There are no reviews establishing permanent removal because it's too new to judge that and most experts agree that it will likely be able to cause temporary reduction, but not permanent removal due to high pulse and other specs. Only you can decide what fits your needs.

In my opinion, for someone in your situation, it would be much better to get professional treatments. You'd have to pay $200-300 every 2.5 months (treatments are spaced every 12 weeks) and you'll achieve permanent removal. 3-4 treatments for a good reduction, or 6-8 treatments for nearly complete removal. Given your financial constraints, it sounds like this would make much more sense.

Just an update to say that, for the first time, there seems to be some positive results from my first Tria sessions.

To summarize, I shaved and pulsed a 25 square inch area using the highest setting (20 fluence) with no overlap. For the first 10 days, around 90% of the hairs appeared to regrow normally. The other 10% seemed either impaired or weren't in their active growth phase.

Starting at day 12, around half of the "growing" hairs began to shed, and by day 14 obvious bare patches appeared.

In comparison, a commercial diode laser caused practically all treated hairs to shed after 2 weeks. So, although not all of the hairs shed, it at least had a noticeable effect, probably consistent with the lower fluence (20 vs 30-something)

Please state the pulse and spot size settings when mentioning settings used. Joules on their own are meaningless. Whether 25 or 30J is a higher setting on a diode for example is impossible to tell without knowing those other settings. 25J, 10ms, 12mm would be more a lot more powerful than 30J, 600ms, 8mm.

Hm. not so fast. Even with professional laser hair removal it is not "permanent" -- too many stories out there of hairs just coming back. Given my financial constraints, I would actually have to say the Tria fits my needs a little better. For around 700-800 $ (which i've seen going on ebay brand new) you can have your own laser hair removal system which achieves what the salon's lasers achieve--just less powerful and the process is a little slower. However, logic tells me since I own my own device I can keep using it compared to keep spending those pesky price gouged "$300-$400 so i can wave a light over ur body" prices you spend at salons.

I've read over 20 objective reviews coming out about tria that although weaker than commercial laser hair removal, the machine ultimately achieves what the the bigger machines do. Yes, the process takes a little slower but you can save hundreds if not THOUSANDS.

Per session**
back: $300
chest[and stomach]: $350
(recommended "6-8 sessions")... not including touchups which are pretty much required...

full price: $5200

The full price does not include gas, time, and again the touchups.
-----------------------

TRIA system One time price of: $600-1000 (depending where you get it)

and you do all the touchups, process your self in the privacy of your own home.

Again, I'm going to wait for a couple of more users come out with results including someone I know personally but I pretty much have my mind made up =]

See, that's where your assessment is not correct. Professional treatments ARE permanent and the machines and settings on each one needed for permanent removal are well established in the industry already. With a 600ms pulse, there is no way that Tria (or any professional machine set to that setting) can achieve permanent reduction. It's just not powerful enough to heat up the follicle enough to cause permanent destruction. That's the exact reason why you read those bad result posts about professional treatments - everyone thinks they can own a professional laser and make money. The lack of expertise in setting correct settings to cause permanent reduction (as well as treating hair that shouldn't be treated in the first place, i.e. hair that's not coarse) is the problem and what causes lack of results. You can avoid this by doing your research as others have done on this forum and came back posting their success stories.

That is exactly what we do on this site. I did my research, had treatments with the right laser and settings and achieved permanent results in 5-6 treatments on the areas I treated. I and others along with professionals stick around here to provide information to people like you to do the same. You can see plenty of success stories here. Just read a post from today by ExSydneyGorilla for example, which even has pictures for you. He only had 5 treatments and has gotten amazing results after gathering knowledge on this website and going with a good clinic, good laser and settings. You'll notice this is always the case with those who got great results.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can compare temporary reduction to permanent when comparing costs. You can wax cheaper than that and achieve temporary removal for 3-4 weeks without spending $1000 and time and effort it takes to perform these treatments. Tria does NOT achieve what the professional machines achieve because even at its max settings it's not powerful enough to kill the follicle. That is why it is not permanent.

I'm a physicist, so I know something about how to look at these numbers being batted around. There's a great paper at http://www.aesthetic.lumenis.com/pdf/laser_principles_aspects.pdf that talks about the requirements needed to effect permanent hair removal.

Basically, here's my analysis: The Tria will probably effect permanent hair removal for SOME people, and not for most.

