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Laser and IPL Hair Removal
Light-based hair removal is one of the few paid cosmetic procedures that actually does what it claims, on one of the deepest evidence bases in dermatology Haedersdal and Wulf 2006. But whether it works on you is mostly decided before you book, by one thing the clinic can't sell you around: the contrast between your hair colour and your skin colour. Get the match right and half to two-thirds of the treated hair is gone for good, the rest finer.
Do Β· Course Evidence Moderate Chapter Lookmaxxing

The light is tuned to the pigment in the hair, which turns it to heat and kills the cells at the base of the follicle that regrow it 1. Your skin pigment competes for the same light, so the darker your skin the narrower the safety margin. And only an actively growing follicle has a shaft to catch the light, so one session is never enough: a course sweeps up the follicles dormant last time.

Across the trials, hair counts settle at roughly 30 to 60% of baseline after a six-session course, survivors coming back thinner and lighter 2. A four-way underarm comparison put every device between 67 and 84% reduction at six months 3. The word the regulators allow is "permanent reduction". Home IPL devices are real but weaker: 38 to 68% on small areas over twelve weeks 4.

Three cases the physics decides for you. Dark coarse hair on light-to-medium skin is the win: alexandrite or diode, fewer sessions, low risk. Dark skin needs long-pulsed Nd:YAG, because everything else burns the skin before the follicle 5. Grey, white, blonde, or red hair has no pigment for the light to grab, so no light device touches it; that group wants electrolysis.

Screen yourself, then screen the clinic.

The arc. By session two or three the field is visibly thinner and stays smooth longer between shaves. Three to six months after the last session the count plateaus: on a well-matched area, 50 to 70% fewer terminal hairs, survivors finer 6. A year or two on you're booking the odd touch-up, and the background habit of tracking when you last shaved has closed. For women with PCOS, facial hair is one of the syndrome's most distressing symptoms, and a course paired with prescribed anti-androgen therapy lifts it measurably 7. Some hair survives and maintenance never hits zero, but the chore ends.

The fine print β€” when to skip it, and what people get wrong

Courses fail for the same reasons: the fluence was set too low to sell a gentler-sounding session 8; the device was wrong for the skin; or the patient showed up waxed, or stretched the sessions so far apart the cadence stopped matching the hair cycle.

Defer during pregnancy, active herpes near the site, or recent isotretinoin. Flag photosensitising drugs and any autoimmune photosensitivity. No treatment inside the bony eye rim, or straight over tattoos.

"IPL is laser": no, it's a filtered flashlamp, with a narrower safety margin on dark skin. "Works on all colours" means fine vellus hair or a bolt-on, not grey or blonde. "Home device is clinic-grade": it's capped well below clinic power on purpose 4.

References
  1. 1Anderson RR, Parrish JA (1983). Selective photothermolysis: precise microsurgery by selective absorption of pulsed radiation. Science. link
  2. 2Dierickx CC (2000). Hair removal by lasers and intense pulsed light sources. Dermatologic Clinics. link
  3. 3Toosi P, Sadighha A, Sharifian A, Razavi GM (2006). A comparison study of the efficacy and side effects of different light sources in hair removal. Lasers in Medical Science. link
  4. 4Thaysen-Petersen D, Bjerring P, Dierickx C, Nash JF, Town G, Haedersdal M (2014). A systematic review of light-based home-use devices for hair removal and considerations on human safety. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. link
  5. 5Battle EF, Hobbs LM (2004). Laser-assisted hair removal for darker skin types. Dermatologic Therapy. link
  6. 6Haedersdal M, Wulf HC (2006). Evidence-based review of hair removal using lasers and light sources. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. link
  7. 7Schroeter CA, Raulin C, ThΓΌrlimann W, Reineke T, De Potter C, Neumann HA (2004). Hair removal in 40 hirsute women with an intense laser-like light source. European Journal of Dermatology. link
  8. 8Lanigan SW (2003). Incidence of side effects after laser hair removal. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. link
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