Laser Hair Removal: Stories

I had this done at the Cleveland Clinic's cosmetic surgery department and I paid about $1500 for five sessions. I could have gotten it done at a salon for a few hundred less, but I felt that it was worth it to be sure I was getting a safe, professional job. I had my upper lip and chin done, and each was billed separately. I also have a unibrow and the technician threw in treatments of my between-brow area for free (although she refused to do the full area I wanted done, since she was afraid of using the laser that close to my eyes). Treatments were quite painful for a couple of seconds at the time of the laser blast, but post-treatment irritation was very minimal. I've had electrolysis and that hurt worse than the laser, both during and after. Plus, with eltrolysis, each painful zap treats only one hair -- with the laser, I needed only about 15 zaps to treat my whole face each time. The results were everything I'd hoped for. My thick, dark hairs did not grow back. I needed several treatments, because hairs were in growth cycles at different times. That also meant that it took several months to see full results, since new untreated hairs that had been in dormant cycles started sprouting shortly after treatments (treatments are spaced 8-12 weeks apart to account for growth cycles). But after about three treatments, I had almost no hairs. And after the last few, I was basically hair-free. A year after my last treatment, I've gone from pretty much daily tweezing to weekly plucking of one or two strays that missed getting sapped. Based on what I've heard, I will probably need to get a follow-up treatment or two in a few years. That's fine. It was totally worth the money and I highly recommend this treatment to anyone with unwanted hair.