Generally consumers believe “permanent” means lasting forever. Regrettably, that’s not always the case as it’s used in advertising. For instance, a permanent wave in your hair is not really lasting for ever, and a permanent marker is not necessarily eternal.
It’s challenging to assess a new hair removal method that claims to be everlasting. The majority of people assume that after a certain quantity of time, it’s doubtful that a hair will ever return. That’s why quite a few people, myself as well, have proposed a specific definition of “permanent.” Many of these definitions seem unacceptable to me. One producer claims their method is permanent based on results after 8 weeks. That’s nonsensical. Waxing can last that long, and it’s been clinically proven to be temporary.
For the purposes of hair removal, our characterization of “permanent” is being able to go a year after your final hair removal treatment without having to use a new system of hair removal. Bear in mind that a year might not be sufficient to ascertain factual permanence, but a number of consumers would be happy to have one treatment a year.
The lone method of clinically confirmed everlasting hair removal is electrolysis. Some lasers and flash lamps have been able to achieve lasting for ever hair reduction, as discussed below.
Long-term hair removal
A different undefined term is “long-term” hair removal. Yet 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 system of hair removal. Your definition may diverge, but I don’t judge 6 weeks to be long-term. I arbitrarily decided on 5 months as a appropriate 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 accepted as the full 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 loosely defined. FDA has accepted 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 enduring.
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September 11th, 2009 at 1:05 am
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