Ideal Image Laser Hair Removal Review

Overall Rating

friendly staff, accommodating
much thinner hair

leathery, scar-ry skin
EXCRUCIATING pain.
never enough numbing cream, and its very pricey
not complete results
cumbersome (cream, plastic wrap, unwrapping etc)

i had absolutely disgusting thick hair on my legs that grew impossibly fast. i had never once in my life had smooth legs bc it grew back immediately after i shaved. so my junior year of college (last year) i decided to try laser hair removal and chose ideal image after doing some research and hearing some of my friends success stories from there. i got it on sale so i only had to pay 2400 dollars (that does not include all the numbing cream ive had to buy. its 75 dollars a bottle) i am supposedly an ideal candidate bc i have thick black and dense hair. i started at the center and they were great; friendly, informative, and extremely accommodating. i had 4 treatments at that location and were always very attentive to my needs, as the pain was excruciating. they had lots of different ways to help me relieve the pain and were very good about trying to get me the same nurse practitioner each time. i felt comfortable there. after 4 treatments, i have much thinner hair on my legs and dont have to shave as often. i can even go 3 weeks sometimes. the downside to that is that my lower legs dont look like the used to. their coloring is off somehow and their texture has become leathery, like a giant scar from a severe sunburn.

for my 5th treatment, i had to go to another one because i came home from college. they were friendly but incredibly incompetent. they didnt know the answers to many of my questions, gave wrong answers to many of my questions (i know this bc i double checked by calling 3 other locations asking the same question), and my nurse practitioner had no concern for the pain i was feeling. they were polite but i could tell they didnt care about me and just wanted my business. i couldnt even finish the treatment bc they didnt send me enough numbing cream in the mail, and it was too excruciating.

i still have one more treatment and the follow ups and im confident my hair will be 80-90% gone by then, but there HAS to be a less painful way to do this. with every zap, i think to myself "this is NOT worth it." they tell you it feels like a rubber band, but here is what it really feels like:
each zap feels like you are either being stabbed with a thick needle or getting your leg pierced with a white hot piercing gun.
none of that rubber it hurts. badly. not for the faint of heart.
the numbing cream helps but doesnt help enough.