Why September Is the Right Time to Start Laser Hair Removal

The holiday tan is fading, the linen is going back in the drawer, and somewhere in your bathroom there is a razor you have used more times this summer than you would care to admit. September is the month everyone quietly resets. New notebook, new gym class, new intention to stop shaving in a rush at 7am.

Here is the one reset that actually pays you back next summer: starting your laser course now.

Not because autumn is magic. Because of maths.

Laser is a course, not an appointment

This is the part the discount voucher sites conveniently leave out. One session will not remove your hair. It will thin it, shed some of it, and make you feel briefly invincible. Then more will appear, and you will assume it did not work.

It did work. It just only worked on the hair that was available to be worked on.

A standard course is six sessions for most areas, sometimes more for coarse or hormone driven hair, with occasional top ups after that. Anyone promising permanent results in two sessions is selling you a story, and usually on a machine that cannot back it up. If your last course underdelivered somewhere else, our guide on why laser hair removal sometimes is not working covers the usual culprits.

Your hair grows in shifts, and the laser can only catch one of them

Hair does not grow all at once. It works in cycles, and at any given moment your follicles are split across three phases:

• Anagen, the active growing phase. The hair is attached to the follicle and packed with melanin. This is the only phase the laser can properly destroy.
• Catagen, the transition phase. The hair is detaching, so there is far less for the laser to grab.
• Telogen, the resting phase. The follicle is dormant and empty. The laser cannot do anything with it, because there is nothing there to heat.

At any one session, only around 20 to 25 per cent of the hair in an area is in anagen. That is why sessions are spaced out: you are waiting for the next batch of dormant follicles to wake up and step into the light, literally.

Six sessions spaced correctly take you through several full cycles. Six sessions crammed into eight weeks do not, however keen you are. The follicles do not care about your calendar.

September to summer: the actual timeline

Count it forward. Start your first body session in September, keep to six to eight week spacing, and you are looking at roughly:

• Session 1: September
• Session 2: late October or early November
• Session 3: December
• Session 4: January or February
• Session 5: March
• Session 6: April or May

That puts your final session comfortably before the weather turns and the shorts come out. By the time you are booking flights, you are in the maintenance phase rather than the panic phase.

Start in April instead and you spend your summer either skipping sessions or skipping the sun. Start in September and the whole course fits into the months you were going to spend indoors anyway.

Your exact dates will shift depending on how your hair responds, and some areas need more than six. Facial and hormone driven growth in particular usually needs top ups. The point is not a guaranteed finish date. The point is that you have time to do it properly instead of cramming it.

There is a second reason this works: consistency. Winter is the easiest season to actually turn up. No festivals, no last minute weekends away, no half a course abandoned in August. Our post on why winter is the easiest time to stay consistent goes deeper on that.

Sun, tanning and what actually matters

Let us be clear about something, because plenty of clinics are not.

A tan is not a life sentence. We run the Soprano Titanium by Alma, which combines 755nm, 810nm and 1064nm wavelengths with contact cooling and is designed for skin types I to VI. The Nd:YAG 1064nm wavelength travels past surface melanin and targets the follicle, which is why we treat melanin rich and tanned skin every week of the year and have done since 2022. If another clinic has turned you away for having a tan, read our guide on laser hair removal for tanned skin.

That is a real difference in equipment, not marketing. Clinics running older single wavelength systems have good reason to be cautious, which is why NHS laser services such as the Bristol Laser Centre ask patients to avoid suntan and fake tan on the treatment area during a course. On the machine we use, the picture is different, and we assess your skin at every appointment rather than working from a rule of thumb.

Two things still apply to everyone, including us:

• Tell your therapist about recent sun, sunbeds or fake tan. Not because you are in trouble, but because settings are chosen for the skin in front of us on the day. Fake tan in particular sits on the surface and the laser cannot tell it apart from your own melanin, so it needs to be off before treatment.
• Wear SPF on treated areas. Treated skin is more photosensitive for a while, and UV does not clock off in October.

So no, you do not have to wait for winter to start. September simply makes the whole thing easier to run: fewer beach days, fewer fake tans for weddings, fewer sessions rescheduled at short notice. If you do have a trip booked mid course, that is fine, we plan around it. Our holiday and travel guide explains how.

Face and body run on different clocks

One of the most common mistakes is treating every area as if it works the same way. It does not, because hair on your face cycles faster than hair on your legs.

• Face areas (upper lip, chin, jawline, beard line, sides): roughly every four weeks. Quicker growth cycle, often finer or hormone influenced hair, so you come in more often.
• Body areas (legs, arms, back, chest, underarms, bikini and Hollywood): roughly every six to eight weeks. Slower cycles, so a longer gap gets you more anagen hair per session.

