Have You Ever Had an IPL Laser Facial?

Hello! I am 34 years old and had this done. I have Asian skin and so I have a higher tendency to have age spots on my cheeks. IPL is amazing! I did 4 treatments (I think I could have done 3 treatments), and my spots are lighter. I think it's very effective and there is no downtime. The only other experience I've had with laser is laser hair removal, and there are some lasers that work better than others in my experience, so this may be true for IPL as well.

The spots DO get much darker after each treatment, so don't let it freak you out. After about a week, they start to flake off and they'll be lighter after that. With each session, you'll notice a difference. Some spots I didn't even know were there appeared out of the blue after my first treatment, but sure enough became lighter and flaked off.

Also, I would go to a physician's office to get this done. Like I said, the other experience I've had with laser is with laser hair removal, and the second time I had it done, I had it at a spa type of place. I believe their laser was very mediocre because the hair wasn't removed at all (even after 4 sessions). My first experience was at a physician's office, and even after 3 sessions (I did a total of 6 using a Groupon-like deal), the hair did not grow back... even to this day and that was almost three years ago. The IPL I had done was at a plastic surgeon's office.

Hope this helps!!

One treatment will not do anything really, it takes 4-6 to really see any results, so decide if it is worth the money.

I believe my first "set" was of 3 and I think it helped with pigmentation a lot. I'm very glad I did them. Now I do maybe one a year... It does hurt but it's not for long and they can adjust the strength to your pain tolerance level. And as others said, you'll look worse before you look better. But it's just the first day or two that are kind of bad. Then some of the dark spots will start to flake off. And of course depends on the person and how much pigmentation is there. I think my skin tone is much more even now. A brown spot started to come back, I went for another treatment bc it was time anyway and it basically went away. Totally worthwhile to me.

Hi LeeLee,

I work in a medical spa/plastic surgeon's office. We do IPL treatments and I have had several myself.

Here's what I can tell you:

You will most likely see some results after the first treatment, but will need 4-6 treatments to completely treat your pigment. I am assuming that you are trying to get rid of sun spots/freckles etc. because that is what this treatment is for, and it is really effective for that.

IPL will darken your existing pigment and bring to the surface pigment you didn't even know you had. It is normal to look worse than you did before treatment for about a week afterward, you can wear makeup to cover it up if you like. After 7 or so days, your pigment will begin to disappear.

It can be somewhat painful. It feels a bit like a hot rubber band snap with each pulse, and a treatment consists of many pulses. You can apply a topical numbing cream (tetracaine/lidocaine) to help make it less uncomfortable. I typically have the treatments without the numbing cream (I hate how that stuff feels), so it is not unbearable, but if pain is a concern ask about your options.

If you have other questions you can pm me.