Alright, first review ever on Yelp and I'm going with hair removal. Good for me.
So here's the deal, if you do your diligence on hair removal before undertaking a procedure (and you surely should) you will quickly learn that the 4 cornerstones of getting good laser treatment are:
1. quality of the practitioner
2. quality of the machine
3. settings used
4. affordability
Before I started treatments on my chest, stomach (and a little bit shoulders/flanks) last year, I got educated at www.hairtell.com. I quickly learned that the best and most powerful state of the art laser on the market is the Candela Gentlelase.
I also learned that you want to be sure to find a practitioner who will use the as high as settings on the machine as possible without causing burning. This requires practitioner knowledge/judgment re skin type and hair coarseness/darkness (in general the lighter the skin and the darker the hair, the higher the settings that can be used). [note that Gentlelase manual suggests lower settings than what are actually required for optimal laser effectiveness. I assume that is because they would get insta-sued if they recommended settings that caused anyone burning at all]. My skin is pretty light and my unfortunate chest/stomach hair WAS fairly dark, so I was pretty convinced that I would be an ideal candidate for high settings.
I went on a mini-mission to track down LA practitioners that have the Gentlelase machine, know what they're doing (i.e. are willing to use high settings) and offer their services for a price I can handle. A lucky search on craigslist turned up Redefining Youth.
Redefining Youth operated by Janet A. has the Gentlelase, Janet knows what she is doing and offered per treatment prices that were more affordable than almost any of the bundled (i.e. multi-session) packages I saw offered in LA Weekly or anywhere else online for that matter. Cool!
I've had 5 sessions with Janet over the last year now and am borderline astonished at the quality of the results. Because you need 6 to 8+ sessions to get maximum hair reduction (because of the various cycles of hair growth, each one of which needs to face the laser, sometimes multiple times), I still need more treatment, but after five treatments, the character of the hair is completely different. What was thick and gross, is 70-90% reduced and what remains is now thin and actually totally acceptable.
As to settings, Janet errs on the side of conservative and lower pain. However, she is also willing to move up in settings when appropriate (and if the patient is pushy enough).
The first treatment was 18mm/12J, which by my research is not optimal. Through the next five treatments we ramped up progressively until we've now reached 18mm/18J and 18mm/20J (in a few spots). These are max settings. I have never burned, but make no mistake, in some spots, treatment hurts a fair amount at those top settings (ibuprofen+aloe+ hydrocortisone post treatment).
A note on pain: I waxed a few times in high school back in the day, and the pain was comparable. The worst waxing pain definitely hurts more than the worst laser though. Ironically, waxing used to hurt most in the fleshy parts, and hurt less in the bony parts. Exactly the opposite with the laser. Chest hurts the most, stomach hurts a little. Back and shoulders feel like a rubber band flick. However, at least in my case, the after effects of waxing (sensitivity, redness) lasted days and days, whereas with laser my skin is basically fully recovered after 2.5 days.
On lower settings, it is much lass painful, but you are NOT getting the zap for your buck. Anyways, I guess I'm tough and my skin can take it. For each treatment after a day or two, I'm back to exercising, swimming etc. (however, note that with laser, some hair falls out immediately, but most of it actually "sheds" so post treatment the hair looks like it is growing back and you can have "pepper spots", but in fact the hair is not attached and falls out completely after a week or three -- then you are hair free for a few months until the next cycle of hair starts to grow in).
A final observation: Apparently some places do test patches to gauge settings before starting treatment. Janet does not. Not sure which way that cuts. But frankly, I was happy to just jump in the chair and get started without having to wait a week to "see" if I burned. I say this, even though the settings I had may have been too low on the first session. As we ramped up, we used burning sensation to judge whether or not we were going to high.
So there it is. Redefining Youth is a great kept secret, but shouldn't be. Janet is great, has the best machine on the market and offers service at very reasonable prices. I strongly suggest you do your own additional research so that you get your expectations set, but you can also trust me that if you are going to do laser, you'd be foolish not to consider Redefining Youth. read more
