The world of Laser Hair Removal & Electrolysis
In a world where removing body hair is the norm, there has to be a better way than shaving for the rest of our lives…
Dark follicles, shadows on the underarms, chicken skin legs and a prominent moustache. No, we are not describing the next character featured in the next big Sci-Fi movie. We are describing the pains of living with unwanted hair growth.
But why does it have to be a chore? Well, it doesn’t.
Laser and Electrolysis is your answer to those pains.
So how does it work?
Laser and Electrolysis have very similar principles but work in slightly different ways. The key to successful hair removal is to cauterise the blood supply that is feeding the hair to allow it to grow.
Laser does this by converting the colour of your hair (the hair has to have colour, brown or black) to heat. This heat then heats the bottom of the hair follicle, killing the Dermal Papilla- the powerhouse that keeps the hair growing.
Simple, the blood supply is cauterised and the hair doesn’t grow back.
Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case.
Your hair has 3 different hair cycles that they constantly go through in the process of growth. From the active cycle, to the changing cycle to the resting cycle. And when it comes to treatment, Laser and Electrolysis only work on active growing hair.
But as with all things in life, it’s not that straight forward.
Approximately only twenty percent of our hairs are actively growing at one time. You don’t know when those hairs are actively growing and neither do we… it is a trial and error and that brings us to why you need more than one treatment.
If only twenty percent of the hairs are growing at one time (and that’s provided you get the hair at the optimum stage of growth) you need to have numerous treatments to get all the hair. But as you progress through treatment the results can slow down, this is completely normal. This is because if you start with one hundred hairs and treat twenty percent of those in your first session you will treat twenty hairs and have eighty hairs left to treat for your next session.
On your next session, you will come with eighty hairs and treat twenty percent of those. But twenty percent of eighty is sixteen. Which means we are treating fewer hairs than in your first session. This is all part of how laser works and plays into why you need at least twelve sessions to get successful results.
With Electrolysis, we are doing the exact same as laser, cauterising the blood supply of active growing hairs. The difference with this treatment is we can treat all hair colours. This is because Electrolysis does not use the hair colour to convert to heat. It uses something called Diathermy and Galvanic. Diathermy is an electrical-induced heat that is carried to the base of the 
hair follicle via a very fine needle that is inserted into the follicle. Galvanic is a chemical reaction that creates a substance called lye. Lye diffuses into the hair follicle to cauterise the blood supply. Lye is great for curly hair follicles as curly hair follicles are slightly distorted so are harder to treat with a straight needle. As lye is created, it spreads in the skin getting to those curly follicles.
The difference with Electrolysis you have to physically insert the needle into each individual hair follicle, whereas with Laser you treat a mass of hairs in one go. This is why you need to have a lot more Electrolysis sessions for the same results as laser. Usually, seventy-plus treatments are recommended.
That being said we still have a large following for electrolysis in salon as it’s the only permanent hair removal system that you can treat lighter, blonde, grey and white hairs with.
With Laser, to manage the hair growth between sessions you need to shave the hair, as the laser picks up the colour of the root underneath the skin. With Electrolysis, you leave the hair to grow long enough so we can tweeze the hair out after treating.
However you decide to remove your hair we have a permanent hair removal solution for you, sometimes you will use a combination of hair removal techniques and we can advise you on the best way by booking a Hair Removal Consultation.