With our society being so fast paced in their daily lives, many women are looking for various ways to save time especially when it comes to their beauty regime. With beauty technology changing constantly, we are getting more and more permanent beauty procedures like eyebrow embroidery microblading, lip enhancement and eyelash extension. Gone are the days that are spent lying on a bed while a therapist puts hot wax on you and yank all the fuzz off your body.  Now, there is techniques like IPL and Laser Hair Removal to remove all the unwanted hair on our body permanently but what is the difference of the two procedures?

 

IPL

Intense Pulse Light or IPL for short is one of the two new technologies recently developed to reduce or permanently remove unwanted hair. It is a light based treatment. IPL can also be used to rejuvenate the skin which means it is able to treat hyper pigmentation, sun damage as well as acne. IPL uses light to create heat and kill the pigmentation in the hair cell. The hair cell has to be a living hair cell for IPL to work its magic. IPL used to only work on fair skin as it kills all pigmentation on the body. Darker skinned people were not advised to do IPL as they might get a skin discolouration. Currently, There is a few IPL lasers in the market that are able to be set different laser setting for different skin type which is good news for dark skinned people!

 

Laser Hair Removal

Laser hair removal uses a single wavelength of light to penetrate a targeted unwanted hair area. Hair with darker pigments will have better laser removal results. Hair with light pigments such as blonde and red hair would not be able to see results thus is not recommended to do the laser treatment removal. While it is not effective for fair haired people, it is also not recommended for dark skinned people as they will have a risk of having discolouration and burn marks on their skin. Do ensure you do not have any fake tan on you as your therapist would not help you with your treatment.

Lasers have a sensation of a rubber band being snapped onto the skin which gives a tingling feeling. A cooling device would be held over the area during the area which is able to minimise any discomfort during the treatment. IPL have a heat sensation which should not be too uncomfortable. Let your therapist know if the heat is too unbearable and they should be able to minimise the heat sensation for you. Thermal trauma would give you discolouration so do be careful and voice out any discomfort. IPL and lasers would only be able to permanently remove unwanted hair if you commit to at least 8-12 sessions. Doing 1 or 2 sessions would not be able to completely remove unwanted hair as hair growth cycle is about 20 days and they do not grow out together at once. Do ensure your therapist is skilled and have experience in the service before going for the service as these treatments can cause permanent damage.
Sources: http: //www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/01/07/laser-hair-removal_n_8925010.html