Why is my Laser not working anymore?

You’ve had a few sessions now, and it feels like it worked really well to start with, but then you start to feel like it’s not working any more. Why is that? Well, not a lot of salons will explain this, but it’s very simple, and the rule of diminishing returns. Let us explain! 

Imagine we were treating an area on the body which had 100 hairs to begin with. Generally, we can expect each laser session to treat 20% of those hairs successfully, so you’d be left with 80 hairs (20% of 100=80) after the first session. Next time we see you, we treat 20% of 80 hairs, which is 16 hairs, so you’re left with 64. The third session we treat 20% of 64 hairs which is 13, so you’re left with 51. So you see, by the end of 3 sessions, half the hair is gone and you’re feeling pretty happy!

Then the maths starts to work against us. The 4th treatment, 20% of 51 hairs is only 10 hairs treated, so you’re down to 41 hairs remaining, then 5th session treats only 8 hairs.... etc etc, so yes, it can feel like the treatment has stopped working. But don’t give up or lose heart! It’s super important to keep going until AT LEAST 6 full sessions have completed. The FDA defines successful laser hair removal as an 80% reduction in the treated area - which is what we aim for after 6 sessions. For many clients that’s an amazing outcome and they are super happy. For others, that’s not hair-free enough and we continue with treatment to get more hairs zapped. The good news is that there is no maximum number of laser treatments you can have, so how many is right for you will depend on what you want to achieve.