The best candidates will be those with very course, very dark hair, I'm guessing on the lowest setting. Here's why:

The total energy absorbed by a single hair follicle is a function of: laser energy output, pulse duration, and, very importantly, the ratio of pigment concentration in the root area to the skin.

The emitted photons are only absorbed by melanin, and the more melanin there is at the root, the higher the percentage of photons are absorbed in the right place. Also, the larger the hair is, the more volume is available to absorb photons. (Because of the quantum mechanical nature of light, not all of the photons will be absorbed exactly at the surface... some will be absorbed inside, and some will pass right through.) The hair will absorb light so readily, I'm guessing higher levels may get too hot and damage the skin.

The rate of heat dissipation is dependent upon the size of the hair, which effects the rate of thermal transfer. The larger the hair is, the faster energy is dissipated, but the higher a heat capacity it will have. Heat capacity (goes as the square of radius) goes up much faster than transfer rate (which increases linearly with radius), so the net effect will be that the heat will be better retained.

The specs of the TRIA are on the outside edge of the those used by other professional systems. For the right person: someone who tans easily and has course hair (I'm thinking, for example, of Asians), the Tria might work a charm. Even though the number of joules per cm^2 is low, the high melanin concentration will make up for that. Their skin is light enough the ratio is huge. Even though the pulse width is high, the large hair size will hold the heat.

On the other hand, anyone who has relatively fine hair, or anything other than jet black hair, probably won't see permanent hair removal.

One thing that may help: using a depilatory cream after shaving to eat down the hair as far as possible will reduce the amount of laser energy absorbed outside the root. This may also help reduce damage to the surrounding tissue. (This is mentioned as an alternative to shaving in the paper.) It also reduces the surface area through which heat can be dissipated. You might even be able to turn up the intensity another notch without causing injury.

So if you are asian, or perhaps a light skinned black person, this might work out for you. If you are Norwegian, on the other hand, probably not so much.

Last, and I say this only as a rather crazy person, and you would NEVER EVER do this yourself because you don't know how to do it right and because you are not sufficiently an expert in this subject to even dare attempt such a thing -- RIGHT??? -- I bet good money I could modify the device to perform just as well as a commercial system by shortening the pulse duration and lensing the light onto an area with a diameter that is 1/sqrt(2)=.7 times the diameter size of the current spot. That would halve the spot size, double the number of joules/cm^2, and, to compensate, the pulse need to be halved to 60ms. Of course, this would void all warranties, void the FDA approval, and would be very, very, very stupid for anyone to try without a experts understanding of optics and a daredevil willingness to accept the risks. But it would work.

You are absolutely RIGHT! You said what I have been promoting for the last couple of weeks,about heat transfer,pulse width,and spot size,except you explaine it with much more clarity. I was accused of under-treating clients by some on this site.

I keep stressing that the target is melanin,not damaging the follicle(that some claim) amd more pigment in the hair produces more heat and therefore wider widths to dissapate that heat.
without skin damage.

What is the wave length of the Tria? Iwill read the paper and respond. I am interested to see if the chemicals in the depilatory has any adverse effect on the skin after the laser is applied.

Dr.zsa

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense because at any sensible setting the energy will be absorbed by the darker skin that you're talking about and will be burned. It won't get down to the follicle. You're trying to heat up the follicle (with the dark coarse hair in place there), not the skin.

Just a thought.. Since its rather obvious that the TRIA isn't really going to produce the results we want, what specs would it need to have to work well?

i.e. Twice the power, 800ms-1000ms(??) pulse time, 30-60 J/m2, 1-2cm diameter spot, etc.

I see the unit goes for $1000. Honestly, I'd happy pay $2000 if it truly worked.

I'd really prefer if the unit was plugin vs battery. It's not like I need to take it in the car with me.

I feel it is just a matter of time until electronics and various parts improve where a home user will be able to get an actual working hair removal laser. Anything has safety issues, give people disclaimers and let us have the freedom to do our own hair removal. Obviously some idiot is going to scar themselves, but that idiot shouldn't ruin it for people who will be reponsible enough. I want to remove everything from my neck down (entire body), and that's gonna run me $15k+ at the doc.

Any have input on what specs a "home unit" like this would need to really work?

From the things I have heard, it is doubtful that one could get all the parts needed to make such a thing for only $2,000 if one knew how to make such a thing oneself.