Laser for pubic hair removal 9 year old, It’s no secret that pubic hair removal is a big business. From waxing to shaving, from laser to electrolysis, the market for hair removal products and services continues to grow. Some people see shaving or waxing as an inconvenience; others have concerns about the impact of laser treatment on their skin. But what about using electrolysis for pubic hair removal?
Electrolysis is an effective method for removing unwanted body hair. It involves inserting a fine needle into the area where you want the hair removed and applying a current to destroy the follicle. It can take several treatments before all hairs are removed, but it’s usually worth it when you consider how long-lasting results can be compared with other methods like shaving or laser treatment.
Read on to learn more about Laser For Pubic Hair Removal 9 Year Old, How Long Does Laser Hair Removal Last and Is Laser Hair Removal Permanent
Laser For Pubic Hair Removal 9 Year Old
How young is too young to let your kid start waxing?
Kids as young as eight and from all ethnicities are turning to professionals for body hair waxing and laser hair removal. But is it safe?
Photo: iStockphoto
At nine years old, Hengameh Mirza’s* daughter Rogine snuck off to the shower with her dad’s razor and shaved off all the hair on her arms and legs, and the patch between her eyebrows. A Persian Vancouverite living in Los Angeles, Rogine was tired of being bullied by her classmates, singled out for her “spider legs” and “unibrow.”
“It was always the boys who would gang up on me,” she says. At the time, she was enrolled in a private Christian school. “Every single one of my friends was white with blond hair and blue eyes—and blonde leg hair—and I was this brown-skinned girl with dark hair and a unibrow,” she says. “I used to wish I was white.”
After the initial shock wore off, Mirza decided that teaching her daughter safe hair removal was the best next step. “I said, ‘You know what, if it’s bothering you that much, let’s take care of it. It’s personal hygiene.” As a mom of two girls, Mirza also couldn’t help but empathize with her daughter. “At that time, she just wanted to feel supported and understood,” she says.
Rogine, now 17, kept shaving her arms and legs (and eventually her bikini area) until her mom thought she was ready for waxing, which is more painful, a few years later.
A growing number of pre-teens of all ethnicities are turning to professionals for hair removal to make themselves feel more accepted in their changing bodies. Waxing salons and dermatologist-owned laser clinics report seeing clients as young as eight years old.
Kids are growing up in the age of Instagram and YouTube, which heightens how self-conscious they feel about their appearances as they enter adolescence. Plus, some research shows that kids are going through puberty earlier. While some young millennials and celebrities such as Cardi B, Amandla Stenberg and Bekah Martinez are embracing the more natural let-it-grow body hair trend, the beauty ideal for both girls and boys is still pretty straight-up smooth and hairless.
Tweens are turning to the pros
I overwaxed and now I’m sad my daughters won’t see what a real bush looks likeSome hair removal salons in Toronto report that tweens make up to 10 percent of their clientele—and that there’s been a marked increase from just a few years ago. Today’s generation of parents are also more aware of professional services, and if it means their kids can remove unwanted hair in a more efficient way than shaving from the start, they’re willing to pay for it. (Waxing weakens hair growth from the root and the hair tends to grow back softer than hair that’s been shaved.)
For example, Sugarmoon Salon in Toronto has a service line especially for tweens and teens called “Sweetmoon,” with discounted pricing on sugaring, a method that is similar to waxing but is said to be gentler on the skin and made with more natural ingredients (only sugar, water and lemon juice, without using additives or cloth strips). The most popular sugaring services are for face, arms and bikini—and the salon sees girls as young as eight coming in with a parent.
“At that age they’re swimming, so they don’t want it to show through their bathing suits,” says Annette Palumbo, the operations manager for Sugarmoon. The salon also sees plenty of boys doing brows, chest and back as young as age 12.
“Social media has really upped the ante about how young people want to look,” says Palumbo. “Younger people are doing everything—shellac nails, gel nails, hair, balayage. It’s gotten to the point where they’re the mini-me of an adult.”
Some salons, like Allure Body Bar in Toronto, also cater to young people who are grooming for religious or cultural reasons. According to owner Alaa Abbassi, Islamic religious practices specify that the removal (or trimming) of pubic and underarm hair should be initiated for both men and women after the onset of puberty for hygienic reasons, and done at least once every 40 days. Her tween and teen customers start with a consultation, always with a parent involved—simply talking about the procedure, getting comfortable in the environment and maybe doing a patch test to see how they handle it. Both Palumbo and Abbassi agree that if it seems like a kid is being pressured into a procedure, the aestheticians at any reputable salon won’t go ahead with it. At times, they’ve had tween and teen clients change their mind in the room, which is totally acceptable.
Are waxing and laser hair removal safe for kids?
