Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Painless Bikini IPL Permanent Hair Removal?

Where smooth armpits have been "norm" for years, having no hair or a neater "bush" has only been in fashion very recently. Waxing and shaving have been the norm in this area, but the trend has been strongly moving towards permanent hair removal, be it by IPL or laser.

We've certainly been zapping quite a few groins, particularly after our move to Robertson Walk a year ago. The interest was mostly amongst the expat community intially, but the trend has caught on with local Singaporeans in the last couple of months.

And with that change in client profile, we've noticed that what is a slightly uncomfortable procedure in Caucasians can be extremely uncomfortable amongst Asians, especially if the skin is strongly pigmented. This isn't terribly surprising since the energy emitted is targeted at melanin in hair, but is also present in dark skin.

As I'm incredibly pain averse, I re-acquainted myself with my Entonox (laughing gas) cylinder during a recent fractional RF trial. I have 3 cylinders which have been sitting idle for the last few years, after we stopped mesotherapy.

I then realised that this would be an ideal way of controlling the discomfort of Bikini IPL Permanent Hair Removal treatments. So we contacted a few gas supply companies to enquire on the current re-filling rates. It has always been expensive, but I nearly fell off my chair at how much the refills now cost, plus the turnaround time was a good 6-8 weeks!

But how much to charge? At a knee-jerk $50/session, there would likely be few takers. We had to try to work out as close to the real cost of refill as possible, then re-assess once we started using the cylinders in practice.

Fortunately, one of the cylinders was labelled with the gas volume. And that's where the Anaesthetist in me emerged. Based on the average volume in one breath and number of breaths per minute, we were able to work out the refill cost per 10 minute use. And we came up with the figure of $20. So that works out to just an extra $100 for each 5 session package. Hopefully that will just about cover our cost. We will have to keep a close eye on the treatment time though, and charge in 10 minute blocks. Just in case we meet someone who forces us to pause after every 3 shots. Then a 10 minute treatment can drag on for half an hour.

I've also been asked about numbing cream as an option. Honestly, I don't know how effective that would be. But if anyone is keen on that as an alternative, we can supply it at $10/session.

So painless bikini IPL permanent hair reduction... is it possible? Maybe not painless, but certainly tolerable. And we offer these pain management options at a very nominal cost.

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