One of the many myths surrounding laser hair removal is its price tag being too expensive, costing thousands of dollars for any area. Laser hair removal is an affordable procedure that only costs in the hundreds, not in the thousands! Prices vary depending on the area being treated, all with affordable options.
Consultation is often free, with no obligation on your part to end up going through the procedure. Take a visit to St Louis Lipo to see what you can expect to pay for any area on your body!
The Extensive Benefits to Laser Hair Removal
Fast, Effortless, and Efficient
Laser hair removal is a quick and pain-free procedure that makes it easy to get a treatment during your busy work schedule! Those with light skin and dark hair are the best candidates to be treated. Treated hair will fall out over the course of a couple weeks. Eventually, after enough treatments, your treated area will be hair free!
The most reputable laser hair removal clinics will provide a range of options for laser hair removal treatments suited to a variety of skin tones and hair types, though patients with hair darker than their skin still tend to see the greatest results. Some laser hair removal clinics can even treat blonde, gray, and red hair!
Choosing St Louis Lipo adds the benefit of using the Soprano Xli, a brand new laser that is comfortable and pain-free during your procedures. Quick, pain-free, and affordable procedures that lead to hairless skin? Now those are some great benefits to laser hair removal!
The Most Effective Hair Removal Method on the Market
So we’ve established that laser hair removal works, but how well does it work compared to the standard methods of removing hair?
Traditionally, many patients turn to shaving and waxing for their hair removal needs. More recently, others have begun exploring modern approaches, such as electrolysis or hair growth reduction products.
Electrolysis is a hair removal method that uses an electrode shaped like a needle to apply electricity to each unwanted follicle, zapping them until the follicle dies. In electrolysis, each follicle is individually treated, and the process is often only used in miniscule regions of the body, such as the eyebrows, underarms, or upper lip.
Electrolysis has the supposed benefit of being an alternative for patients with lighter-colored and finer-textured hair. However, there are several tradeoffs that patients must consider in return, including the enormous cost per session (about $45 to $65 per thirty minute treatment), the time-consuming nature of the treatment, the uncomfortable or even painful stinging and pricking sensations, and the risk of scarring or skin discoloration if improperly performed. If a patient wants hair permanently removed, they’ll likely need multiple sessions to achieve the results they want.
Hair growth reduction products remove and prevent hair growth by weakening the follicles of hair with chemicals, enabling a patient to wipe the unwanted hair away. Depilatory creams like Veet and Nair are prime examples of hair growth reduction products, as are hair inhibiting gel wipes that slow down hair growth when used regularly post-shave or post-wax.
Because of the chemicals they use, these hair growth reduction products can irritate the skin, can lead to ingrown hairs, and often have an overwhelming smell. And while the initial cost for these types of products may seem cheap at about $6 to $12 per container or tube, the long term toll on your skin and on your wallet can add up to much more than you’d be willing to spend outright.
Hair growth reduction and electrolysis certainly sound scarier than waxing or shaving. However, even waxing and shaving aren’t without their faults. Professional waxing sessions use hot wax to remove unwanted hair in the opposite direction of hair growth, ripping it out by the root. Waxing is generally described as painful, though it’s said that people tend to get used to the sensation after regular waxing sessions. Some patients have even reported drinking alcohol beforehand to numb the pain, though this actually makes the sensation worse, as alcohol tightens pores and makes it more difficult to remove hair follicles with ease.
Waxing is most commonly used on underarms, legs, and sensitive bikini regions, resulting in about two to six weeks of hair-free skin, depending on the thickness, growth rate, and type of hair. Most patients who get waxed can enjoy their results for three weeks. Once the unwanted hair has grown back to around a quarter inch of thickness, the patient is then able to have another waxing session.
Waxing can cost between $35 and $80 per session, depending on the areas you have waxed and which salon you choose. Not only is waxing prohibitively expensive (especially when you add up the cost over time), but it can also lead to painful ingrown hairs, in addition to the pain caused by ripping out your hair by its roots.
Finally, shaving is often a top contender for hair removal methods. Men shave their faces and bodies, while women shave their legs and underarms. Shaving usually produces the best results for those with finer, lightweight hair.