There are currently no Canadian evidence-based guidelines on recommendations for hair removal in kids, nor is there evidence of the effects of various hair removal techniques on children, says Rebecca Levy, a physician specializing in dermatology at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. However, the Canadian Dermatology Association breaks down the pros, cons and tips of all the different methods among men and women in general. For example, while shaving is the most popular method of hair removal (cheap, quick, convenient and relatively painless), there is the risk of getting cuts, fast regrowth and ingrown hairs. In comparison, waxing pulls hair out from the root, resulting in slower regrowth (two to three weeks) but is more painful, and extra caution is necessary to ensure the warm wax is not so hot that it burns the skin. Then there are longer-term and much more expensive methods such as laser treatment, which has serious risks including eye damage (from exposure to direct or reflected beams), burns and scarring—so is advised only after consultation with a dermatologist or under a dermatologist’s supervision. Costs for these different hair removal methods vary: it’s about $20 to $50 for a monthly waxing session, and around $300 per visit at a laser clinic.
“Pursuing hair removal in pre-adolescents and adolescents remains a personal and family decision,” says Levy. However, when certain medical conditions are involved, some hair removal techniques may be preferred over others, she says. For example, in hidradenitis suppurativa, a chronic and progressive inflammatory disorder involving the hair follicle, laser hair removal may be recommended, as shaving and waxing may aggravate the underlying condition. In other cases, excessive hair growth in children is a red flag that should prompt parents to seek medical advice. “Examples of red flags include axillary (underarm) or pubic hair growth in pre-pubertal children,” says Levy. “Excessive facial hair growth in females, particularly when accompanied by menstrual irregularities, acne, or thinning of scalp hair,” could also be a sign of a hormonal issue, she says.
Be careful about broadcasting or imposing beauty ideals
Talking about body hair with your tween can be a sensitive or uncomfortable topic for both of you, but it should be a part of the puberty conversation, say child psychologists. Unintentionally relaying (or reinforcing) the idea that young teens—especially girls—need to alter their physical appearance in order to be accepted is very tricky territory for a parent.
“Overall, [hair removal] is transforming or manipulating the body to look differently and to fit into a very tiny box of what’s an ideal stereotype,” says Anusha Kassan, a psychologist and associate professor at the University of Calgary who specializes in cultural identity, body image and adolescent development.
First, try to understand where the desire or bias to remove body hair is coming from, says Amy Green, a doctoral candidate in counselling psychology who works with Kassan at the University of Calgary. “With body image, the literature is showing that even as early as six, or even four, little girls are having body dissatisfaction and wanting to change the way they eat, and start dieting, and that’s really sad,” she says. “I think a good place to start is with the parents asking themselves, what are their own biases and appearance values and how might these be influencing their child?”
Kassan also notes that for girls with darker hair or skin, it’s a much more visible issue, that may come up at a younger age. “Racialized women can experience a sense of ‘othering’ based on their skin colour, but also for their hair. For young girls who are often from diverse cultures or backgrounds or have darker skin, if they have more body hair, they’re going to feel, at times, a little different from their peers, so that sense of othering will be amplified,” she says. “That can ramp up the emotional challenges that they might be facing, including anxiety at school—they kind of get a double whammy.”
She recommends parents talk about body hair with their children by framing it as a developmental process, rather than a gendered process. (Don’t say, for example, “girls are supposed to look like this when they become women, and guys are supposed to deal with body hair this way.”)
“Obviously, there’s more pressure on women and girls to go through hair removal, but I’m sure a lot of boys and men would say there’s pressure on them, too,” says Kassan. Embrace open dialogues about puberty and body awareness while steering clear of gender expectations, she advises. “There’s a danger of reinforcing the binary if we talk about it in a very gendered way.”
Sometimes you just need to trust your instincts and support your child in the best way that makes sense to you, adds Green. “It’s a personal decision: some parents will take a stand and say ‘no alteration’—that this will help their child build resilience. Others might jump at the chance to help relieve the stress for their child and help them change their appearance [to fit in],” she says.
Green warns parents to remember that waxing or shaving a child’s body hair is not necessarily going to put an end to bullying or ridicule at school. “If it’s not about the hair, the kid doing the bullying might just find something else to target. The bullying itself might be a larger issue that needs to be addressed.”
If my child doesn’t realize they’re getting hairy, do I tell them?
Jasmine Rehman,* an Afghan-Canadian mom living in Toronto, has debated whether to have the body hair talk with her eight-year-old daughter, Sara,* who has been teased by her school friends for the thick layer of hair on her upper lip. Both Rehman and Sara have light skin but very dark hair, which makes it even more noticeable. “Sara’s convinced it’s a paint stain from an art class that just won’t go away, and she keeps correcting people. It’s heartbreaking and innocent,” says Rehman.
