New Laser Gets White Hairs Too?

[Guest Astrosmurf]

Hi all,

hope you've all been well during my long absence from this site. I had some obstacles to work through after being outed within my previous social circle, but now I've moved to a different area and I'm back on track with transitioning. I have two questions here really . . .

Continuing with laser sessions and seeing good results so far, but today I went for a consultation with the only electrologist in my town. She advised me to keep going with the laser first, and to wait until starting on hormones before commencing electrolosis, since she'd treated some transgender women before and had found the work easier after they'd commenced hormones. Is this true, or is it better to start electrolosis ASAP?

This seemed fair enough -- she seemed like she was genuinely trying to save me time and money and she didn't charge for the consultation. But another thing I'm not sure about is this: She also told me to wait another five or so months anyway, since by that time the clinic would hopefully have purchased a new model of IPL laser, more powerful than any of the other three lasers in town. This new laser technology is supposedly able to wipe out white hairs too. If this is true, that would of course be fantastic. But I couldn't help wondering if she's full of BS? Has anyone else heard about this new, more powerful laser technology?

[Guest Astrosmurf]

P.S. the laser in question is called Adena IPL . You can read about it if you Google it.

Thanks

[Guest alexaz]

Hi Astrosmurf.......Giggle love that name.

Not knowing anything about IPL laser I googled it.

What I found was thats been around for some time and is basically for treating / correcting skin irregularities like signs of aging, wrinkles, birth marks, scars age spots and the like.

Nowhere did I see mention of hair removal. Not that It doesnt work for it but if it did I would think that it would be mentioned there.

Might want to talk with that lady again and or look for a different treatment center for your hair removal.

Google and search engines like it are a trove of information and I use them all the time but you have to be careful and make sure that the site that your looking at isnt placed by a company just trying to get you to buy their product or in some other way trying to deceive you.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Good luck.

Alexaz

[VickySGV]

It may be that the device is in the process of being certified for hair removal, but is currently "off label" and thus not advertised for the purpose. If it is certified, then the fact will be published. If that happens, I would trust it more, since they are not prematurely touting it.

HRT will make your skin softer and more accessible for the Electrologist, and some think faster healing. I have heard that from Electrologists myself.

[Charlize]

My GT advised me to wait until HRT had had it's full effect. All my hair(none on the top of my head) is a white blond color so it will have to be electrolysis. If a new laser works as well i will wait a bit more before all the ouches begin.

Hugs,

Charlize

[Guest Kenna Dixon]

Here's an explanation of the Adena's method of removing lighter hair (from a salon that uses the laser):

The wave lengths used in standard IPL target the melanin in the hair. Since grey, red, white and blonde hair has no melanin, IPL doesn’t work. However, the Adena has a separate head for this type of hair that targets the hemoglobin or blood source of the hair instead of the melanin. Since waxing causes a microscopic injury to the skin or blood in the follicle, we wax the area to be treated beforehand for a more successful treatment.

It's offered in Australia and New Zealand but I've found no reference to it being available in the US.

[Carolyn Marie]

If it becomes available here, I would try it. Thanks for all the info (and the fish).

Carolyn

[Guest April Kristie]

Hi lads n ladies, I have had two laser sessions thus far, the third in four weeks. What I have found out is how darn grey I really am! Secondly, I went to my youngish and accomplished dermatologist last week for some wart removal and asked him point blank if his laser could do Greys or whites. His practice is in the Palm Beach area and his clientele is well off and can pay for just about anything that will make them younger or less wrinkling, he prefaces is answer by stating that his laser is the Rolls Royce of hair removal, but nothing touches the white or grey hair. I asked if there was research going on to take care of us who were a bit longer in he tooth. No, he just smiled and shook his head.

So you see if you have whites or Greys, it's off to the electrologist to finished up the job. Pulsed

Light is not for permanent hair removal, been there tried that, just my arm pits were reduced.

