To understand how laser hair removal works, you first need to know how the hair growth process works. Of all the hair follicles in your body, only about 30% are active at any one time and the remaining 70% are either in resting or dormant phases.

Because the laser light is attracted to the follicle by the pigment in the hair, we are only able to treat active follicles. The dormant and resting follicles have no hair in the bulb, providing no target for the laser. Several factors can influence the activation of dormant follicles, such as hormones, medication, heredity, and body site.

Laser hair removal involves matching laser light and pulse duration to the follicle size, depth and location to inhibit the regrowth of the removed hair. A nurse will distribute the light of an Alexandrite Long Pulse Laser (755 nm) onto the skin to perform laser hair reduction.

The process by which lasers kill the follicles is really quite simple. The pigment or melanin in your hair absorbs the laser light energy. When it’s absorbed, the light is converted to heat. This overheating of the follicle cells permanently disables them. These follicles can never regrow hair. Because this entire process is dependent on melanin in the hair, we cannot effectively treat light, red, blond, gray or white hair.

The treatment sessions are spaced 6-8 weeks apart (for body) and 4-6 weeks apart (for face and neck). We do this because the follicles that were dormant during your first treatment will begin to enter their active phase and grow hair. This process is repeated 4-6 times, killing the once dormant follicles one cycle at a time.