By Laser hair removal may seem relatively new, but it actually has a long history of experimentation before it was ever used for laser hair removal. For 20 years before it became commercially available, laser hair removal was used only in experiments to determine if it was going to be safe for humans. By the mid-1990s, it was becoming widely used by consumers and in 1998 the first published article that described laser hair removal was published by a group of doctors at the Massachusetts General Hospital. The year before the publication of that study, FDA of the USA approved laser hair removal for permanent hair reduction.
The process functions with through discriminatory photothermolysis. This means that there is selective damage done to the hair, using concentrated light in a variety of wavelengths depending on the individual’s skin and hair type. The laser will cause localized damage to the melanin, which is the dark matter around the area that grows hair, which is the follicle. The great thing is that the light damages follicle, effectively destroying it, but does not heat up the rest of the skin. The light is completely absorbed by the dark melanin and follicle.
Melanin is the most commonly targeted part of the hair by lasers currently in use today. Melanin gives both skin and hair its colors, and in hair there is eumelanin, which creates brown or black hair, and pheomelanin, which creates blonde and red hair. Since lasers target dark melanin, only eumelanin or dark hair can be targeted with any degree of efficiency.
Typically, laser hair removal will work the best on dark and coarse hair. If the customer has light skin and dark hair, they have the ideal combination and it is also quicker and safer. There are new lasers that can target dark hair on dark skin. If there is white hair or blond hair on light skin, it cannot be removed by lasers.
Men and women will get laser hair removal done, but women account for most of the laser hair removal market. Typically, laser hair removal will be done in areas that a person has to shave a lot and no longer wants to shave. The places that are most commonly treated by laser hair removal are as follows;
- Abdominal
- Arms
- Back
- Bikini
- Chest
- Facial
- Legs
- Underarm
How much does laser hair removal cost?
The most expensive areas to treat are the back, legs and face because of the number of hairs and the size of area. The cheapest areas to treat are the toes, hands, underarms, bikini area, earlobe, lip and chin.