Sara was upset and confused after she was singled out for her lip hair, but Rehman says she can’t bring herself to tell her daughter the truth yet. She also doesn’t want to suggest waxing until Sara’s much older and able to tolerate the pain—probably at least 13 years old, the age at which her own mother gave Rehman her first leg wax with a homemade recipe of sugar and lemon. “My tactic is to let her reach an age and stage where she realizes it’s hair and is willing to take the pain. Poor kid.”
When Sara starts catching on to social pressures from her peer group and asking her mom why she plucks her own brows or waxes her arms, Rehman plans to be honest. “I’ll tell her I was teased as an adolescent and I’ll take her to the salon when she’s older if she wants to get waxed,” she says. “If she wants to do it to feel good, that’s fine, but if she feels good about herself as is, that’s amazing.”
This sense of confidence, and feeling beautiful in her own skin, is something Rogine wishes she had, looking back at her nine-year-old self. But at the time, she couldn’t stop comparing herself to her blonde BFFs. “I shouldn’t have let other people influence my decision and I shouldn’t have seen my hair as a bad thing,” she says.
It’s a message her mom has tried to encourage as much as possible. “I have always said, ‘You enjoy your beautiful hair on your head,” recalls Mirza. “It’s sexier, it’s fuller, it’s more exotic and it’s gorgeous—and you just have to deal with the rest of your body being hairy.
How Long Does Laser Hair Removal Last
Several years ago I decided to stop shaving my legs and switched to waxing. I was sick of ingrown hairs and the little red bumps that formed on my lower legs from an old school razor. (Note to readers: If this is already too much information, this article is probably not for you.) Waxing your legs, I soon learned, is wonderful—for three days. Then the hair begins to creep back in and you are stuck with it for at least two weeks, three if you want it to be even more efficient. At the end of last summer, I put my furry foot down. No more of this back-and-forth business, I decided. It was time to look into a more permanent option.
I remembered first hearing about laser hair removal years ago when people were first talking about it and thinking, “Eek, that sounds risky, I’m going to wait and see if this goes the way of the LaserDisc or the DVD.” Basically I wanted to make sure it was legit and worth the time, pain, and cost.
The way laser hair removal works, I soon discovered from a quick bit of precautionary research, is that pulses of highly concentrated light are emitted from the laser into the hair follicles. The pigment in the follicles absorbs the light and that destroys the hair. When I read that 90 percent of laser hair removal patients who are good candidates for the procedure report permanent hair loss after an average of three to six sessions, I was sold. “Chewbacca be gone,” I vowed to myself. “Next year, I am getting my legs lasered.”
My interest was particularly piqued by the spate of at-home laser treatments recently on the market. Could it be that easy? An investigation into the leading brands revealed some intriguing contenders, from the Tria 4X (an FDA-cleared device that claims to deliver more than triple the hair-eliminating energy of its DIY peers) to the IluminageTOUCH (which is approved to safetly treat a wider of skin tones than traditional lasers). But while the convenience of zapping away on my couch while watching Law & Order: SVU was seductive, none seemed quite right. I can barely operate my electric kettle—should I really be handling a laser?
Board-certified dermatologist Jessica Weiser, M.D., who I eventually approached, is also dubious about the at-home models. “I advise caution because they’re supposed to be much less intense than in office lasers but in the wrong hands you can probably do some serious damage if you’re double- or- triple pulsing areas that you shouldn’t be,” she tells me. “Typically people at home tend to be aggressive with themselves because they think that they can get a faster, better result without realizing potential consequences.”
I opt instead for the New York Dermatology Group, where Weiser specializes in medical, surgical, and cosmetic dermatology. When I call for an appointment, I learned that in order to have bikini-worthy legs by Memorial Day I would need to start the laser process in peak tights-and-boots weather. Soon, I’m headed down to their Flatiron offices for my first of six appointments—six, explains Dr. Weiser, to accommodate the hair’s growth cycles. “Hairs have a growth phase and also a resting and a falling-out phase,” she says. “Some of the hairs are not there right now because they are in the rest phase and not every hair will respond to the pulses.” Hence the need for multiple sessions, spaced about one month apart, the typical length of a hair-growth cycle.
I arrive at their office, a wide-open space with pale pine floors, and am shown to Dr. Weiser’s patient room, where she promptly asks if my legs are shaven.
“No!” I reply proudly, excited to show her that I wax instead.
“Hmm,” Dr. Weiser frowns. “I need the legs to be clean-shaven for the laser so we’ll have to shave them now,” she continues, explaining that for next six months of my laser treatment, I’ll need to exclusively shave my legs.
I am next instructed to put on a pair of bottle-green goggles while Dr. Weiser rubs ultrasound gel on my calves. Before we begin, she shares with me the one description of laser hair removal I have heard before: “It feels like a rubber band being flicked against your skin multiple times.”
