I ve been considering reducing my beard hair, and posting on this forum for a long time.I chose laser (probably diode).
I m going in 3 days.I ve got some last question though:
So, I m skin type 3-4, very dark, very coarse beard, and more importantly very fast growing (I can t say for sure but in my case, the anagen/catagen/telogen phase i doubt exists.Its all anagen every morning! seriously, i get the impression all of it is continiously anagen)
1)My goal is to reduce it to 50-60% perhaps 70%, I ll see how it gets in the process and decide then when to stop.But as i said before, i m under the impression its all anagen.If i were right, could it all/or almost all be gone in one treatment? is all the anagen gone in on treatment?
ex:If i shave on day one morning, all hair that would be growing (and need shaving on day two) will be gone?
if so, i fear something like 90% reduction after one treatment…
2)My beard grows really fast, even after i shaved, some of it is “lying” on skin surface.I can eliminate it using stubbornly a smaller one-blade razor.also it is very coarse/very dark…
should i fear burning?
3)Of course i try avoiding the sun, but if i get exposed while going someplace or staying at the hairdressers? does it count?
4)skin type 3-4.can t say for sure.I like to say its like robert deniro. Is alexandrite and diode ok?
Which is best? I read a paper that said diode was the “gold standard” but your FAQ says alexandrite is the best…
I m only asking those questions here rather than there because I m afraid the answers might depend on money over there…
I would recommend you to pause and do a bit more research so you understand what you’re getting into better. Also, you mention nothing about the clinic and the research you’ve done to find the best clinic for your situation. That worries me because this isn’t an easy area to treat and finding someone who has a lot of experience specifically treating male beards is very important. Where are you located? How many clinics have you checked out?
This is not possible. Hair grows in the same way for everyone. It’s biological. Yours is just very dense and grows fast. You wouldn’t be able to tell when hairs are going in different phases.
Given how coarse and dense your beard area is, I would strongly consider getting treatments with an ND:Yag laser instead. It will cause less irritation. You’ll still need at least 3-4 treatments to get the reduction you’re looking for.
Avoiding the sun is important. It’s also important to use sunblock when you do go outside. Do buy some and use it daily. The point here is to keep your skin as light as possible so that higher settings can be used and so that you can avoid burning since laser is attracted to dark pigment.
As mentioned above, for this situation, finding someone with a good Yag laser like GentleYAG would be best in my opinion. It’s also important to check out 4-5 places, including those who have specific experience in treating men’s beards. This area is prone to patchiness if someone inexperienced is treating you and doesn’t overlap properly etc.
There are about 4 centres around where i live.
I don t know about their experience in treating male beards, but they do a lot of laser generally speaking.
I chose them because they had diode.The others had IPL.
There is also one with alexandrite.Couldn t find yag though…
So patchiness is one side effect but does not happen if treated with YAG and overlapping correctly??
also, if i had like a couple of treatments just to check out if in fact it “works”, is pathciness still to fear?
Patchiness was my biggest problem during treatment. Sometimes the technician was in a rush, and would literally miss 1/2" areas of skin. Those areas would grow back normally, leading to patches that had to be re-treated later on.
So, I would try to emphasize patience and speak with the laser technician. They should be going slow and methodical. If they overlap pulses properly you shouldn’t have a problem with patches.
I had patchiness in the areas on the face where the laser was highly effective (mostly the jawline down) especially noticeable after the first few treatments. However, after 6-7 treatments the visible patchiness differential largely faded away and after 9 treatment the visible patchiness is almost gone
Areas where the laser didn’t do much (upper lip, lower lip, cheeks) there were no noticeable patches of course.
I would venture to guess having a heavy, dark beard will make the patchiness even worse compared to someone with light colored hair, since you will have “holes” in the beard shadow under the skin not just patchy hair growth; no matter how diligent you are about removing the hair the shadow under the skin is still visible. Explaining away that visible shadow/no shadow difference is not easy
It’s important that they overlap. You would get some patchiness if they don’t no matter what laser they use.
Yag is more gentle on the skin, so it helps if the hair is very dense and coarse to avoid side effects after the treatment like irritation, puffiness etc when the hair is very dense.
Well, to tell the truth, i mentionned the shadow so that everyone could understand the situation, but what really bothers me isn t the shadow.It s the fact that my beard is so heavy/hard that I get irritated everytime i shave+ it takes so long to do it properly…
It s the roughness of my beard that i want gone.
