Does Permanent Hair Removal Actually Mean Lasting Eternally?
26 06 2009
Most consumers suppose “permanent” means lasting eternally. Alas, that’s not always the case as it’s used in advertising.
For instance, a permanent wave in your hair is not really eternal, and a permanent marker is not necessarily lasting.
It’s problematical to assess a new hair removal method that claims to be permanent. Several people guess that after a specified amount of time, it’s not likely that a hair will ever come back.
That’s why most people, myself also, have suggested a specific definition of “permanent.” A lot of of these definitions seem unsatisfactory to me. One company claims their method is permanent based on results after 8 weeks. That’s incredible. Waxing can last that long, and it’s been clinically proven to be temporary.
Permanent hair removal
For the purposes of hair removal, our characterization of “permanent” is being able to go a year after your latest hair removal remedy without having to use a different procedure of hair removal.
Bear in mind that a year maybe not be long enough to ascertain valid permanence, but most consumers would be glad to have one treatment a year.
The lone method of clinically demonstrated permanent hair removal is electrolysis. Some lasers and flash lamps have been able to achieve lasting hair reduction, as discussed below.
Long-term hair removal
An extra undefined term is “long-term” hair removal. Once more, it depends on what your definition of “long” is. Our definition of “long-term” is being able to go 8 months after your last treatment without having to use an extra procedure of hair removal.
Your definition may differ, but I don’t deem 6 weeks to be long-term. I arbitrarily decided on 5 months as a proper definition, for the reason that most hair growth cycles will have completed in 6 months.
Hair reduction vs. hair removal
Real permanent hair removal has been recognized as the absolute destruction of a hair follicle’s capacity to regenerate and grow hair.
Several lasers have proven permanent hair reduction in clinical studies and are allowed to make this claim by FDA. The word “reduction” adds another term that is loosely defined. FDA has acknowledged the definition of reduction as a unwavering reduction in the number of coarse dark hairs.
Some laser hair removal clinics have demonstrated in clinical testing that they can reduce the size of hairs and lighten the color. In some patients, this reduction appears to be lasting for ever.