Either I am wrong, or my pain threshold is incredibly low, because I find laser hair removal excruciatingly uncomfortable. In fact, I start to think, I would take a flick of a rubber band any day over the repeated burning zap of the laser. After the first few zaps, I squirm so much Dr. Weiser has to stop. It feels like someone is taking a lit match to my leg and holding it up close. The darker the hair, she explains, the coarser it is; therefore more energy is emitted onto that follicle, causing greater discomfort. When those hairs are zapped, it feels like a bee sting—and you just have to hope there aren’t too many.
The whole process is a bit like whack-a-mole; it seems there’s always another hair to quash. But Dr. Weiser is calm and methodical, her laser moving up and down the leg in straight lines. The noise of the pulses is like the beat of a metronome or a very fast elevator that beeps at every floor. (On my second visit, I remove my silk blouse in order to avoid unnecessary dry cleaning.) But with each subsequent visit, it gets progressively easier, partly because I am becoming more used to the process and partly because there is less hair to zap.
Clearly I’m not alone in this. Nearly half a million laser treatments were performed by dermatological surgeons in 2011 (the last year that collected data is available) according to the American Society for Dermatological Surgery, so it must be worth the minor suffering. Most people who get laser treatments are focusing on smaller areas of hair—underarm, upper lip, bikini line. These areas also happen to be much more sensitive: The very idea of getting my bikini line. These areas also happen to be much more sensitive. The lower leg, on the other hand, is one of the largest areas that they laser and it takes about 25 minutes altogether for both legs upon each visit.
By my third appointment I begin to see a real difference. The laser picks up a lot more “energy” as Dr. Weiser says, and I find the whole experience far less painful. For several days following each treatment, I have a series of small red bumps on my legs and this actually elates me because I know it means that the laser has picked up that follicle and when the redness dies down that spot will be hair-free for life—a delightful thought as summer, and a season of confidently wearing my favorite Isabel Marant silk-chiffon miniskirt, begins.
Is Laser Hair Removal Permanent
Shaving, plucking, or waxing hair can often be time-consuming. Many people turn to laser hair removal as a solution to take care of unwanted facial and body hair.
IS LASER HAIR REMOVAL PERMANENT FOREVER?
After you have your first laser hair removal treatment, you will see a reduced number of hairs immediately. Hair growth may increase in the treated area from 2 to 8 weeks after since not all hair follicles respond equally to the treatment. It usually takes 3 to 8 sessions to achieve permanent hair loss. You may also need touch-up sessions about once a year.
HOW LONG DOES PERMANENT LASER HAIR REMOVAL LAST?
After your initial treatments, laser hair removal should be permanent if you have a yearly touch-up session. You may even go years without seeing any regrowth. If you do, it tends to be finer and lighter in color and density than before.
IS LASER HAIR REMOVAL BAD?
You should receive your laser hair removal treatments from an experienced dermatologist. As with any procedure, side effects are possible, but the most common are discomfort, swelling, and redness, which may last for just a few days. More serious side effects such as scarring, or blistering are possible.
DOES LASER HAIR REMOVAL PERMANENTLY REDUCE HAIR?
Laser hair removal permanently reduces hair. Even if some hair grows back, it should be less noticeable as well as finer and lighter than it was before your treatments.
DOES LASER HAIR REMOVAL LIGHTEN SKIN?
Laser hair removal can sometimes lighten treated skin, but the effect is usually temporary. It’s more likely to happen if you have darker skin. Additionally, if you don’t avoid sun exposure as directed for six weeks before and after your treatment and use broad-spectrum sunscreen after your treatment, your skin may lighten.
HOW PAINFUL IS LASER HAIR REMOVAL?
If you’re receiving treatment in a sensitive area, your doctor may apply numbing gel on it before the laser is used. As the laser is used, some patients report a mild stinging sensation like a rubber band snapping.
SHOULD I SHAVE BEFORE LASER HAIR REMOVAL?
Shaving is recommended the day before your laser treatment. This removes the hair above the skin but leaves the hair shaft intact.
IS LASER HAIR REMOVAL SAFE LONG TERM?
As with any procedure, you may experience some side effects, but they’re less likely to occur if your treatment is performed by or under the supervision of a dermatologist who has experience in providing laser hair removal treatments.
CAN I SHOWER AFTER LASER HAIR REMOVAL?
You shouldn’t shower or bathe immediately after laser hair removal, but your doctor will tell you how long you should wait. The time may range from 8 hours up to 48 hours since your skin may still be sensitive.
If you’d like more information about laser hair removal, make an appointment today with Hollywood Dermatology & Cosmetic Specialists in South Florida. Our medical staff offers the latest, most effective treatments to help you look and feel your best.