I am contacting you after you were recommended by someone I hold in high esteem. I am a young Asian woman with an olive tan skin tone along with dark facial hair. I have had various treatments so far, including varieties of lasers that were sold as ‘lasers’ to me and I am very disappointed so far. Hair has reduced, but small growth consistently remains. Can you advise?
Facial hair on Asian skin with Laser hair removal will lead to a very considerable reduction of hair growth, but it is not 100% permanent removal. Expecting hair to completely vanish, without taking into account genes, the wonders of the human body, stresses and diet are unreasonable, to put it mildly.
laser hair removal Nd:Yag works very well on Asian skin, though you need to allow sufficient treatments, and ignore those Groupon ads claiming permanent hair removal “After 6 treatments” etc
You have stated that you have tried a variety of treatments, but you really need to focus on using the gold standard for darker skin other than Caucasian, and that is laser hair removal Nd:Yag.
You have stated the hair has reduced though some small growth keeps happening. This is normal as the laser is unable to remove all the hairs in one instance. The laser works in accordance with a cycle of hair growth phases, and hairs that are treated have to be within a correct phase in order to see results; this is the anagen phase (when hair is connected directly to your hair root and blood supply.)
If the hair is within any other phase such as the Catagen or Telogen hair growth phase then your hair will not be permanently disabled. The cycle will continue to repeat itself through all these three stages, hence why you are required to return within 4 – 6 weeks for your treatments, as the therapist is attempting to catch the hairs during the anagen phase.
However, even if we do manage to catch the hairs during the correct phase, any sudden hormonal imbalance, stress, new medication prescriptions or stages such as menopause can cause the hairs to return.
There are also ‘sleeping’ hair follicles, which are hair follicles that are not growing hair but can suddenly begin to grow at any time. The laser may sometimes stimulate the growth of these sleeping hair follicles.
Therefore face laser requires a lot of patience. Those who have medium growth do find that the process takes longer, you would require 6 – 12 sessions and then regular top-up sessions in order to keep maintaining the reduction.
You may notice that the upper lip and chin hairs disappear a lot faster than the cheeks and sideburns; this could be due to a large number of hair follicles in the area.
Don’t worry about the shaving, as the laser works well on a clean shaved area, as threading or plucking of the hairs from the root, would in fact promote more hair growth as you would re-supply blood to the hair root.
Realistically to achieve levels of 100% hair removal, you will want and need to undergo a maintenance program, whereby you return every 3, 6, or 8 months. This means that you will have to return for top-ups throughout the year.