How Lasers Work

Most light is an assortment of colours like a rainbow. A laser is only one colour. Each colour has a different wavelength or frequency that they are made of.

The range in a rainbow goes from red to violet with red being the lowest frequency (longest wavelength) and violet having the shortest. The longer wavelengths radiate heat better. This is why a stove element, when hot, will emit a red light.

Light also passes easily though clear objects (e.g. glass) and gets absorbed through opaque objects such as a matte black surface. That is why on a hot summer day the glass will be cool but a black car will be very hot.

For a laser treatment to work, it needs to pass through your skin (i.e. clear object) and get absorbed by a dark object (e.g. hair follicle, spider vein, acne, etc.). The clearer your skin and the darker the object, the more efficient the process of laser hair removal is. In the past, only fairly white skin could be treated, but with newer technology, we can now accommodate all skin types and most hair colours.

There are different lasers for different types of skin. We categorize skin into 6 categories and use two different laser wavelengths to achieve permanent hair loss. The clearer your skin, the lower the number.

Because our skin is not perfectly clear like a glass, some of the laser light gets absorbed into the skin causing the temperature to rise. We combat this by using high powered air conditioners that produce a tiny stream of very cool air at the same place the laser is focused on. Some mild discomfort may occur and can be controlled by application of numbing creams an hour before the procedure. The new types of lasers (also known as non ablative lasers) treat the deeper layers of skin while leaving the top layer intact. Mild redness of the skin after treatment lasts only several hours.

In the past, most clinics used a Diode Laser with RF (Radio Frequency of 1 MHz) which was minimally effective for skin types I-IV and unsafe for skin types V-VI. The result was a 50% hair reduction post 3 treatments (R. Schulze). Another technology used in the past was IPL-intense pulsed light devices which were not that effective and caused more potential for scarring.

Lasers can safely and effectively treat:

• Pigmented spots
• Broken capillaries and enlarged veins
• Rosacea
• Acne

Laser can also:

• Permanently remove unwanted hair
• Diminish scars and stretch marks
• Improve the texture and tone of skin by remodelling of the old collagen, by production of new collagen and by deep tissue tightening