Question: I am a 25-year-old woman and I go tanning on a regular basis. I am thinking about getting laser hair treatments for my legs, underarms, and bikini area. Will it make any difference in my treatment if I am a regular tanner?
Answer: Yes, it will definitely make a difference in your treatment if you are a regular tanner due to the fact that the laser that targets the pigmented hair will also end up heating up the darker skin and we therefore need to make adjustments in the treatment settings for patients that have a tan. We essentially feel that patients with a tan are not going to be treated nearly as effectively as when they are not tan and we therefore recommend that patients, that tan regularly, discontinue this. With that said however, we do have a YAG laser that can quite successfully treat hair and really has less to do with the actual pigmentation and therefore can be used on patients with a tan. Frequently if a patient is in the middle of their hair removal package and they come in with a tan, we will just go ahead and treat them that day with the YAG laser as opposed to the diode or BBL laser. It is quite efficacious and occasionally we will find that it actually can do a better job for certain stubborn hairs than the more standard modality. Ultimately though I would recommend that you discontinue your regular tanning not just for laser hair removal reasons, but simply because it is very unhealthy for your skin and will give you a significantly increased risk of skin cancers in the future as well as accelerating the aging process of the skin due to the ultraviolet radiation. There are some good self-tanning creams that can give you a very natural appearance without the damaging effects of actual tanning beds, so I would strongly encourage you to discontinue the tanning habit.