Does Permanent Hair Removal Actually Mean Lasting Forever?

A lot of consumers believe "permanent" means lasting forever. Sorry to say, that's not always the case as it's used in promotion.

For instance, a permanent wave in your hair is not really lasting for ever, and a permanent marker is not inevitably eternal.

It's easier said than done to assess a new hair removal method that claims to be lasting for ever. Many people reckon that after a specified sum of time, it's doubtful that a hair will ever come back.

That's why a number of people, myself as well, have put forward a specific definition of "permanent." The majority of of these definitions seem inadequate to me. One firm claims their system is permanent based on results after 8 weeks. That's unreasonable. Waxing can last that long, and it's been clinically proven to be temporary.

Permanent hair removal

For the purposes of hair removal, our classification of "permanent" is being able to go a year after your last hair removal remedy without having to use a new procedure of hair removal.

Take into account that a year maybe not be sufficient to verify actual permanence, but a number of consumers would be glad to have one treatment a year.

The single method of clinically demonstrated lasting for ever hair removal is electrolysis. Some lasers and flash lamps have been able to achieve lasting hair reduction, as discussed below.

Long-term hair removal

A further undefined term is "long-term" hair removal. Again, 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 one more technique of hair removal.

Your definition may be different, but I don't consider 7 weeks to be long-term. I arbitrarily decided on 8 months as a appropriate definition, because most hair growth cycles will have finished in 6 months.

Hair reduction vs. hair removal

Real permanent hair removal has been acknowledged as the total destruction of a hair follicle's ability to regenerate and grow hair.

Several lasers have verified permanent hair reduction in clinical studies and are permitted to make this claim by FDA. The word "reduction" adds another term that is imprecisely defined. FDA has accepted the definition of reduction as a firm 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 permanent.

By Lisa Klith