Permanent Hair Reduction – How Permanent Is It?

Permanent Hair Removal: One of the important questions about 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 good question! To comprehend how permanent laser hair removal is you need to have an understanding how hair grows and how laser hair removal works. Let’s look at each of these subjects.

How Does Hair Grow?

Hair grows from structures termed follicles underneath your skin. The root grows in the follicle, and the section of the hair that can be seen above your skin is termed the “shaft” of the hair. Your body hair grows cyclically. At any one time, the hair in a number of your follicles will be actively growing; other hair follicles will be dormant, and yet others will be in the process of shedding.

Laser Hair Removal Mechanism

Reduction of undesirable body hair or even permanent removal is now feasible for most skin and hair colorings. Laser hair reduction treatment works by targeting hair roots under your skin. It is possible for the laser rays to hone in on your hair roots because of the pigment these cells contain, which means that they are darker than the surrounding tissues.

However, this does mean that the efficacy of laser hair removal therapy is dependent on the contrast in color between your hair roots and your skin. In other words, it works most effectively if you have very fair skin and very dark hair – where there is a strong contrast between the dark color of your hair roots and the paleness of your surrounding skin tissues.

Even in ideal circumstances, however, the lasers do not kill off all of your hair. Why? Because the lasers can only target actively growing hairs. As we learned earlier, only a certain proportion of your body hair in any one body area will be actively growing. This is the reason that laser hair removal sessions are usually spaced 4 – 6 weeks apart – so that different follicles will be active at your next session, and can be effectively treated.

To Close

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 truly viable solution for excess body hair.

Ingrid Preube