I’m sorry I took so long to reply, never got notification of a response and have been very busy. Anyway, to answer your questions I have very pale skin (my mother was a red head) and I have very dark brown hair, so according to all accounts a perfect candidate for laser. My hair on my chest is not very thick but enough to have to shave every other day or it is noticed. I did try electrolysis when I was a teenager, but it did not work at all for me and I did not tolerate the pain well either. Since the time has passed I can now give you all an update because I’ve finished my treatments. My chest and arms I can say I have about a 40% reduction, so not a total waste but I’m still disappointed in it, does not feel smooth at all. I can say that it did a fabulous job on my nipples and one mole that was growing hair, I have 95% success there, so it seems to do well on those types of individual hairs. I never got back to trying the Candela again but I still plan to because it did do an overall better job than the Soprano if I can just find a way to deal with the pain aspect. Thanks for all your replies.