Laser Hair Removal for Dark Skin

Overview | Treatment | Before and After Pictures | Cost

Would you like laser hair removal, but think you can’t have it because you’ve got darker skin? Maybe you’ve asked about it at other offices and been told you’re not a good candidate. Well, that’s just not true! In fact, at Celibre, we have many patients with dark skin (African American, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, etc.) that we’ve successfully and safely treated for unwanted hair with laser hair removal. And it’s not just a cosmetic procedure; many people with darker skin suffer from ingrown hairs (up to 50% of African Americans) causing pain, discoloration and in severe cases, scarring. This is just the type of person that laser hair removal can help the most.

So why then is it harder to find a practice to treat unwanted hair in dark-skinned persons? Because the procedure is a challenge. Any laser procedure on dark skin is a challenge because of melanin. Melanin is the pigmentation in the skin and hair that gives it its color. And it is highly receptive to the light energy of lasers.  This is why lasers work to get rid of unwanted hair, yet also make the procedure a bit riskier with dark skin because the laser also sees the skin melanin too. If the laser energy damages it by mistake, a burn can be the end result.

Treating darker skin types with lasers is like walking a tight rope. It is a careful balance of targeting the structure that you want to damage without harming the skin itself. It takes a lot of expertise, experience, and the right laser technology to do it effectively and safely. But it can be done and done well—Celibre Medical Corporation expertly treats all kinds of problems in darker-skinned people with laser medicine.

For laser hair removal in a dark-skinned person, we will often use the 1064 nm long-pulsed YAG laser. It is a device specifically designed for this purpose. The laser energy travels deeper into the skin which makes hitting that target of the hair follicle much more likely without damaging the pigment in the upper layers of skin. We also take extra precautions to cool the skin during laser hair removal. This also helps sidestep any unwanted collateral damage from the heat that’s generated by the laser.

So, if you’ve been told you can’t have laser hair removal or thought it just couldn’t be done to you because of your skin type, we hope that you will give us a call. Laser hair removal in dark skin can be done safely and effectively with the right combination of experience, knowledge and technology. Celibre not only understands this, but we also excel at it. Give us a call today and let us walk you through the process at an absolutely free consultation.

Dark Skin Laser Hair Removal Before and After Pictures of Actual Celibre Medical Patients