Laser hair removal is the fix for ingrown hairs that lasts. The laser heats the root until it stops making hair, or makes only a fine one, so there is little left to grow back into the skin. Shaving, waxing and plucking all leave the follicle that grows the hair, which is why the bumps come back after every one of them. Expect fewer bumps from the second session, when the hair starts growing back slower and finer, over a course of 6 to 12 sessions, 4 to 6 weeks apart.
One of our clients shaved her legs and bikini area almost daily, and in her words, "every shave resulted in irritation and ingrown hairs." After 8 sessions she had about 90% less hair and no more ingrown hairs, and she keeps it with one session a year.
A razor leaves each hair with a sharp, angled tip at the surface. Dense, coarse or curly hair bends as it grows, and the tip curls round and pierces the skin beside it. Wax and tweezers snap some hairs below the surface, and the regrowth has to push up through skin that has closed over it.
On darker skin the bump is the smaller problem. Each one can leave a dark mark that stays for months after the hair has gone, and months of shaving leave a field of them. Many of our Downers Grove clients have exactly this: dense, dark hair, ingrown hairs, and the marks they leave.
The same dark, coarse hair is the hair a laser takes best, because the laser works through the pigment in the hair. On darker skin we use the 1064 nm Nd:YAG side of the Candela GentleMax Pro, which reaches the root and leaves the melanin at the surface alone, so we treat at the setting the hair needs and can take it higher than most clinics do. Our page on laser hair removal for dark skin says why other lasers burn darker skin.
In the first week after a session the treated hair sheds. Some of it sits under the skin as dark dots or stubble that will not shave away while it works its way out. Leave it to fall out by itself, without plucking or scrubbing. The session itself is not painful: it feels like a rubber band snapping on the skin. Redness for 4 to 6 hours afterwards is normal, and your aesthetician tells you what else you may feel after the session and what to do about it.
From the second session the hair grows back slower and finer: less to shave, so fewer fresh cut tips, and less to grow in, so the bumps on the bikini line, underarms, neck and legs settle with it. Each session catches a new set of hair, because the laser only reaches hair in its growth phase and not every hair grows at once. Skin tone, hair color, genetics and hormones decide where in the 6 to 12 you land. Hormonal hair on the chin and neck keeps starting new hairs, so face laser hair removal usually runs the full course. Expect a long-lasting reduction, not permanent removal, kept with one maintenance session a year.
Shave between sessions and the day before each one. Waxing, plucking, threading and depilatory cream are out for the whole course, because the laser needs the root in place, and wax and tweezers are where many ingrown hairs start anyway.
How you shave decides how many bumps the razor leaves while the laser works:
Around each session: no sun, tanning bed, self-tanner or spray tan for two weeks before, clean skin without lotion or deodorant on the day, and afterwards no sun or heat on the area, with any crusting left alone to come off by itself. The full list is on how to prepare for laser hair removal.
Strawberry legs are the dark dots on shaved legs that look like the seeds on a strawberry. On dark, coarse hair most of the dots come from the hair itself: the dark stub of a shaved hair showing through the skin, a hair that grew back into it, or the mark an old bump left. Dots that turn into stubble a day or two after shaving are hair, and they go when the hair does. Laser takes the hair, so there is no stub to show through, and with no new bumps the old marks fade over the following months, faster when the legs are kept out of the sun. Our legs and bikini client listed smoother, more even skin among her results after 8 sessions.
Some dots are not hair. Pores clogged with oil and dead skin also turn dark after a shave. Rough, dry bumps that also show on the upper arms are keratosis pilaris. Laser reduces its strawberry look too, and a dermatologist treats the skin condition behind it. Leg laser hair removal has the price for a session and a course.
Leave it. Most ingrown hairs work themselves free in days to weeks, and letting that patch go unshaved until it clears helps. Do not squeeze it, pick it or dig at it with a needle or tweezers. That pushes bacteria into the skin and may leave a scar, and on darker skin it is what turns a bump into a mark that lasts.
See a doctor or dermatologist if a bump is painful, hot or swelling, holds pus, has redness spreading from it, comes with a fever, or is a hard lump that stays. Painful lumps that keep coming back in the underarms, groin or under the breasts, even where you do not shave, need a dermatologist too, since they are not always ingrown hairs. Have an infected bump or open skin healed before a laser session on that area.
The consultation is free, and it includes a free trial, so you feel the laser on your own skin before you plan a course. There we plan the areas where your bumps are and the sessions each needs. A small area such as the chin is a 30 minute session.
Each area has its own page with its price: Brazilian laser hair removal for the bikini area, underarm laser hair removal, laser hair removal for men for razor bumps on the neck and below the beard line, and full body laser hair removal when the bumps are everywhere you shave. Every area and package is on our laser hair removal prices, and the device, results and team are on laser hair removal in Chicago.
We treat at three clinics. Laser hair removal in Downers Grove is at 1311 Butterfield Rd, Suite 302, with parking right in front of the entrance, for Naperville, Aurora, Lombard and Oak Brook. Laser hair removal in Wicker Park is at 1138 N Milwaukee Ave, Chicago, and laser hair removal in Rolling Meadows at 5999 New Wilke Rd, Building 1, Suite 105. Every visit is by appointment, evenings and weekends included, on (312) 600-0705, and all our aestheticians are licensed. Book a free consultation.