Any sort of cosmetic procedure is going to carry a price tag, but of all of the cosmetic procedures available, laser hair removal is one of the most cost effective bringing you permanent results, often for less than a thousand dollars – so long as you’re treating a small area, of course. To understand the cost of laser hair removal, you must first understand what is necessary in the course of the procedures. Some procedures are simple while others are decidedly more complex. The more complex a procedure, the more you can expect to pay for the treatment.
Laser Hair Removal
When you make an appointment with a specialist or doctor for laser hair removal, you’ll want to be sure that you’re working with an experienced professional who you can trust. While not overly invasive, laser hair removal does come with some risks, and when you’re looking for a price, you’ll want to steer clear of any prices that seem too good to be true. It might be that the person offering the treatment isn’t as qualified or you’re not paying for the same high level of service that you can get in a regular salon or office.
With laser hair removal, the laser penetrates the top-most layers of the skin and targets the dark hair follicle inside the fair skin. The laser transfers into hear when it hits the hair follicle and actually damages it to be the point that hair can no longer grow naturally from that particular follicle. The hair continues to appear to grow as it is pushed out of the follicle. Then, once the hair is out, you will not have hair continue to grow in that area. This is usually permanent. Since hair grows in cycles on your body, you will need to visit the doctor again for follow up visits to be sure that you’ve treated all of the hair follicles, even those that were dormant during your first visit. The end result of these visits is a section of your body free of hair.
Normally the doctor will not use any heavy anesthesia when you’re undergoing laser hair removal, but you may be able to use a local anesthesia, especially if you’re using laser hair removal in a large area of your body like your legs or your back. There are some areas of the body that are much more sensitive a well and you may be offered a local anesthesia for those areas in particular. Of course, when you’re trying to calculate the cost of laser hair removal, the use of anesthesia can affect the price in a dramatic way.
Cost of Laser Hair Removal in the Doctor’s Office
If you’re planning to visit a doctor or medical specialist who offers laser hair removal, the cost of laser hair removal will be range from $50 to $900 per treatment depending on the size of the area you’re treating as well as the number of times you’re be returning to the office for follow-ups. The cost of laser hair removal can vary wildly with the reputation and location of your doctor or laser center. In large cities, for example, there are many clinics that offer laser hair removal. This natural competition often encourages professionals to keep prices lower or at least reasonable. Otherwise they risk losing potential customers to nearby competitors with slightly better prices.
In more rural communities, on the other hand, there may be only a handful of salons and doctors, and among those few would offer the laser hair removal treatments. In the case of many towns, there is only one center where you might find the procedures, and unless you’re willing to travel, the prices set by that center are what you can expect to pay. Usually these prices are a bit higher than they would be with the more healthy competition in the city, unfortunately.
Regardless of where you go for your laser hair removal, you can count on visiting multiple times to have an area completely cleared of hair. You’ll need to factor these frequent trips into your budget, although many salons and doctors include this in their pricing model, offering package deals with three or six visits to manage the repeat visits.
For example, to remove hair under your arms using laser hair removal, you would start with a single twenty-minute laser hair removal session. The session might cost $50. A few weeks later, the active hair follicles from that session are no longer producing hair, but now follicles that were dormant previously are producing hair and they need to be zapped for another $50. This might happen a total of three to six times before all or almost all of the hair is removed. A larger area such as your back or legs will cost substantially more and will require more time in the proverbial hot seat as you undergo multiple treatments. These treatments might be closer to $800 each depending on where you visit.
Cost of Laser Hair Removal at Home
There is a less expensive means of laser hair removal. The cost of laser hair removal at home is much less than it would be under the care of a professional, but it has its own headaches. When you opt for laser hair removal at home, you’re purchasing a small laser that works with much less intensity than the lasers commonly used by the professionals. The lasers target a small area with less power. Using the laser at home means that the process takes longer in each sitting, and you’ll be required to do more sittings to find permanent results. There is also no anesthesia required or available with the at-home treatments.
All told, the out-of-pocket cost of laser hair removal at home is about $800 for a specialized laser, but there is a greater cost of time and commitment. Rather than taking yourself to the doctor three times during your lunch break, you may be committed to spending three hours every two weeks for six months treating the same area over and over to ensure positive results.
Of course, the side benefit of this is that the laser you’ve purchased for $800 can be used to treat any area of your body – not just one. You may have to revisit an area multiple times to get the results you’d like, but you can continue to work on any area of your body over time. You can use that laser to remove hair from every area of your body if that’s what you prefer. When bearing that in mind, the cost of laser hair removal at home is positively frugal if you have the time to invest in the process and multiple treatments.
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