Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) and laser hair removal are the two predominant options for men when it comes to larger areas of hair removal when one is seeking a longer term option than say shaving or waxing where results last several days (shaving) or weeks (waxing) at best.
Both IPL and laser may offer several months of being hair free, eventually leading to long term hair reduction with repeated treatments.
NOTE: Neither IPL nor laser offer permanent hair removal. At best, you should think of them as offering permanent hair reduction when done properly and over time with multiple treatments. Depending on how much hair you have to remove, you should think of the process as just that: A process, one that takes time and requires multiple visits to achieve a hair-free look.
In general terms, if you have hair that is darker than your skin, you are most likely a candidate for either IPL or laser hair removal treatment. IPL and laser hair removal machines detect the contrast between skin and hair color. The darker the hair and lighter the skin, the better able the machines can detect hair and skin and distinguish between the two.
Electrolysis offers permanent hair removal and is the only option approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for this purpose. Given that it involves zapping each hair one at a time, it is very time-consuming and tends to be good for small areas of hair removal ie. lip, chin, underarms. And thus it has been traditionally been thought of as a hair removal option marketed towards woman.
With the advent of IPL and laser and an increased focus on men’s grooming products and services, males are increasingly opting for hair removal to get rid of unwanted hair. Typically this involves back and shoulder hair and possibly chest, arm and leg hair too.
Let’s discuss each process in detail and then I’ll give my personal experience – good and bad – with both of them. I’ve utilized both options for back and shoulder hair removal but have more experience with IPL.
IPL Hair Removal Process
IPL is a cosmetic technology first utilized for vascular procedures but is now widely used for many cosmetic and medical procedures including hair removal but also acne treatment, skin pigmentation treatment, rosacea treatment and more. IPL is a difficult machine to operate and tends to require more training and skill than laser hair removal.
The IPL machine uses a relatively large handheld wand that flashes light on the skin being treated. The flash from the IPL wand travels down the hair shaft to the root, targeting the melanin, and damages it (that’s good!) to kill the hair so that it falls out, usually within several days of treatment. The hair effectively gets heated to the point where its ability to grow is destroyed.
IPL involves the practitioner first trimming your hair with clippers so that it’s very short, just visible above the skin. The shorter the hair the better because the flash of light has less area to travel down the shaft to get to the root and is therefore better able to zap the hair and hopefully kill it so it doesn’t grow back.
Before getting started though, a cooling gel is applied to the area being treated. This is a distinction between IPL and laser. IPL uses a cooling gel but laser generally doesn’t. The IPL light is very strong and would burn your skin without it (more on my experience below). So the wand is literally held in the gel on your body, the button is pressed to zap your skin, and then the practitioner moves to the next part to be treated and the process is repeated.
Treatments are generally recommended every 4-6 weeks until you’re happy with the results. If you go back too early, you will miss out on dormant hairs that haven’t had a chance to grow yet. Your practitioner can advise a schedule for you based on your hair growth, area(s) of hair being treated, budget, etc.
Post treatment, you may experience temporary reddening of the skin for a day or more. You may also experience some pain or sensitivity. You are advised to stay out of the sun and not tan until your skin has healed. Prior to treatment, you are generally advised not to tan or otherwise darken your skin in any way as the IPL machine can have difficulty distinguishing between your hair and skin.
IPL tends to work best on people with light skin and dark hair due to the technology. As mentioned above regarding tanning, the lighter your skin the easier the broad pulsed light from the IPL machine can target and destroy hair. People with light colored hair (blond) are not ideal candidates for IPL either.
Laser Hair Removal Process
Laser hair removal is the more established of the two options and offers three main kinds of laser to consider. As a result, it’s important to enquire ahead of time when you choose a clinic to understand what type of laser(s) they have and the machine name as some processes involving laser are known by their company name (Lumenis) or product name (LightSheer, SPLENDOR X, etc).
