Frying the follicles: laser hair removal becoming big profit center for cosmetic surgeons.

L.A. has become a center for hair removal and don't laugh, it's becoming big business.

Legions of woman - and men - are flocking to hair-removal clinics, spurred by development of laser treatments that take off unwanted hair, even if it means going back for repeat treatments and no assurances that the stuff won't grow back.

Numerous hair-removal clinics have been opening up recently, including one at a place seldom associated with such cosmetic surgery: UCLA Medical Center.

"We're extremely busy," said Dr. Edward Tobinick, head of the Medical Institute for Laser Medicine. "We're booked for weeks in advance."

The institute opened eight months ago, and was initially intended to include the treatment of a variety of skin problems, such as spider veins and other blemishes. But consumer response to laser hair removal was so great that institute officials decided to eliminate the other treatments for now.

"There's a great need for hair removal for both men and women," Tobinick said. "We have a broad spectrum of patients from actresses ... to medical school professors."

Word about the UCLA clinic has even spread to other countries.

"Today we treated someone from Canada. She had a full beard - it's a pretty common abnormality," said Tobinick.

In October, Bosley Medical Institute in Beverly Hills, which had been in the business of putting hair back on people's heads for over 20 years, decided to get into the hair removal business. Bosley sent out word to its mostly male clientele about the new service, and the response was immediate.

"Men have come in to get their backs and shoulders done," said Bosley President John Ohanesian. "We also see men who want most of their body hair removed ... like body builders, swimmers and bicyclists."

In fact, most local laser hair removal clinics claim to be booked solid.

"There's a huge, huge market out there for laser hair removal," said Dr. Harold Lancer, a cosmetic dermatologist in Beverly Hills. "This is a big-ticket item."

Lancer introduced the service to his clinic just over a year ago, and said business has been "tremendous."

Laser hair removal is a 2-year-old innovation that was discovered by accident, when people using lasers to remove tattoos noticed that the hair at the treated spots came in thinner, if at all.

The treatment works by sending thermal light energy into the follicle to zap melanin in hair and destroy it. Though no laser systems on the market guarantee ever-lasting hair removal, some of the newer machines are said to come pretty close - up to 95 percent.

It's clearly a profit center for cosmetic surgeons, not only because the process is very expensive and popular, but because it often requires repeated treatments.

On certain parts of the body, three laser sessions are needed, for a total of six to 10 hours. Treatments can easily run more than $2,000.

With no guarantee that hair won't grow back, what's the attraction?

"I had no side effects and it's lasting," said Karen Geragos, an attorney and mother of two who wanted hair removed to improve her bikini line. "If I could afford it, if money weren't an issue, I would do it everywhere I think I needed it."

There are less expensive and more conventional methods of hair removal, like electrolysis, which costs about $30 to $60 an hour, and waxing, at $60 to $120 for a full-body treatment.

But those can be painful and sometimes result in bumps or rashes. Laser treatment, by contrast, is pain-free.

"It's fabulous. I can't even compare it to waxing, it's so different," said Geragos.

Leah Rush Cann, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., estimates the U.S. market for cosmetic laser services at about $10 billion, with $5 billion in the hair-removal industry alone.

Cann expects laser hair-removal to grow even bigger, as more people get introduced to the idea and more clinics and upscale hair-removal spas begin sprouting in smaller cities.

"For a lot of consumers to embrace the idea, it has to be more available," explained Cann. "Right now, we have some very sophisticated customers in the big cities like New York, L.A. and Chicago who will immediately do this."

Prices also are likely to drop, leading to stiffer competition with traditional treatments.