Hair Facts

Affectors:

Hormones, stress, medications, heredity, and diet all affect hair growth and loss. Thus, the length of treatment to permanently remove hair, varies for each person and also depends on the size of the area to be removed.

Temporary or Non-Permanent Removal:

Methods such as tweezing and waxing only make unwanted hair worse by attracting additional blood to follicle growth cells. Other methods such as depilatories and laser are temporary as well. 

Do not mistake the term permanent hair reduction for permanent hair removal. You will see advertisements for laser that claim the former. Electrolysis is the only FDA approved method for permanent hair removal. 

* The FDA does not allow laser specialists to claim permanent hair removal because over time hair regrows following treatments.

Hair Growth and Regrowth:

Some hair reappears in seemingly the same place but is usually growing in a new follicle. Each square inch of skin contains several hundred hair follicles, some of which are actively growing hairs and others that are lying dormant. 

Hair normally grows for its usual cycle and then naturally sheds and replaces itself. The electrologist can only treat the hairs they can see. When dormant follicles become active over time future treatments are required. The length of time required to completely treat an area depends on the severity of the problem, the causes, the type of hair, sensitivity of the skin, and the sensitivity of the patient.

Once an area is successfully treated it may require short followup treatments at infrequent intervals in the future.