Mike Murphy's Blog

I was training a young lady on IPL hair removal, earlier today. Her name is Helen Hugill. During our sessions she asked me a question about waxing after treatments. I had pointed out that waxing should not be done by clients/patients before any laser/IPL hair treatments since it would remove the target melanin.

She asked if it was ok to wax after a treatment. I said, “why not, since it would remove the dead hairs.” Then I realised something very interesting.

Waxing after a treatment would remove ALL the hairs – anagen, catagen, telogen and exogen. Every one of them.

I suddenly realised that this meant that any hair seen after this time MUST be in anagen.

This answers a problem which has been raised many times. When is the ‘best’ time to treat again? Usually, we cannot tell if the hairs are in anagen, catagen or telogen. There is no way to differentiate.

But, if we wax the hair, soon after a laser or IPL treatment, then new growth will start at some point after. Some follicles will begin new growth shortly after the waxing, while others will start later.

This means that the client can then choose when to return for the next treatment session, based on the number of newly growing hairs! In the interim, they can continue to shave – that doesn’t affect the growth cycle in any way.

Finally, we have a way of determining the real growth after a treatment, rather than ‘guessing’ how much is new growth and how much is re-growth! Plus the appearance of catagen/telogen hairs does not confuse the issue, since they’re no longer there.

If you wish to try this approach, please let me know what you find. I suggest waxing within a week of the treatment – it shouldn’t be done near to the next treatment time.

Thanks Helen!!

Hope this helps,

Mike.