Hi! I just joined this forum and this is my first post here. I saw a useful discussion here warning people that vellus hairs can actually be stimulated to become thicker after laser hair removal or IPL. The women here sounded like they knew what they were talking about, so I thought I’d pose some questions here: I live in India and have what one therapist said is Type 5 skin on the Fitzpatrick scale. It’s brown but is several shades lighter than black skin. I know IPL hair removal is usually painful but I found one clinic that gave me a patch test where they demo’d a range of settings. One was I think 5 and was totally painless. Level seven caused some heat. My question is, does IPL at the lowest settings work? She said I would need more sessions since it would be less effective. But since she is offering a lifetime package I can always return for more sittings at no extra expense. But my question is, is it at all effective? I can take it being LESS effective but what if it has zero effect? I won’t know because though the hair took time to grow back from the patch test, she also did higher settings in the test, so that may have been what retarded the hair growth for a couple months. If IPL at low settings can be effective, why don’t more therapists use it? I suspect they don’t because they know it won’t work or will take much longer to work. I have over the course of the last couple of years had 12 sessions of underarm hair removal. 5 were with IPL and were very painful. Seven were with a painless diode laser. Everyone says laser is more effective than IPL but I have not found it to be so. The IPL did remove 50% of my hair. The laser has diminished that further but I still have at least 25% hair left. Perhaps that is because they used very low settings to ensure it was practically painless? When they made the setting higher, I did feel heat and pricks of pain. The therapist also seems surprised that after 12 sessions in all, my hair still grows. I have had tests done and have no hormonal problem. Maybe it’s the darker skin which is the problem? I read of women on the net whose hair disappears in 6 sessions and I am amazed but then I remember they are white. Thanks for any help.
Re: Is painless IPL hair removal effective?
We will have to ask Sehwag. He lost all his hair as soon as he started playing in IPL.