Pain of laser hair removal

by Clare

I've heard that laser hair removal is painful so I'm scared to try it. How painful is it?

Clare

Response from Carl: Thanks Clare. I've had laser hair removal and also IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) treatments and before both instances, the practitioner told me that the feeling I'd get is similar to someone flicking rubber bands against my skin. For the most part this was true and the pain was manageable.

There were a few occasions though when the pain was quite intense and I had to tell the practitioner that it was really hurting. This tended to occur in two cases:

1. When they were treating an area with a lot of hair. With laser or IPL treatment, the hair follicle absorbs the light heat and the light kills the hair follicle (or so it should anyways). The more hair you have, the more hair follicles there are to conduct the light and the more pain you might experience. When I was being treated in an area with little hair, I hardly felt a thing. In areas with more hair, I tended to feel it more.

2. When the treatment was being done near bones. I found that I felt more pain when the laser or IPL treatment was being done near a bone where there wasn't as much skin. An example of this was on my collarbone. It's a very bony area, the bones are close to the skin and there isn't a lot of meat to protect it so when the laser or IPL treatment was being done in that area, I tended to feel it more.

All in all, I can't say I suffered although sometimes during the treatment I felt like I was. It some cases when I was starting the treatments and had a lot unwanted hair, I could feel the treatment moreso than later on when I had less hair. For the most part, the snapping rubber band analogy was true in my case.

With laser and IPL treatment you certainly want a professional doing the work who knows what they're doing and who listens to you when you tell them that's it's hurting because the last thing you want to end up with is a burn on your skin.

Carl