Your very first removal of hair by laser appointment can be exhilirating or nerve-wracking or both! Here is a checklist of things to think about:

A month or more before your appointment

Talk about pain prevention with your laser clinic for hair removal and choose a plan.

There are topical anesthetics such as EMLA, which you apply to your skin. These products are worth using if you are concerned about pain during the treatment, however do be careful if you are applying it to large areas of skin as the chemicals are absorbed into the bloodstream. Ensure you follow the instructions carefully.

Decide whether you wish to take photographs of the body areas you are having treated to monitor how well the treatment works. The clinic may do this but even so you may want to take some also.

Lose your tan! The paler your skin is at the point you get your laser hair removal treatment, the more effective and long lasting your results from hair laser removal are likely to be.

It’s important to stop epilating, tweezing, sugaring, waxing and using depilation creams a minimum of 2 weeks prior to treatment, and if possible a month or more in advance. These depilation methods interfere with the follicle that the laser hair removal treatment aims to blast.

During the week of your appointment

Post treatment side effects are pretty uncommon, assuming that your appointment for laser hair removal is with a high quality clinic who have properly cared for equipment and well experienced staff. However your skin will probably be red after the treatment so if you are getting laser facial hair removal then you might want to consider the option of whether you need to take the rest of the day off work if you’re at all concerned about colleagues knowing you had something done.

The night before

This is a good time to shave the body areas you are going to have laser hair removal done on. If you shave within 24 hours of the procedure you will find it is less painful and it can also be more effective because less of the laser energy is used on destroying the hair above the skin, meaning more of it is directed where it is most useful, at the follicle, to kill it off.

Just a few hours to go

If you are getting the hairs under your arms lasered, don’t apply any deodorant. Just wash your underarms with soap and rinse thoroughly. If it’s a hot day and there’s a danger you might get too sweaty prior to your appointment, you could use unperfumed baby wipes to prevent any smells.

For any body areas, don’t put lotions or creams on before hair laser removal.

The last 20 minutes

Now is the time to take two oral painkillers – there’s no need to feel more pain than you have to when having laser hair removal.

Good luck with your laser hair removal treatment!

Ingrid Preube
facial hair removal cream

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 at 7:55 am and is filed under Healthy Living. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.