[Guest Markietoo]

Hi folks,

Being 65 grey hairs in my beard hairs is nothing new. Started out about with 90% white hairs. Deciding to do whatever I needed to do go get rid of it all I read everything I could find about laser verses electrolysis. Since the consensus was that electrolysis was still the only permanent method to get rid of the hairs, that's what I've been doing for the past year. Good results so far but probably have at least another year to go because I go for an hour each week. The $$ do add up so spacing it out is easier. Plus, an hour a session is about all I can stand of the discomfort. Some of you are better able to handle the pain so can do longer sessions. More power to you! EMLA helps at first but doesn't last long. Still need to shave daily but my skin looks pretty good for a grandmother and my girlfriends tell me how nice my face looks now. Those kind of comments keep me going back for more each and every week. If a different method ever gets proved to work faster/better, I'd gladly try it despite any expense above my current spending. Be sure to post such a discovery if any of you find it somewhere. In the meantime, I'll continue burning out each dastardly hair one at a time, ZAP, twitch and repeat. And so it goes to get the smooth face we all want to have in the end.

Thanks!

Markie Anna

[Guest Astrosmurf]

Cheers all,

I have one more paid session of regular laser at my current spa, but will contact the other place which claims to have this new technology after that.

Will let you know if anything miraculous happens regarding white hairs.

[Guest Astrosmurf]

Just had my last of package regular IPL laser teratments deal, and quizzed the lady at the spa about the Adena method. She said she knew some people who'd got it done and seemed to have no doubt that it worked (this is a rival spa to the one that has Adena, so I believe her). She advised me to blitz the rest of my dark facial hair first though since regular IPL is cheaper. She also confirmed that they WAX the area first, since Adena IPL attacks the blood supply to the hair folicle, not the pigment in the folicle itself, and waxing causes microscopic damage at the roots of the folicle so the laser can find it better. Yowch. Seems there's just no gain without pain when it comes to removing facial hair! My wallet's smarting a bit too but I'm pleased with the results of regular IPL so far -- and having had a two-year gap between treatments, I'm fairly certain the results are 98% permanent. Hope the Adena works as good, and I hope you guys get it in the States sometime soon.

[Guest LizMarie]

Beard follicles are different from normal female hair. There's an old thread around here, maybe in this forum, that shows what happened when one person tried to wax her beard away. It was a bloody mess.

[Guest Cyndysub]

I Googled the Adena IPL and all that came up was companies that were selling a product. I could find zero hard evidence of this thing actually working and just the people that were making money off of it. There is no shortage of people that will play on peoples hopes and fears for quick profits. Stay away from people that trying to get you to drink their kind of Kool-Aid. Just remember first and foremost. Caveat Emptor.

[Guest Astrosmurf]

Waxing facial hair seemed like a bad idea to me too actually, I'll try and find that thread, thanks Liz Marie.

Apart from the waxing part, I still reckon this has to be worth at least trying. New Zealand might be the end of the earth, but we do have consumer laws here. Also, I think this actually is available in the States. I searched for it on You Tube and there was an infomercial thing from a clinic somewhere in Idaho.Saying that, I can't find any customer reviews either yet. So maybe it's like wrinkle cream, but yeah. Maybe it's a form of VPL.

[Guest alexaz]

Maybe I can find a circus that needs a bearded lady.

I never had heavy body hair and my face is no exception but time has worked its ummmmmm magic on it and there's a lot of white hairs on my chin area.

I went to a clinic today that does everything. Plastic surgery--- Hair removal ---- wrinkle removal and more.

I went for a consultation for laser treatment and the girl said that for what I want 'full face and neck hair removal it would take 4 sessions of about 1/2 hour each plus 2 follow up sessions sometime in the furure. The sessions being about a month apart.

Their package is $700 for the face and $500 for the neck total $1200.00

As I gasped she said "BUT WAIT" We have a special . If you pre pay it all its $700

I still gulped cuz Im disabled and cant work and have a very limited income but the - $500 sounded better. This special only lasts till the end of April.

I never realised that laser didnt work on white/gray hairs so Im glad to learn this before I spent $700 on something that would only work on 1/2 of my problem.