If you are treating both, your face and body appointments will drift out of sync. That is correct, not a scheduling error. Book them separately and stop trying to make them line up.

Hormone driven growth, including PCOS related hair, usually needs a longer course plus periodic top ups. That is biology, not a failed treatment, and we will tell you at consultation rather than after session six. The same applies to men's beard line and body work, where density does a lot of the talking.

What to stop, and what to keep doing

This is where courses quietly go wrong, so read this bit twice.

Stop waxing, threading, epilating and plucking. All of them pull the hair out at the root, and the laser needs the follicle to have a hair in it to work. No hair, nothing to target, wasted session. Stop at least four weeks before your first appointment and do not go back to it at any point during your course, however tempting it gets in week five.

Keep shaving. Shaving cuts at the surface and leaves the root exactly where we need it. You will usually be asked to shave the area the day before or the morning of your appointment, so the energy goes into the follicle rather than burning off surface hair. If you have sensitive skin or get bumps, our shaving routine guide walks through it properly.

Starting in September gives you time to make that switch without a wedding or a holiday forcing your hand.

Aftercare is easier in October than it is in July

After a session your skin is warm and more sensitive for a short period. Standard advice is to avoid heat and friction for around 24 to 48 hours: no saunas, no steam rooms, no hot yoga, no intense workouts, no swimming pools, and nothing heavily fragranced on the treated area. Keep it cool, keep it simple, SPF on anything the sun will see.

Every one of those instructions is easier to follow in autumn than in the middle of a heatwave with a beach day booked. That is not a small thing. Aftercare compliance is one of the biggest differences between a course that delivers and a course that disappoints.

Your therapist will give you aftercare specific to the area treated and how your skin responded. Follow it, and call the clinic if anything looks or feels unexpected.

Start with a consultation and patch test

Every course starts the same way, and it is not with a laser going off.

Your consultation is £50 and it is fully redeemable against your treatment, so if you go ahead, it costs you nothing. Here is what happens:

• We assess your skin, your hair type and the area you want treated.
• We talk through medication, medical history and anything that affects how your skin responds.
• We patch test, then let it settle so we can check the reaction before committing to settings.
• We build a plan with a realistic session count and spacing, and give you a clear cost. No hard sell, no surprise package at the till.

Come with questions. Good ones to ask: how many sessions for my area, how often should I book, what do I need to stop doing, what results are realistic for my hair type, and does anything I take affect treatment. You need a patch test even if you have had laser somewhere else, because our machine and settings are not theirs.

We are open seven days a week, 9am to 9pm, across three clinics: Marylebone Road by Baker Street, our Monument clinic in the City, and Hagley Road in Birmingham. If you work in the Square Mile, our City of London guide explains how a session fits into a lunch break.

Start your course this September at Laser Me Out in Baker Street, Monument or Birmingham. Book your consultation and patch test today.

Frequently asked questions

How many laser hair removal sessions will I need?Most areas need a course of six sessions, spaced according to the area, with occasional top ups afterwards. Coarse or hormone driven hair often needs more. You will get a specific number at your consultation and patch test, not a guess.

If I start in September, will I be finished before summer?For most body areas, yes. Six sessions at six to eight week intervals from September lands your final session around April or May. Results vary by area and hair type, and some areas need maintenance sessions afterwards.

Can I have laser hair removal if I still have a tan?In most cases yes. Our Soprano Titanium includes the Nd:YAG 1064nm wavelength, which is why we treat tanned and melanin rich skin all year round. Always tell your therapist about recent sun, sunbeds or fake tan, since fake tan needs to be fully off the skin before treatment.

Can I wax between laser sessions?No. Waxing, threading, epilating and plucking remove the hair at the root, and the laser needs the follicle intact to work. Shaving is fine and is normally required before each session.

How far apart should face and body sessions be?Face areas are usually treated around every four weeks. Body areas are usually every six to eight weeks, because the growth cycle is slower.

What should I avoid after a session?For roughly 24 to 48 hours, avoid saunas, steam rooms, swimming, hot or intense exercise and heavily fragranced products on the area. Use SPF on treated skin that will be exposed to daylight.

Do I need a patch test before my first session?Yes. Every client patch tests before their first treatment, including clients who have had laser elsewhere, so we can check how your skin responds before selecting settings.

Is the consultation fee refundable?The £50 consultation is fully redeemable against your treatment. If you go ahead with a course, it comes off the cost.