I would like shaving to be a little more easy and less time consuming.
Really, I don t wan t it gone.just reduced, so that it isn t irritating anymore.Even with a shadow, i wouldn t care anymore…
So it s bad news for me if patchiness occurs more after initial treatments since i dont want too much of them.My guess is 3-4 would be enough since it s really black on white skin…
Let me try get a consensus here, even if i realise it s hard to really tell for sure:
do you think patchiness is only a problem of not overlapping correctly?
this patchiness thing really scares me.It looks really bad…
Just a quick question. If you do this and get patchiness, would you be ammenable to getting electrolysis to even out the patchiness or to go for full removal of your beard, in order to relieve your shaving discomfort? This could be your back up plan only if you have a good electrologist nearby that has modern tools and has the skill to go along with those modern tools.
Well, i ve spoted only one electrologist in the entire region.
Don t know if he is any good.
But what would bother me most is the “social aspect” of it.
I don t think i can get through a period with patchiness.I m age 21, i cannot describe the way i feel just thinking of the event like someone asks me: “what happened to you?”
…maybe it s just me, but i can t see how people can manage that.it s a hard situation.
However, maybe trying to get an even reduction with electrolysis is my back up plan…i mean if i ask and see that they(laser center) cant eliminate the risk of patchiness for sure…
given all the aspect of it, i m so confused.you see, here in belgium, electrolysis/and laser is not that big of an industry.
I have little choice.i haven t been able to find yag or a second electrologist for exaple…Moreover i know if i go see a doctor MD he won t have a clue about it.
honestly, i wish i lived in the USA or UK where i read they have great electrologists…
If anyone has heard anything good near me …say so (in belgium).Even then, i dont have a car.so i cannot travel too far.not to mention i only speak english and french.
While laser did not permanently remove all of my unwanted hair by any means, it made shaving radically easier. The PFB bumps went away almost completely, ingrowns heavily reduced, nicks and cuts are almost nonexistant now and I went from 15-20 minutes of shaving time to 5 minutes. In that respect, it is a resounding “mission accomplished”. What a difference even a reduction can make! People may even tell you that your skin is nicer and that you look better, I was surprised I received complement from people, even those who see me everyday.
Just a reduction doesn’t do much for the overall shadow though You have to remove a lot the hair for that to change.
As for the comments, I used plausible deniability of sorts. “Umm, like I dunno, like I used a dull blade to shave this morning because I forgot to buy new blades”. I don’t think they bought it though. I wish people in general would mind their own business. I wouldn’t tell a friend who suffers from bad acne and has a bad breakout, “Hello, hey wow you really have a lot of zits today!”. Geesh. :sick:
Well, that s not that much.You see, i wish i could also speak german.anyway.
Went in today.They didn t give me a lot of info.
They explained how it works (which i already knew), told me she might lower the settings because its really dark,dense.
When i aksed her about the reduction, she told me she had done a male beard before and that the guy didn t have anything left, that he only kept comming to eradicate a few “rebel ones” that popped out.but that it was all gone.
But she was kind of anoyed when i mentionned the “patchiness and overlapping and the risks thing”.
She Couldn t dismiss any of those risks, but explained me that she couldn t see a reason why it would not work…
Let me ask you again, do you thing patchiness is only to fear when overlapping is not done properly. If i can get a nurse to really focus on me, do you think that there is no risk of patchiness???
ps: sorry for being stubborn about it but that really scares me a lot and i m not exactly surrounded by specialists around here…
Honestly, the problem here is that you want us to guarantee something that we cannot. You need to judge based on how comfortable you are with this clinic’s experience and honesty. Results without patchiness are definitely possible given good treatments with good overlapping and good settings. I would still advise to go with a Yag laser than very low settings on an alex or a Yag just because I think low settings can contribute to patchiness (by not killing patches of hair which require higher settings for it).
Electrolysis IS always an option afterwards if you need to even things out. But you shouldn’t need it since you’re only looking for a few treatments. Laser has a good track record of making it easier to shave. You’d need more than a couple treatments to get rid of the shadow if you do decide to go that route.
Why don’t you run a search for others’ experience reducing male beards. There are posts on this and cosmetic enhancements forum from others who have done it. There is a user Lanni from New Orleans I believe here who even has pictures up.