At first, it’s easy to see why so many mistakenly think that shaving is the easiest and most efficient hair removal method. Sure, you may end up with a few nicks and cuts, ingrown hairs, or razor burn, but who can argue with buying a cheap razor and shaving cream at the store, or removing hair in the privacy of your own home? Your hair may grow back quickly and may look thicker from the angle that the razor trims the hair (a blunt cut instead of the natural taper that hair has), but isn’t it worth it if razors and shaving cream only cost a few dollars apiece?
Yet, what many fail to consider are the jaw-dropping costs of shaving over the course of your lifetime. Each time you purchase a new razor and shaving cream, the tally starts adding up, resulting in expenditures of around $250 to $300 per year for the average person. There’s also the environmental impact to consider, with the constant production and disposal of disposable razors.
Meanwhile, laser hair removal saves patients thousands of dollars and hours over their lifetime, produces incredible results, has minimal side effects, and has minimal pain or discomfort. Treatments work by penetrating the skin using light waves, targeting shafts of hair by the amount of melanin and destroying the hair follicles to prevent hair from growing back. The laser light used doesn’t damage a patient’s skin, allowing the treatment to be applied to multiple skin types (including sensitive skin) and body parts. The results are well-proven and long-lasting, with the majority of patients achieving permanent loss of unwanted hair after one series of sessions—about six treatments in total.
The treatment can be slightly uncomfortable for some patients, producing a sensation similar to that of a snapping rubber band depending on the patient’s tolerance for pain. Potential side effects are mostly minor, such as swelling, temporary redness, itching, and slight discomfort or pain, though there is still a risk for serious side effects like bruising, bleeding, scabbing, burning, or infection. And while laser hair removal appears to have an intimidating upfront cost per treatment, it really does save patients time and money in the long run.
Cost Benefits in the Long-Term
At this point, you may be wondering just how laser hair removal can save you money and time.
To begin, let’s take a look at the costs of shaving and waxing, two of the most common hair removal methods. We mentioned a few brief price points above, but to really put it into perspective, we’ve calculated the amount of money the average person spends on these seemingly inexpensive hair removal treatments.
After the first year, shaving costs can add up to approximately $300, while waxing adds up to over double that amount at $650. By the time you reach the ten-year mark, your shaving habit will have racked up about $3,000, or $6,630 if you wax on a regular basis. At the twenty-year mark, it’s estimated that most people spend as much as $6,000 on shaving or over $13,000 on waxing.
But how can razors, shaving cream, or waxing sessions add up to so much money? Consider the extra side costs included with these methods, from the extra water usage on your monthly bill to tipping and gas prices involved for runs to the store or the salon.
That extra water usage is also a waste of a precious natural resource, in addition to an extra dollar amount on your bill. It’s estimated that women in particular waste as much as 400,000 gallons of water throughout their lifetimes on shaving!
Even if you don’t care about the cost or impact on the environment that shaving and waxing each incur, consider the amount of time wasted in removing your unwanted hair. It might not seem like a lot, but adding up the total hours of each waxing session in a twenty-year period, you can end up losing four to five days’ worth of your time. With shaving, the amount of wasted time is even more dramatic; after twenty years, it’s estimated that a person wastes about fifty-four days. That’s nearly two months of your time spent shaving. You could go on the vacation of a lifetime with that much free time!
Laser hair removal offers an outstanding alternative to wasting time and money on shaving or waxing. Most patients see permanent hair loss after a single series of treatments, adding up to about $3,600 on average over the course of their lifetime. Even still, laser hair removal treatments at St. Louis Lipo cost just twenty-five percent of what you would pay at a standard laser hair removal clinic chain, such as Ideal Image.
Furthermore, completing a series of laser hair removal sessions takes a mere total of six to ten hours, adding up to one quarter or just under one half of a single days’ worth of time. Compared to losing out on a week or two months’ worth of time with waxing and shaving, in addition to laser hair removal’s ability to treat large areas of hair all at once, laser hair removal is the fastest and most effective option in the long-run!
A Great Procedure for Hair Removal
Laser hair removal
