I Got My Head Permanently Lasered. Here's Every Detail.

Getting lasered at Urban Allure in San Francisco.

(Tell them Felix sent you)

If you've read my story from the beginning, you know I don't have ordinary hair loss because I was losing my hair. Nature wasn't that kind to me.

I went bald because I decided to, which started a journey of extraordinary hair loss.

Tweezing first, at 25. Then an epilator, gifted by a play buddy who had no idea what they were starting. Then waxing, which introduced me to a level of smoothness I never knew existed. For four years, this was my life. Methodical, satisfying, deeply intentional.

Eventually, even obsession matures into practicality.

I was done being chained to the epilator. Done planning my calendar around waxing appointments. Done with maintenance. I wanted permanence. I wanted to be bald bald, not "currently bald between sessions" bald.

I wanted laser.

There was another factor as well. I may have looked bald while my head was smooth, but I had a gnawing feeling at the back of my mind that I wasn't truely bald. Not really. If I wanted to, I could theoretically grow a significant enough portion of my hair back to salvage some sort of style, like the many fearful men who use toppik or other hair fibers to give the illusion of hair and a simulacrum of density. I'd be exact opposite of the kind of man I envied: bald confident and handsome. Instead, I'd be sad, thinning and unsatisfied. I didn't want that. I never wanted that. So I opted for a permanent solution.

The Wrong Clinic

I didn't walk into this blindly.

I researched. I reached out to multiple clinics. I asked the right questions, and I thought I'd found my spot. A well-known national chain with locations near me and an appointment available in three months.

I booked it. Marked it in my calendar. Waited.

And then the Google reviews started talking.

Over the following weeks, a pattern emerged. Employee turnover. Customers treated like numbers on a spreadsheet. And the ones that really got my attention.. laser burn horror stories. Not one. Several.

I cancelled the appointment, disappointed. Three months of anticipation, gone. But I've learned to trust my gut, and my gut was loud on this one. The wrong clinic with the wrong equipment operated by undertrained staff is not a minor inconvenience, it's permanent damage to your scalp. No thank you. I have since seen plenty of examples of poor scalp laser hair removal sessions to know that I was right in my decision. Never make compromises on your health and wellbeing.

I went back to epilating and waxing. Passive maintenance. Patient waiting.

Finding the Right Place

Six months later, still searching, not obsessively, but consistently, I found it.

Small. Independent. Boutique. And close to home.

Before I even booked a consultation, I emailed them. I explained my situation carefully, or at least, a carefully edited version of it. I told them I was bald (male pattern baldness, I said. They didn't need the full origin story), that I wanted to laser the remaining fuzz, achieve a clean defined shape, and that I had one specific question:

What laser do you use?

Because the Candela GentleMax Pro is the gold standard for laser hair removal. I'd done the research. I knew what I was looking for. And I wasn't settling for anything less.

They used the GentleMax Pro.

They scheduled me for a consultation the following week.

The Consultation

The clinic was in a small, clean office in a historic building downtown. The kind of place that feels considered rather than corporate. I liked it immediately.

I met with the technician and explained my situation. Calmly, clearly, and with just enough detail to get what I needed. She was honest with me in return.

"We've lasered many men's heads here," she said. "But never in an MPB pattern."

This could have been a red flag. It wasn't. It was honesty, which I'd take over false confidence every time. And practically speaking, it worked in my favor: because they were only lasering half my head, they charged me half the standard scalp price.

That was a win I hadn't seen coming.

We discussed the plan. Sessions four weeks apart. Starting conservative, building from there. And then came the moment I'd been waiting for.. the test zaps.

She fired the laser twice on a small patch to test the settings and check my skin's response. I played it cool. I needed her to feel confident pushing the power up. I needed maximum coverage with every session. I needed my dome hairless.

She read the room, calibrated accordingly, and we began.

The First Session

I want to be honest about the pain, because everyone asks.