The three main kinds of laser in operation for hair removal are:
Diode laser
Suitable for both light and dark skin, the Diode laser operates with a long 808nm wavelength (ie. longer than the Alexandrite) and can penetrate deep into the skin which makes it good for back hair. The Diode laser tends not to be as good for lighter and finer hair but works well on darker and coarse hair. It has a fast repetition rate and is thus good for large areas of hair removal.
Alexandrite laser
The Alexandrite laser uses a 755nm wavelength (ie. shorter than the diode) and a result, tends to work better on lighter skin, in the light to olive range. It is a long-pulsed option that has a better depth of penetration than Nd:YAG or IPL.
The Alexandrite laser is also used for other skin conditions like spider veins and age spots.
Nd:YAG laser
It’s official name is neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet but we can stick with Nd:YAG. The newest of the laser options it’s a long pulsed laser operating at the deepest 1064nm wavelength of the 3 options. As a result it tends to be the mildest of the 3 options and works very well for dark skinned people and people with tanned skin. It may thus require more treatments than the other two.
My IPL Hair Removal Experience
I had about 16 hair removal sessions for my back and shoulders using IPL. I actually lost count but I was having them at a rate of about 4 times per year or once every 3 months from memory. With this frequency, it gives the hair a chance to grow back – along with dormant hairs to grow – so that they can be zapped the next time I had the treatment.
I went to a plastic surgery clinic who happened to offer the service in my hometown. I got a pretty good price as it was a new service for the clinic and they offered me a free treatment every four treatments. So I paid for 3 visits, got 1 free. At least until the owner of the clinic changed and the new owner raised their prices but that’s another story.
The person operating the IPL machine was a trained nurse who worked at the clinic for that specific purpose.
I started by getting back hair removal done but managed to stretch it out by adding some shoulder hair removal too when a new clinician started on my third visit and I saw her the rest of the time. I told her I’d like her to add a bit of shoulder work and she did, at no extra price. Although she did remind me a few times I was getting a good price. Just a tip in case you’re negotiating with a clinic.
My visit started by me taking my shirt off and lying on my stomach on the doctor’s chair. Very cold (icy cold….) cooling gel direct from the fridge was applied to my back and then the hair removal began. The clinician set the machine based on my previous visit and tried a few test spots and asked my feeling about it ie. Did it hurt? Did I feel it? Can I take a high setting?
If I was able to take more, she turned the IPL machine up a bit and I got a stronger pulse. Every so often, the clinician would wipe off excess gel from the wand and continue with the process. Each visit for me took around 1 hour.
Pain Experienced
What does it feel like when the IPL machine zaps your hair and skin?
I was told ahead of time verbally – and in a written brochure – that the feeling was similar to flicking a rubber band against the skin. For the most part, that was accurate but a few times I really felt a burn and had to ask to turn the setting of the machine down a bit.
NOTE: I also learned that the more hair that is being removed, the more you feel it. The closer the machine zaps near your bones, the more you feel. When you get to a meaty party of your skin with little hair, you don’t feel much. But around bones and areas of heavy hair growth, you tend to feel it more.
I also found the closer the IPL wand got to the neck area in between my shoulders, the more it hurt. I recall seeing some redness and feeling sensitivity on the back of my neck.
My Laser Hair Removal Experience
I only had one laser hair removal session when I was speaking with several practitioners to see what options were available and I was offered a discounted first visit as a test. I don’t actually even remember what specific laser machine was used but I did have the work done on my back as with the IPL machine.
As with the IPL treatment, I visited a local clinic that focused on laser and waxing hair removal and other skin services. From the office environment, I got the impression it was largely a clinic targeted at women although at the time – this is over 20 years ago – laser and IPL hair removal for men wasn’t necessarily a widely known thing. It was still a service largely targeted at women.
As mentioned above, the main difference from a user perspective is that no cooling gel is used for laser hair removal. I recall the hand held wand for the laser machine being smaller than the IPL wand I experienced several years later. I had this laser treatment about 2 years before the IPL treatments started as I didn’t bother actually doing anything right away after the laser treatment test.
