If it suddenly happened that your chin grew new fine or dark hair, above the lips or on the cheeks – you are not alone. As women enter their fourth decade of life, there are implications of the pre-menopause stages (before menopause).
This is a real biological phenomenon that affects millions of women during menopause, or in its developmental stages at the beginning of their fourth decade of life. Similar to many phenomena unique to women, the lack of an in-depth public discussion on the issue leads to much ambiguity and leaves essential questions unanswered, due to the low priority of the topic on the public agenda.
In clinics, quite a few women pass through, to say the least, and therefore it can be said: Questions and conversations in general about facial hair with women create a feeling of shame and embarrassment, and often this is due to years of coping with concealment and issues of feminine self-confidence among many patients.
Coarser and thicker hair than you knew
Toward and during menopause, estrogen levels drop, compared to testosterone, the male hormone that is also found in every woman’s body and remains relatively stable or increases in its ratio. Therefore, there is a direct result of hormonal deviation alongside stimulation of hair follicles in facial areas, which are very sensitive to androgenic influence. The hair that will grow will usually be darker, coarser and more stubborn than anything women have known before.
Another hormonal change alongside menopause is the phenomenon of polycystic ovaries, which affects about 5–10% of women of reproductive age and may cause hirsutism: Excess hair growth in the chin, cheeks and neck areas. In any case, this is a hormonal response and not a matter of hygiene, bad genetics or bad luck.
What can be done?
The population of women in pre-menopause encounters many phenomena whose journey to solve is unbearably long, as is the coping with hair growth that arrives unexpectedly at this stage. There are those who choose removal with tweezers out of the thought that “these are only a few,” but there are more skilled ones who choose to remove with thread manually and pluck the hair.
My hope is that there are no women among us who turn to a solution using a razor or shaving methods such as various creams. The damage to the hair follicles and to the face in general is great, and the recovery it requires is very long. These are hair removal methods above the surface of the skin, removal that does not treat the root of the hair, damages it and disrupts the hair cycle, and from here the root of the problem is not treated. After all, shaving may cause hair thickening, wax is a painful process that damages the body’s capillaries and veins, and removal creams irritate the sensitivity of the facial skin and have potential for burns on the skin.
Home IPL technologies were mostly developed for body hair removal and not for the face, and in general, devices sold as suitable for home use and not for professional institutes are not personally adjusted with a protocol for the condition of the skin and hair and according to the patient’s history. They are set with a certain intensity and a limited ability to treat anyone who purchases them off the shelf for home use, without any guarantee of suitability for the hormonal complexity of those who suffer from excess hair.
What is important to pay attention to?
o After the reasons and causes have been clarified, turn to professionals who specialize in professional hair removal, with personal adjustment to your specific condition.
o Make sure you maintain continuous and meticulous contact with the person responsible for your hair removal, according to her instructions, and make sure to arrive at the required frequency without harming the professional process chosen for you.
o Above all, treat seriously the technology used on you, it is important that long wavelengths are integrated in laser-based equipment
o In any case, it is not recommended to remove using a razor even if laser is combined for removal, which may cause excess growth
o Since this is regulation of hair in a hormonal area, an effect and consequences are expected, therefore pay extra attention to any smallest change in these areas
o Take into account that if you are treated with advanced equipment and in a proper place, you are expected to feel a significant slowdown in the rate of hair growth, and accordingly a greater interval between treatments
Yafa Maximov is the founder of beauty-tech clinics and developer of the YMAX PRO method