Laser Hair Removal: is 4 Months Between Treatments Too Long a Wait?

Each treatment for laser hair removal treats those follicles actively growing hair.  As our follicles are all in different phases of growth, only some are active at any point in time.  For this reason, it is generally not adviseable to have treatments too close together.  Waiting at least 4 weeks between treatments should be enough time for a large group of follicles to have become active and so to become sensitive to the laser treatment.  However, there is nothing to be lost by going longer between treatments except for prolonging the ultimate outcome of maximum hair reduction.  If you really like this clinic, you will not be harmed by waiting until they have availability.

waiting longer in between laser hair removal appointments than 4 - 6 weeks should not adversely affect  your end result. The theory is not to treat you too soon after your last treatment to allow hairs to grow in a new cycle and benefit from the laser energy. By you waiting longer you are ensuring that there will be more hairs in the active growth cycle when you will be treated than if you had it done too soon after the last treatment and treatment during the active cycle is most effective. The more hairs that are growing in the active cycle vs. the dormant or intermediate cycles at a given time, make the laser hair removal treatment more successful.

Hi Siouxella.  The correct answer to the question is that it depends.  The hair growth cycle is different lengths for different areas of the body.  In some cases, the hair growth cycle can be as short as four weeks and in other cases it can be longer than 12 weeks.  Because we often treat multiple areas simultaneously, we stick to an average of 6-8 weeks.

If we had to err on the side of longer than short, we would err on the side of longer in between treatments.  Doing treatments too close together means the hair that has fallen out previously has not returned and so treatments are wasted.  We would recommend going in sooner than every 4 months, but would still say that you are not wasting your money, as long as the practitioner is using a laser that's good for your skin type (see our link below for a blog about laser and skin types).