Counting backwards from October: how a laser course gets scheduled in a Boca summer

The August question is whether it is too late, and the answer is arithmetic rather than opinion. Every laser or resurfacing plan has three numbers attached to it: how many sessions, how far apart, and how many weeks of sun avoidance sit on the far end. Those three either fit before a chosen date or they do not.

The date most people here are counting toward is somewhere in the middle of October, when the seasonal population arrives and the calendar stops having gaps in it.

Why count backwards instead of forwards?

Because counting forwards produces a start date and counting backwards produces an answer. Starting in August and seeing where things land tends to end with a last session in the week somebody has guests in the house. Starting from the date and subtracting gives a start date that is either still available or already past.

If it is already past, that is worth knowing in August rather than in week three of a series.

What does the arithmetic look like for Erbium?

Erbium YAG is generally a single appointment rather than a series, quoted for the face or for face and neck together. Visible recovery is generally about a week to ten days for most people, and the sun avoidance that follows is measured in weeks rather than days.

Counting back from October 15: ten days of visible recovery plus four weeks of avoidance puts the appointment in the first week of September. Six weeks of avoidance, which is closer to what I ask for after Erbium going into a Florida fall, puts it in the last week of August. That is now, which is why this is written this week rather than in three weeks.

Mid-September is not a slightly compressed version of the same plan. It is a plan that finishes in late October at the earliest, and in November if the longer avoidance window applies. That is a perfectly reasonable plan as long as it is chosen rather than discovered.

And an IPL series?

IPL is generally a series rather than one visit, commonly three sessions about four weeks apart, sometimes more depending on what is being treated.

The same sum, run backwards from October 15: four weeks of avoidance puts the last session around September 17, and two four-week intervals before that puts the first session in the third week of July. That date has passed. A series starting this week falls on roughly August 26, September 23 and October 21, with the avoidance weeks running into late November.

So a series started now finishes during the season rather than before it. That is not a reason to skip it. It is a reason to know at the first session what the third one lands on, because a series discovered in the middle of October to be running into November is the one that gets abandoned halfway.

And laser hair removal?

This is the one where the arithmetic disappoints. Laser hair removal is a course, generally six sessions: four to six weeks apart on the face, six to eight on the body, and sometimes more sessions than six.

Six sessions at those intervals is several months on the face and the better part of a year on the body. A course starting in August is a spring project, not an October one, and anybody who has been told otherwise has been told something that is not arithmetic. It is still a good thing to start in August. It is just not a thing that finishes in October.

What happens when the arithmetic does not close?

The plan moves rather than compressing. These are the things I will not do to make a date work:

• Shorten the interval between sessions. The interval is part of the treatment, not padding around it.
• Stack a resurfacing appointment and an IPL series inside the same few weeks so that both fit before a date.
• Book resurfacing for somebody with travel inside the recovery window, which in this county in October means most people.
• Schedule a final session in the week of an event. The week before an event is the week nothing new happens.
• Start a course that cannot be finished. A half-finished course is money spent on nothing.

What August is actually good for

• Erbium YAG, if the date is set now rather than in three weeks. Face, or face and neck together.
• Starting an IPL series with a November finish understood from the first session rather than found out at the third.
• Beginning hair removal with a spring finish understood from the first appointment.
• The consultation itself, which is the one thing that can be done with a tan and a full calendar.

The categories that belong to the other half of the year, and why injectables and devices trade places in October, are a separate argument set out among the notes. This one is only about whether a specific plan closes before a specific date.

The sum runs the same way for anybody: name the date, subtract the avoidance weeks, subtract the intervals, subtract the sessions, and see where the number lands. If it lands in July, the two available answers are a later finish or a later year, and a later year is not a lesser version of the treatment. It is the same treatment with the calendar on its side. The session counts and intervals for each are on the lasers page, so the sum can be done at home before anybody calls, and your exact figures come with the consultation.

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Written and medically reviewed by Jamie S. Lobacz, APRN, MSN. Last reviewed 2026-08-26.