So Im very interested in any new technology that kills all the hairy lil buggers on my face so I'll keep watching here and doing research and let you all know if I find anything.

Alexaz

[Guest alexaz]

Googled Adena IPL and found

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2015-new-CORELASER-adena-ipl_60157675788.html

They say it works on all colors

Alexaz

[Guest Mikkiapolis]

I can recommend basic IPL. About two years ago I used a Groupon for 3 one-area treatments ($99!). I did just my right arm. It was an experiment, intended to demonstrate how well it worked long-term, compared to my left arm.

Comparing my arms today -- no contest. My right arm has much less dark hair. And gosh, my left arm is looking like it very much needs to be shaved right now. I could easily skip shaving my right arm.

I definitely found some changes in my hair growth after being on hormones for a while. But my strong recommendation for all transwomen has not changed:

• IPL on the face as much as the professionals and your budget will allow
• Continue with electrolysis for the rest at E3000 or at She Chicago.

I recommend IPL over Laser due to it being less painful and more cost effective. If you have no IPL in your area, research the available Laser styles in your area. If you don't have any significant dark facial hair, skip the IPL/Laser step; sorry. Hope that helps!

[Guest Opal]

Beard follicles are different from normal female hair. There's an old thread around here, maybe in this forum, that shows what happened when one person tried to wax her beard away. It was a bloody mess.

Here is another thread that references the use of either an epilator or hot waxing on a beard.

http://forum.lauras-playground.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=60890

It was bad enough to require a hospital stay.

[Guest Mikkiapolis]

Googled Adena IPL and found

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/2015-new-CORELASER-adena-ipl_60157675788.html

They say it works on all colors

I followed the link and read what was there. I'm not convinced at all. The Alibaba.com site is the international / Asia version of eBay. The copy about the product is clearly a poor translation to English, which doesn't leave me confident about trusting anything claimed about the product.

It is claimed that this one device solves over 20 different health problems -- a hallmark of most "too good to be true" products. It also claims "permanent hair removal", which (AFAIK) no legit laser or IPL product in the US is currently able to claim.

My brief research into the SHR (Super Hair Removal) technology mentioned for this device also turned up the well-known Alma laser hair-removal devices: http://www.almalasers.com/int/shr

No mention is made of white hair. Since the Alma devices have a strong U.S. penetration, and there are very strict regulations about what can be claimed for product efficacy, I trust the Alma web site much, much, much more than an Alibaba.com listing.

[Guest Cyndysub]

IPL is Pure BS just spend some money on those treatments and after 3 months get back to me with your results. I have a good understanding of lasers and pulsed or not laser (Focused Beam of Photons) will NOT be absorbed in a hair follicle that is a light one (Gray Hair) but will be absorbed by a dark hair follicle (Black or Dark Hair). This absorption and non-absorption principle is a basic law of quantum physics.

Colorful language Bla..Bla...Bla..etc. does not and cannot violate this law of physics. Proof of an "Effect" can always be found in a "Published Scientific Paper" and if the people making these claims cannot provide one of these then it's BS. If you like to waste money then by all means do and just disregard this post.

Cyndy

[Charlize]

for telling it as it is. Thanks Cyndy

Hugs,

Charlize

[Guest Astrosmurf]

Yeah, hooray. Just asking a legitimate question. Thanks for the rational, scientific, non-emotive feedback.

[Guest Mikkiapolis]

Well, I'm not intending to be argumentative. But I did post a real-life experience here with IPL. My goal in trying IPL was to prove to myself whether it was worth doing or not.

As I briefly summarize in post #17 in this forum thread, my empirical experiment did show a noticeable difference by eliminating a good amount of dark hair after only 3 treatments. This difference is still noticeable now, 2-3 years later.

Of course one person's actual experience isn't good science. But if IPL was "pure BS" then it wouldn't have worked at all for me.

I continue to recommend IPL as less painful than laser, of similar efficacy, and less expensive (at least around here). YMMV. Just trying to be helpful!