My upper arms definitely have hairs that need to be taken care of but the hairs are pretty thin. They may be somewhat dark but they’re thin enough that I’m not freaking out over them. (If they were dark and coarse like before I WOULD be freaking out over them.)

So I think I’m going to make an appointment for laser hair removal on my upper arms next week in NYC. This time I’m JUST going to get my upper arms done. I’m pretty satisfied with the results on my legs and lower arms for the time being. If, 24 weeks in, things start to get bad I will setup another appointment! But I think I’m done with my legs for now! The best part is that my legs were running around $700 a session so I’m going to be saving a ton of money now too! My upper arms should only cost around $150-$200 to get done this time. Additionally, this will be the last time I get laser hair removal before I go back to Florida for the winter. So if I go again, I will probably be going back to Dermacare in South Beach, where I went before.

I will keep you updated on things on a weekly basis again, with pictures, now that I have a nice new digital camera. Below are some pictures from from, 10.5 weeks after my 4th laser hair removal session. Click the pictures for a larger image.

-I’m shedding quickly. I think I’ve shed almost everything I’m going to shed at this point.
-I’m already seeing hairs growing back on some weird parts of my upper arm, like the inside of my arm.
-I think my upper arm is going to end up being my biggest issue in the long run.
-I’m seeing a few hairs on my shoulders that we either missed or they’re new hairs coming in.
-They intentionally missed a spot on my leg, because it was all cut up, and it’s looking a little odd now being the only bit of hair on my legs.
-I think I might go to NYC later this week or early next week for a touch up and to show them the hairs on my arms and figure out what to do about these.

As promised, here are the pics of my arms and legs from this week. Honestly, there’s not much to see, as I’ve shed pretty much everything. But you can see my legs, and the cut on my right leg, that they had to go around and now, as a result, is the only area with any hair on my legs. Also, if you look at the two pictures of my arms, you can see the hairs that are growing on the left upper side of my arm, just above my elbow. It’s really hard to take pics of them. But those are the hairs I mostly wanted to highlight, since I think its weird that they’re coming in at all.

Click for larger images.

So it’s been a week since my fourth laser hair removal session in New York City at Romeo and Juliette Laser Hair Removal. Things have been going pretty well but there were a few things I noticed in the past week that have never happend before. First off, I noticed that my skin looked a little bruised in some areas! Could it be from the higher laser settings? It’s possible. This was mainly happening on my legs, but I noticed my arms were a little red for a bit longer than usual. I also noticed that a few of my small moles, that got lasers in the process, are a bit darker. I’ve noticed this before but then they seemed to fade back after a few days. We’ll, it’s been a week now and they’re still pretty dark brown/black. Oh well. Not really a big deal. Remember in the past when I thought my legs were losing color? Well, that cleared itself up, so I guess I just need to give everything some time.

As far as the hair is concerned, I’m still waiting to shed. I’m seeing little hairs, that look like stubble, popping up everywhere. Nothing out of the ordinary. I’m just really focusing on my upper arms right now and hoping that they shed fine, and that the hair doesn’t grow back super quickly! I really need to get these upper arm hairs taken care of and I think they’ve become my biggest concern, now that my arm and leg hair is thinning out!

This upcoming week is going to be very interesting. I’m headed to Las Vegas for a week and was planning on hanging out at the pools as I always do. However, since I just had this laser hair removal session a week ago, I’m a little concerned. I’ve always been told to stay the hell out of the sun after each session! So I’m not sure what’s going to happen…I’m planning on packing some SPF-40 or SPF-50 sunscreen and putting that on pretty heavily and frequently. I hope that does the trick. We’ll see.

I’ll post pictures of my current hair growth in the next day or so before I leave for Vegas!

I was lucky enough to be treated with the new GentleMax laser this session, whereas they used the GentleLase for the last session. I’d heard about the GentleMax on the internet while doing some research on Google and some laser hair removal forums, and everything said how it was a very effective top of the line laser! We’ll see how true those claims turn out to be in the next couple months.

