Laser hair removal for the upper lip is one of the treatments clients ask about most quietly, and at the same time one of the most popular. Hair on the upper lip can be a nuisance for years: shaving, waxing, tweezing, and a few days later everything is back. A diode laser works on the hair follicle, not on the visible part of the hair, so it is a completely different method from everything you have tried before.
It helps to know where this hair comes from. Hair above the upper lip usually has a hormonal or genetic background, meaning the body itself decides that hair grows in this spot. The laser does not change those settings. We remove what is in the skin at the moment, and if the body produces new hairs, we remove them when they appear. It is good to keep this in mind from the start so that expectations stay realistic.
The upper lip is one of the areas of the face that pick up pigmentation most easily. The skin there is thin, often irritated by shaving or waxing, and after a treatment it can be temporarily red and sensitive to UV radiation. On top of that, the laser reacts to pigment. If the skin is tanned, the treatment has to be postponed, because the light then cannot tell the pigment in the hair from the pigment in the skin. That is why facial hair removal is best done in the months when there is little sun, from autumn to early spring.
Now, how long does it take? On the face we do treatments roughly every 4-5 weeks, and a full series is usually 3 to 6 treatments. Exactly how many you will need depends on the color and thickness of the hairs. When we start, there are already many hairs, because we have been growing them for years. After the series is finished, reminder visits may be useful, every six months or once a year, to remove what the body has produced in the meantime. Starting a series in autumn makes sense because the following visits fall in months with little sun, and you do not have to postpone treatments once tanning season begins.
At the first visit we do not jump straight to the laser. First I assess the color and thickness of the hairs and your skin tone, because the treatment parameters depend on them. Before the treatment, you do not shave for two days. It is also important not to pull the hairs out with wax or tweezers for 4-5 weeks before the visit, because the laser needs the hair in the skin to reach the hair follicle. If this is your first time, you can also simply come in for a conversation and see everything before you decide.
Skin reacts differently after a treatment, and it is hard to predict. That is why it is worth planning the first treatments before a weekend, so you do not have to rush back to work. After laser, the skin needs protection from the sun, so SPF cream is then not an extra but part of the plan. On autumn and winter days it is easy to forget, and pigmentation on the upper lip is the most visible.
When it comes to facial hair, it is always worth consulting an endocrinologist. The laser can deal with the hairs, but it does not address a hormonal cause, if there is one, and knowing about it helps you plan the whole course better.
In our clinic in Osielsko, near Bydgoszcz, the mustache is one of the topics clients come with most often, and frequently only after putting it off for a long time. Autumn is a good moment to stop putting it off. You start now, your skin gets a break from the sun, and in spring you can enjoy a smooth upper lip without daily shaving or tweezing.
Katarzyna Gwizdal, MSc, cosmetologist, Skin Laser