On a scale of one to ten, I'd call it a six. It's sharp. A sudden, precise snap of heat, but it fades almost immediately. It's not lingering. It's not unbearable. It's the kind of pain that surprises you the first time and becomes completely manageable by the second.

What I remember most about that first session isn't the pain.

It's my face. I took video.

And watching it back afterward, what I saw wasn't someone gritting through discomfort. It was someone experiencing something they'd been building toward for years. Peaceful. Focused. Present.

Pure bliss. Even through the pain.

Finally. Stamped smooth. At last.

The session was about five minutes total. Five minutes to do something that four years of epilation had been working toward incrementally. I left with a red scalp, a scheduled follow-up four weeks out, and a feeling I struggle to put into words.

Relief is close. Arrival is closer.

The Bowl

Here's the detail people always love.

For the second session, I brought a bowl from home.

Specifically, a bowl whose rim matched the exact circular shape I wanted my bald line to follow. The clean, round dip I'd been designing in my head for years. Rather than trying to describe it or draw it freehand in the mirror, I brought the physical template.

The technician looked at it. Laughed. Then said, and I'm quoting directly "That's actually a brilliant idea."

We used it. Traced the line. Got the shape exactly right.

And then she said something that sent me completely over the edge.

"I think we should lower it just a bit more. Make it nice and neat."

She was right. We did. And that small downward adjustment — her professional eye meeting my obsessive vision, produced exactly the result I'd been after since I first picked up a pair of tweezers at 25.

Some people bring reference photos to their appointments. I brought a bowl. I regret nothing.

Six Sessions Later

Six months. Six sessions. Four weeks apart like clockwork.

Each one a little cleaner than the last. Each one removing more of what remained. Each one moving me closer to something that felt less like a grooming decision and more like a completion.

By the final session, there was nothing left to remove. I was bald. Not "between maintenance sessions" bald, not "epilated last week" bald.

Permanently, irreversibly, by-design bald.

What Laser Actually Feels Like to Live In

The smoothness is incomparable. I've said this before but it deserves its own sentence: nothing else gets close. Not a razor. Not wax. Not epilation. Laser leaves behind a quality of skin that those methods approximate but never match.

And the brilliance, the way lasered scalp skin catches light.. it was something I genuinely didn't anticipate. It has a clarity and a sheen that feels less like a shaved head and more like the skin was always meant to be exposed. Like it was waiting.

The maintenance is essentially zero. No epilator sessions. No waxing appointments. No planning. No calendar management. Just permanent smoothness, every day, indefinitely.

It is the best thing I have ever done for myself.

What I'd Tell Someone Considering It

Don't use a national chain. Find a small, independent clinic where you'll be treated as a person, not a transaction. Ask about staff turnover. Read reviews carefully. Trust your instincts.. if something feels off, it probably is. I waited an extra six months for the right place. It was worth every week.

Ask about the equipment. The Candela GentleMax Pro is the gold standard for scalp work. It's not the only option, but it's the one I'd start with. Know what you're walking into.

Go to the consultation prepared. Know your desired result. Bring a reference if it helps.. or apparently, a bowl. The more specific you can be, the more precisely the technician can deliver.

Expect multiple sessions. Six was right for me. Your number might vary. Don't expect one session to finish the job and don't be discouraged when it doesn't.

Trust the process. The first session is the most disorienting, new environment, new sensations, new version of yourself coming into focus. By session two it's familiar. By session three it's routine. By session six it's done.

The End of the Chase

I spent years chasing something. The next haircut. The next extreme. The next version of myself that felt completely right.

Laser was the last step. Not because there was nowhere left to go, but because I'd arrived.

When you're permanently bald by design, you stop chasing. There's no next thing. There's just the mirror, every morning, showing you exactly who you decided to be.

That's not loss. That's completion.

Want the Full Framework?

If you're considering going bald, whether from a full head of hair like I did, or because you're finally done fighting the thinning.. Baldness by Design walks you through every stage. The decision, the design, the methods, the identity shift.

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You've read this far. You already know which side of the decision you're on.

GoBald.Me Baldness by design, not by default.