This session I was treated with 18 joules at 3 milliseconds with an 18mm spot size on both my legs and arms. These settings were said to be aggressive for my skin type but should bear better results, especially on my upper arms where the skin is light and the new hairs and dark and coarse. I was so happy that I was finally getting these upper arm hairs taken care of!

I noticed that the higher laser settings definitely resulted in a little more pain on certain areas on my legs! It was pretty uncomfortable at times but the girl working the laser was great and was OK with stopping for a quick break whenever I needed it. I even remembered to take an aspirin before the session, but the laser still hurt at times, mostly on my upper legs where I’m more sensitive.

After the treatment on my legs and then arms, my arms were pretty puffy so we kept applying cream to make sure the swelling would go down as quickly as possible. They even gave me cream to take with me when I left to make sure i had some if needed! They were overly cautious about everything but its great that they go to those lengths to make sure your OK!

My skin was red and puffy for about another hour or so after leaving the office but then everything was fine. It looked like they did a great job this session and I noticed that the laser tech was very thorough with the treated areas, so I should have nice even results! (No one wants patchy results.) As I was driving home I realized that I’m very lucky to be getting such top notch hair removal treatments. I’m very happy with all the treatments to date, and I find that it’s worth it for me to drive 4 hours to New York City.

So there you have it – my 4th laser hair removal experience! Now I just have to sit back and let the treatment run its course over the next weeks/months. I’ll try my hardest to do the weekly updates and take good, clear photos for everyone to check out!

I’m noticing that my hair is starting to come in a little bit now. I’ve had some fine hairs since shedding, but it looks like the hair is just starting to get some color to it now and it’s looking a little darker. I don’t think I’ll need to shave it in the next week or so though unless something changes very quickly.

So, once I get back from LA it should be seven weeks since my last laser hair removal session and I’ll be getting ready to go in for my next session at week number eight! I’m actually really looking forward to this next session so I can try to get this upper arm/shoulder hair taken care of and some of these small spots as well.

So, do you tell your family and friends that your getting laser hair removal?

Additionally, I called my center in South Florida today and got my laser settings, so the new NYC center can be sure to use the same, or higher, settings. They were using the Cynosure Elite 755 Alexandrite at 18 joules with a 25 milliseconds pulse and a 12mm spot size. The Florida clinic said that they should probably up the settings to at least 20 joules tomorrow.

So right now I’m all shaved up and ready to go tomorrow. I probably won’t be able to take pictures right after the sessions, like I have in the past, since I’m not able to go right home and snap away 20 minutes after. I’ll try to figure something out tomorrow though. Maybe I’ll bring in my camera or iPhone in and take them right there after I’m done.

More to come tomorrow night or Friday!…..

Something I’ve noticed in the past few weeks, but haven’t blogged about yet, is the fact that my right leg has some areas that are whiter than others now. Also, I noticed a few small areas on my left leg now that has the same thing happening. It’s causing a little bit of concern. The problem is that I don’t remember if the white areas were there before I started my first session or not. I remember it there after the first session, but I had so much hair on my legs for so many years that theres no way I would have noticed this and I only had my legs shaved for about 16 hours before my first laser hair removal session. I read something yesterday about pigments of skin becoming DARKER around some areas as a result of laser hair removal, but I didn’t see anything about the skin becoming LIGHTER.

If anyone has any idea about what I’m talking about here please leave me a comment and help me out!

I took photos this week, but they came out pretty bad, not much to see, so I don’t think I’ll bother to resize and post them unless someone really wants to see. They results look a lot like the photos from the first week after my first session.

So, now that I only have 5 weeks to find another laser clinic to go to, that is what I’m going to be focusing on and probably blogging about. Does anyone know of any clinics around the US that definitely use the Cynosure Elite laser? I’m looking for something around the Northeast, but if it’s closer to New York than Florida is, it’s a place I would consider. If you know of a place, or you run a place that uses this Cynosure laser, please drop me a comment!

(Sorry for being late on this post. I realize that it’s almost been two weeks at this point!)