Electrolysis Vs Laser Hair Removal
No Pain No Gain?
Women have dealt with hair removal for ages and now some men are jumping on the bandwagon as well. Hair removal can become a time consuming and painful chore and until recently, there was only one way to end that chore with permanent hair removal and that was electrolysis. Today there is another choice and you could probably sell tickets to a bout featuring electrolysis vs laser hair removal.
That’s right; the laser isn’t just for Luke Skywalker anymore. This concentrated beam of light can attack certain types of hair and get rid of it forever. But then again, electrolysis can attack any kind of hair with the same results. So what are the pros and cons of these two types of hair removal?
Well if you really like pain then electrolysis is your kind of procedure. A Thin needle is inserted under the skin and into an individual hair follicle. Then a jolt of electricity is run through the needle frying the follicle and insuring that it will not grow another hair. Given that not all of your hair grows at the same rate, this is not a one stop treatment. You have to come back several times to catch the hair that wasn’t present the first time.
As a man, I have a new found appreciation for what women who have used this technique have gone through. This whole process of sticking steel needles into the skin and running current through them sounds like a cold war interrogation method rather than a beauty treatment.
It has its advantages though. Electrolysis will work on any kind of hair on any part of the body. The down side is that it can also leave scarring. Another area of concern is the topical cream that is sometimes used as a local anaesthetic. Some women have had serious reactions to it and others have suffered harm because too much of it was applied.
Oh, and did I mention it really, really hurts.
Laser hair removal is less painful by a long shot. There is a slight stinging sensation as the laser is applied but nothing like the pain of electrolysis. Like electrolysis, laser hair removal will require several visits as it too can only treat hair in its final stage of growth.
A downside of electrolysis is that it doesn’t work on all hair. Lasers are a single color of light and give off heat energy. As a result a laser works best on dark coarse hair that is growing on light complexions. The dark hair more readily absorbs the energy destroying the follicle while the light skin serves a natural reflector of the light protecting the skin. Lighter hair or darker skin reduces the odds of removal by laser and can even result in white blotches appearing on the darker complexion.
So in the battle of electrolysis vs laser hair removal, it really depends on the color of your hair and your pain threshold. Regardless which method you choose, make sure that the technician that you use knows what they are doing. These procedures can be dangerous if done by untrained hands,