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Last updated: 04/27/2009
Laser hair removal is a technique for removing undesirable hair from the face or other places on the body. Since every single hair on the body comes from its own follicular unit or hair follicle; destroying this unit removes the existing hair and prevents the unit from growing hair in the future. In laser hair removal, light energy from a laser is used to destroy the hair follicle. Hair in the treated region may not begin to grow back for several months making laser hair removal a permanent hair removal technique—more permanent than most other hair removal options. In fact, with repeated treatments, laser hair removal may prevent hair growth in the treated area for greater than six months.
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Epilation by laser was performed experimentally for about 20 years before it became commercially available in the mid 1990s. Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) epilators, though technically not a laser, use xenon flash lamps that emit full spectrum light. Laser and light-based methods, sometimes called phototricholysis or photoepilation, are now most commonly referred to collectively as "laser hair removal". One of the first published articles describing laser hair removal was authored by the group at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1998.
The efficacy of laser hair removal is now generally accepted in the dermatology community, and laser hair removal is widely practiced. Many reviews of laser hair removal methods, safety, and efficacy have been published in the dermatology literature.
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