Laser Hair Removal

What is Laser Hair Removal?

Why does hair removal need a course of sessions?

Who should postpone or avoid it

Hormonal causes of excess hair may need investigating alongside treatment.

• Pregnancy. Treatment is deferred.
• Recently tanned or sunburnt skin.
• Tattoos or permanent makeup in the area to be treated.
• Active infection, inflammation or open skin in the area.
• Light-sensitive conditions, keloid scarring, or photosensitising medication, which your clinician goes through with you.

What a session involves

1. 1

   Consultation and assessment

   Your first visit is a consultation, not a treatment. The treatment area, hair type and skin tone are assessed, and a test area may be considered first.

2. 2

   The treatment

   The area is cleansed and the cooled applicator is moved over it in repeated passes, building warmth gradually.

In the treatment room

• 

  A practitioner glides the laser handpiece along the patient's forearm.

After a session

Downtime is usually minimal.

• Straight afterwards

  Temporary redness, warmth or mild sensitivity in the treated area can occur and typically settles within a few hours to a day.

• The following weeks

  Treated hairs may appear to grow out for a week or two before shedding.

• Between sessions

  You can shave, but waxing, plucking, threading and depilatory creams are normally avoided because they remove the follicle contents the light needs to target.

Protect treated areas from the sun between sessions.

Risks, side effects, and what Laser Hair Removal cannot do

Like any energy-based treatment, it carries risks, which are explained before a course is booked.

• Common and temporary

  Redness, swelling or changes in pigmentation.

• Less common

  Blistering, burns, folliculitis and, rarely, paradoxical stimulation of fine hair in some areas.

• Pigment change and Malaysian skin

  Light-based hair removal generally works best where there is more contrast between hair and skin pigment. Alma describes its low-fluence, high-repetition delivery with a cooled applicator tip as usable on darker skin, but recently tanned skin is generally not treated.

• What it cannot do

  • It is not permanent removal.
  • One session cannot do it, because only follicles in their active growth phase respond to any one session.
  • Very light, grey or white hair contains little pigment for light to target on any platform.

Tell your clinician about every medication you take.

What affects the number of sessions, and the cost

Courses are priced by area across a series, not per visit, and the series is set at consultation. What moves it:

• Your hair type: colour, thickness and density.
• How your hair responds across the course.
• Whether maintenance sessions are needed afterwards.

Devices used at Kaiteki

Which platform is used depends on your individual assessment.

Device

M22 IPL

An intense pulsed light (IPL) platform that can be filtered for vascular or pigment targets and used for hair reduction.

Learn more

Device

Alma (IPL + RF)

A light-based hair-reduction platform from Alma, combining broadband IPL energy with radiofrequency heating to target hair follicles over a course of sessions.

Learn more

Common questions