and affirming.
• I would recommend Milan in a heartbeat. Their treatment model is more expensive than buying a few hours of laser from another place. It was worth it to me. Ymmv.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something important, and it’ll come to me or someone will ask a very pertinent question, and I’ll update this post or link it to a follow on post. At the moment, this is all I can come up with.