Pain Experienced
Oddly I don’t actually remember there being much pain with the laser treatment. I only had the one visit but the pain wasn’t something I remember thinking about nor did do I have a memory of reddened skin or discomfort. So in that regard, I don’t have a lot to say about the pain factor because at the time, I don’t recall it being an issue.
Fitzpatrick Skin Type Chart
As you can see above, a person’s skin color and hair type (coarse hair? light colored hair?) can directly impact whether or not a particular hair removal option may work for you. It’s best to know a bit ahead of time about each hair removal option so you can steer yourself in the right direction, with help from the clinic you choose of course. But the more you know ahead of time, the less chance you’ll get ripped off or overspend.
In that regard, understand ahead of time what your skin tone is and the type of hair you have that you’re planning on getting removed.
Designed in 1975 by US dermatologist Thomas Fitzpatrick, the Fitzpatrick Skin Type Chart identifies 6 main color types for human skin. While the chart can be used for sun exposure to protect against skin cancer, it can also be used as a rough guide for hair removal to help guide you to the option that works for your skin tone. So if you see a particular option that refers to its suitability for skin tones 1-6, it’s most likely referring to this chart.
Fitzpatrick Skin Type 1: Palest skin type (ivory), skin always burns and doesn’t tan.
Fitzpatrick Skin Type 2: Fair to pale skin, usually burns and doesn’t normally tan.
Fitzpatrick Skin Type 3: Fair to beige skin, sometimes burns and tans uniformly.
Fitzpatrick Skin Type 4: Olive to moderate brown skin, burns minimally and tans very well.
Fitzpatrick Skin Type 5: Dark brown skin, very rarely burns and tans easily.
Fitzpatrick Skin Type 6: Dark brown to darkest brown skin, never burns.
We discussed above which laser options tend to work best for various skin tones. IPL tends to work best for skin types 1-4, but mostly skin types 1-3.
In general people with very dark skin may find their options somewhat limited for laser hair removal. People with very light (ie. blonde) hair may also find it difficult if not impossible with current technology to achieve hair removal with either IPL or laser as their hair simply doesn’t have enough melanin for the machine to distinguish between the hair and skin.
Hair Growth Cycle And Hair Removal
How frequently should you have IPL or laser hair removal treatment? Generally practitioners will suggest every 4-6 weeks. In my experience, I went for IPL treatment about every 3 months mostly because I had to travel to the clinic during work hours and had to schedule things in advance.
Check out the chart above to see the 4 distinct phases of hair growth: Anagen (growth phase), Catagen (transition phase), Telogen (resting phase) and Exogen (shedding phase).
IPL and laser hair removal work on the growth phase especially well. Once the shedding phase occurs, the hair is already falling out and may not be treated properly. Hairs are in various phases at any given time ie. your hairs don’t all grow in the same phase at the same time. So when you have a hair removal treatment, with a week or so of the visit, new hairs might be visibly growing. They weren’t able to be treated since they were dormant at the time hair removal was done.
So when practitioners suggest a hair removal regimen of every 4-6 weeks, part of the schedule is of course for them to make more money by having you come back for more treatments. But your hair growth cycle should also play a part in this decision.
Conclusion
- What is better IPL or laser hair removal? It depends! Your skin tone and hair color are key determinants.
- There are 3 main types of laser hair removal: Diode, Alexandrite and Nd:YAG. Each have advantages over one another (see descriptions above).
- Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) uses pulsed light as the name suggests and thus is not laser hair removal. IPL uses a larger wand to provide the service and tends be more cost effective at clearing larger areas of hair than laser.
- IPL tends to be good for skin tones in the 1-4 range (see the Fitzpatrick scale above for more details).
- In general terms, the darker your hair and the lighter your skin, the better success you will have with either treatment.
- Here is an interesting research report that compares the 3 main types of laser and IPL in terms of the suitability of each one for various hair and skin types.
Tell us about your IPL or laser hair removal experience in the comments below!