Your hair isn’t constantly growing. A single hair follicle will grow hair for a period, then the growth stops and the follicle holds onto the hair. Then after a while the follicle releases the hair and it falls out. After a period the cycle starts over again. That is why it is normal to find a brush full of hair each morning.
If you are waxing you know that after a waxing you’re silky smooth for a few weeks, then the hair starts to grow back. That is because all of the hair was ripped out, those growing, and those dormant. But after a few weeks the next cycle of hair growth begins and a new hair begins to grow.
Laser doesn’t remove the hair, but it disables those hair follicles which are in the active growth phase. Once disabled it won’t grow hair again, but the other hair follicles which weren’t actively growing at the time will continue their normal cycle. At any one time you have about 20% of your hair in the active growth phase. So if you laser today, you’ll disable about 20% of the hair follicles, but 4-6 weeks later the next cycle will start. When those are lasered, you’ll have about 40% disabled.
So in theory it should take 5 treatments to disable all the hair follicles. In reality though it takes about 7 treatments to achieve results.
The other question is why do I need occasional touch ups. Simple, you can develop new hair follicles. Normally this is a very slow process unless you’re going through hormonal changes. The obvious being puberty, but also pregnancy, menopause, men’s mid life crisis, etc.
If you’re in the metro Denver Boulder area stop by and see us at Bella Pelle Laser for a free consultation to see how we can address your hair removal needs.