Page 104 - Blog Posts v1

A32 - How much hair is removed after each laser/IPL treatment?
This is an interesting question. It's tricky to know precisely because it's hard to 'count' the hairs...
So, I used my computer model of the anagen-catagen-telogen growth cycle to find out. This is the model I developed last year to figure out how long we should leave between treatments for the best outcomes.
To answer this question, I looked at the underarms and pubic hair. According to clinical studies, these areas have very similar cycles with 53% of all hair in the anagen phase at any one time, and 40% in the telogen phase. The duration of the anagen phase was found to be around 16 weeks, while the telogen phase lasted for about 12 weeks.
I know, from previous work, that most people are achieving an efficiency of between 50 and 60% when applying these treatments. So, in this analysis I have assumed a 'worst case' scenario of 50% efficiency.
I decided to go for a 6 week interval between treatment sessions - again, a 'worst case' scenario. So, these results will show the poorest of all outcomes!
The graphs above show the drop in all three phases, plus the total percentage of hairs left after each treatment, over 42 weeks (8 treatments).
The blue line shows how the percentage of anagen hairs bounces around, especially after the first four treatments. It begins at 53% then drops to 41% just prior to the second treatment, then down to 38% just before the third treatment - not much difference! This then falls to 25% just before the fourth treatment session.
Mike’s Blog Posts 104