What is IPL (Intense Pulsed Light)?

IPL stands for Intense Pulsed Light. It is a light energy that is applied to certain parts of the body, so that the target structure - whether it be hair or blood vessel in the skin - absorbs the energy and is destroyed.

IPL is not the same as laser, although it is similar. The main difference is that laser (Light Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation) is a technique of producing light energy of only one wavelength. IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) uses white light which contains all the wavelengths of visible light from red to blue. However, to concentrate the treatments on different structures, filters are used to reduce certain wavelengths that are not needed.

The IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) machine produces a sudden burst of light which is channeled down some fibreoptic tubes into a hand-piece. The hand-piece is held on the skin at the point where treatment is needed and light energy is transmitted to the skin. As this can get quite hot, the trained therapist uses a cooling gel on the skin. This is very soothing, helps cool the skin down, and also causes good contact for good light conduction.

This explains the Intense Light but not the "Pulsed".

When we are trying to destroy hair follicles, we want to heat the hair up as much as possible with the Intense Light, but do not want to damage the skin. Research has shown that, as the hair is darker, it holds onto the heat generated by the light energy longer than the skin does. Therefore, by giving five or so pulses of light in quick succession, each pulse lasting a fraction of a second heats the hair follicle up, along with the surrounding skin but, in the gap between the light pulses, the skin cools faster than the hair follicle. In this way, by using light pulses, more heat energy can be transmitted to the hair follicle, destroying it while reducing the heat damage to the surrounding skin. This makes IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) more effective and less risky.

Different people have different skin colour, different hair colour and also different hair thickness. As such, our trained therapists will assess your skin, colour of hair and thickness of hair to see what the appropriate settings and power are needed for your IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) treatment. However, not everybody is suitable for IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) as we will discuss later.

To find out more, or to book an appointment, please contact us.