My understanding is that it is common to start with laser, then move to electrolysis. If laser has dealt with the majority of hairs, is the electrolysis tech able to “ignore” those follicles? If not, starting with laser seems pointless.
I have been doing laser for a while but am starting to think electrolysis will be necessary prior to surgery for some of the finer hairs.
in some cases doing laser first is pointless yes. laser isnt guaranteed to kill the hairs completely or permanently, so for some people all they get is thinner hairs which is not helpful for bottom surgery prep. insurance companies push trans women to do laser first because its cheaper for them and if it works out for you great, but it does waste a lot of time for a lot of trans women, especially people with lighter hair and/or darker skin. one of the risks of laser for bottom surgery prep is it could look totally bare and you think you got all the hairs but then they recover a bit and you get hair coming back. you really dont want that happening inside your neovagina.
electrolysis is permanent hair removal, but one hair at a time. they can only treat a hair if its in the active growth phase, so there will be dormant hairs that they cant treat until they grow, so they wont try to treat follicles that dont have a hair growing from them, nor could they find them. they could treat a whole area completely so theres no visible hairs, but the dormant ones would grow out soon. this is also an issue for laser but most laser techs either dont understand hair as well as electrolysis techs or just wont tell you. for face hair for example, it can take more than a year to treat even if you get every hair every time because of how many are dormant.
its really a shame they push us to do laser first because for so many of us its a waste of time. it might make electrolysis a little easier but its not worth the cost in time and money imo.