What is IPL and what it can do for you?

Here at West End FPS, we have a lot of ways to help you look your best regardless of your age. We like to emphasize sunscreen for prevention and our retinol-containing skin products to help keep your skin looking its best.

Retinol is an ESSENTIAL part of a professional skin care regimen!

No matter how diligent you are about your SPF and your skin care, your skin is going to age. For many of us, the damage was done years ago before we even knew about sunscreen. Sun damaged skin has a coarse texture, lots of fine lines, and lots of irregular pigment. If you spent years ignoring SPF, you need to know about another three letter acronym: IPL.

IPL stands for Intense Pulsed Light. It’s kind of like a laser, but while lasers pick out specific light frequencies to do a job, IPL relies on very bright white light to do the job.

The hand piece comes with a lot of different filters that can make it safe for all skin types. It also has a cooling function which is really nice.

The treatment requires eye protection and a special gel. We also set you up with numbing cream so that you’re comfortable during the treatment.

So what does it do? Lots of things!

1. IPL erases sun damage! I had a lot of sun damage from summers working as a camp counselor, especially on my shoulders. I had an IPL treatment on my back and shoulders which REALLY helped to even out the pigment and improve my skin’s texture.
2. If your face has background redness or little tiny blood vessels (frequently related to sun damage), it will improve those.
3. It works great as a source for laser hair removal! This is why you didn’t see me getting treated on my cheeks because I didn’t want my beard to be affected.

The recovery is no big deal. Here’s a picture of me the day after I had my first facial IPL treatment.

The biggest thing you’ll notice is that if you have dark spots from sun damage, they will get significantly darker for several days. Then, almost overnight, they disappear. You’ll need to moisturize very well for about a week and hold off on retinol while you’re healing. But there isn’t any pain or discomfort otherwise and you can wear makeup.

We generally recommend getting a series of three treatments, but you will notice an improvement after the first. Generally we space them out with 6 weeks in between. For hair removal, it just depends on the location being treated. Check out this link for more about our aesthetic services.

For more on IPL, feel free to check out the video we shot during my treatment.

If you want to learn more about IPL or our other aesthetic services, give us a call! We’d love to meet you!