Victoria,

At our centers we recommend shaving for several reasons. Most important is so that the laser can concentrate and penetrate it’s energy as close to the follicle as possible without any wasted area traveling along the follicle above the skins surface. This allows you to receive maximum results with the best setting possible. Also imagine taking a lighter to your hair, what would happen? It would heat the follicle up which if your hair is above the skins surface, could come in contact with your skin and leave what is described as a surface scab. It looks like little brown marks, which go away after a few days but some people freak out when they see them. Speaking from personal experience, I was lazy one day and did a treatment without saving and experienced my first surface scab and I freaked. So for those reasons we recommend a clean shave. Some places might want to see the area before shaving to ensure they are treating the proper area and not going into other areas with fine follicles which could become stimulated and start thicker growth, which you don’t want.

The laser will heat the follicle causing it to "pop", this could have an effect of an immediate shedding or it could take several days for it to fall out. If it still visible don’t worry because most people do have to go through the shedding process. If you don’t see the hair shedding after about 3 weeks, call your technician and explain what is going.

I hope this helps.