Effectiveness depends on your skin and hair color, paler skin and darker hair get better results. Results are permanent, a dead follicle stays dead for good, but you won’t get 100% removal with a single pass because of how hair follicles cycle in and out of active duty. You’ll need to do multiple treatments over the course of several weeks or months depending on how your hair grows.
As someone with dark hair and quite pale skin, I was basically a perfect case for it. At 7 sessions so far, the number of hairs that still grow on my face are countable - 43 of them by my count - I still do have to shave but it takes like 30 seconds because they’re all focused on my upper lip and one particularly stubborn spot on my chin. The important part is that when I shave, I have no beard shadow at all now. I may not 100% pass yet without makeup but it makes makeup way easier to not have to also collor-correct for beard shadow.
Others have answered with more detail but yeah, it also does take testosterone suppression or you’ll have to go back every so often to address any new/rejuvenated hairs. A cis guy friend of mine has to go just about every year.
Just for your information, it only works in combination with suppressing Testosterone. as long as testosterone is present in high levels it will come back
It hurts and it takes a while (at least on my face), and it costs a fair bit depending on where you’re at… but when it finally starts kicking in, I would STILL say it’s worth it.
I can’t speak for lasers, but if you want to try something less permanent but -much- cheaper, to see how well it works for you or how you like it before you commit to laser, pick up an IPL device (intermittent pulses of light). It works similarly, but if you stop using it for a long time, the hair eventually grows back. Mostly.
Once you get it to the point that it’s not growing anymore, which is like 2-4 months of use as directed by the device itself, depending on your hair/skin combo and the strength of light you use (which in full fairness, it does start as a several-times-weekly commitment) you only need to do spot treatments every few months, which I understand is something you have to do with laser anyway every 6-12 mths, this is just a bit more frequent. If you stop using it entirely, you’ll start to get noticeable regrowth after about 6 mths, but it could stay thin for years. I have some places I stopped doing and they are still noticeably thinner and finer than places that never got treated at all, 5+ years on.
The one I bought was like $125 usd a decade back, so they can be pretty affordable, and might be all you ever want to use since you can do it on your own time.
I had Lazer done on face, chest, arms, legs, and genitals. You need to do like 8-12 sessions but I haven’t had to shave in years. Though there are like 5 clear hairs now that I pluck.
Repeated, hair growth happens on different cycles and not all will be active at the same time. Need a short root for the Lazer energy to kill the root and sometimes one hit does not kill the base and needs to be hit again.
https://milanlaser.com/inclusive-clientele/trans
You need to get the whole area done repeatedly, the follicles only die if they get zapped during a certain phase in their growth cycle. Typically laser sessions are spaced about a month apart to allow time for previously killed hairs to fall out and the remaining ones to make some progress in their cycle, you can expect to lose like 10-20% of the remaining hairs with each session.
If you don’t mind me asking, how well does that work? I’m very interested in never having to shave again lmao
Effectiveness depends on your skin and hair color, paler skin and darker hair get better results. Results are permanent, a dead follicle stays dead for good, but you won’t get 100% removal with a single pass because of how hair follicles cycle in and out of active duty. You’ll need to do multiple treatments over the course of several weeks or months depending on how your hair grows.
As someone with dark hair and quite pale skin, I was basically a perfect case for it. At 7 sessions so far, the number of hairs that still grow on my face are countable - 43 of them by my count - I still do have to shave but it takes like 30 seconds because they’re all focused on my upper lip and one particularly stubborn spot on my chin. The important part is that when I shave, I have no beard shadow at all now. I may not 100% pass yet without makeup but it makes makeup way easier to not have to also collor-correct for beard shadow.
Others have answered with more detail but yeah, it also does take testosterone suppression or you’ll have to go back every so often to address any new/rejuvenated hairs. A cis guy friend of mine has to go just about every year.
Just for your information, it only works in combination with suppressing Testosterone. as long as testosterone is present in high levels it will come back
This is not true
It hurts and it takes a while (at least on my face), and it costs a fair bit depending on where you’re at… but when it finally starts kicking in, I would STILL say it’s worth it.
I can’t speak for lasers, but if you want to try something less permanent but -much- cheaper, to see how well it works for you or how you like it before you commit to laser, pick up an IPL device (intermittent pulses of light). It works similarly, but if you stop using it for a long time, the hair eventually grows back. Mostly.
Once you get it to the point that it’s not growing anymore, which is like 2-4 months of use as directed by the device itself, depending on your hair/skin combo and the strength of light you use (which in full fairness, it does start as a several-times-weekly commitment) you only need to do spot treatments every few months, which I understand is something you have to do with laser anyway every 6-12 mths, this is just a bit more frequent. If you stop using it entirely, you’ll start to get noticeable regrowth after about 6 mths, but it could stay thin for years. I have some places I stopped doing and they are still noticeably thinner and finer than places that never got treated at all, 5+ years on.
The one I bought was like $125 usd a decade back, so they can be pretty affordable, and might be all you ever want to use since you can do it on your own time.
I had Lazer done on face, chest, arms, legs, and genitals. You need to do like 8-12 sessions but I haven’t had to shave in years. Though there are like 5 clear hairs now that I pluck.
You can get rid of the clear hairs with electrolysis, they have to target each hair individually but if you’ve only got 5 it won’t take very long
Yeah, I just keep forgetting to make an appointment.
Are the many sessions because you only do small areas per session, or because you need to do the whole area repeatedly?
Repeated, hair growth happens on different cycles and not all will be active at the same time. Need a short root for the Lazer energy to kill the root and sometimes one hit does not kill the base and needs to be hit again. https://milanlaser.com/inclusive-clientele/trans
https://www.reddit.com/r/MtF/comments/15zbz45/does_anyone_have_experience_with_milans_unlimited/
You need to get the whole area done repeatedly, the follicles only die if they get zapped during a certain phase in their growth cycle. Typically laser sessions are spaced about a month apart to allow time for previously killed hairs to fall out and the remaining ones to make some progress in their cycle, you can expect to lose like 10-20% of the remaining hairs with each session.