Mike Murphy's Blog

Yesterday, I visited a very nice lady to train on the use her very expensive laser. She’d had previous training on laser hair removal but was not obtaining good results. Most of her clients were returning with thinner, finer hairs – yet, she was following the ‘manufacturers’ guidelines’ religiously.

What was going wrong?

Her machine is excellent – she’d just had it serviced. So there was no issue with it. She told me that she bought it in June 2018 and had treated many clients. But they virtually all were coming back with the same problem – fine hairs.

I looked at the User Manual and found the problem immediately. (I already knew what the problem was, but I needed to confirm it).

The fluences were far too low!

Again!!!

As with many manufacturers’ settings…

She has alexandrite/Nd:YAG combo system which can fire each wavelength independently or as a ‘blend’. The more I read her manual, the more nonsense I read. Even the ‘blend’ ratio was complete nonsense – it showed a complete lack of understanding of the mechanisms involved in laser hair removal.

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So, I took her through my training program and explained how and why this technique works. I explained about the heating of the germ cells (not blood vessels – there’s no real evidence for that!!) and showed her the minimum fluences required to target hair follicles across the body.

I then explained how the skin colour has a major effect on both the pain level and other unwanted effects, and how to mitigate against it with proper cooling. I also told her why the Fitzpatrick scale is not applicable in these treatments.

We treated one of her clients, who had already received a significant number of treatments over the years. She had been left with lots of fine hair on her face. She is an Asian lady with a skin tone 4 (according to my meter).

I recommended a mixture of the alexandrite (755nm) energy with the Nd:YAG (1064nm) energy. My trainee was “scared’ to use this on such a “dark skin”. Her manual told her that she should not use 755nm of this skin colour. I told her that she would be fine as long as we applied the appropriate level of cooling.

The client was perfectly fine – my trainee was still scared but surprised. There was little erythema, as expected, but virtually no pain sensation. The lady left happy as Larry.

My trainee was concerned that her skin would develop a ‘burn’ or would scar…

I told her not to worry.

Today, the day after treatment, she wrote to me to say that her client’s face had been red for a little while, but not ‘hot or painful’. Her skin is now ‘absolutely normal’ – as I expected. And this was after using a wavelength she would not normally use (755nm) at a fluence she would never have considered – 10 J/cm^2. Her manual had suggested only 1064nm at a useless fluence – which explains why the results were so lousy.

Her exact words are “You really have proved my laser manual is crap and I can go much higher.” Says it all!

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Useless!

So, why are many manufacturers’ settings so useless?

Well, it’s because they don’t, or can’t, train you to use their equipment properly. Or they just don’t want you to apply the correct levels in case you injure someone and come back on them.

These companies are happy to take your money, but not provide the proper training or support. I hear many stories from laser users saying that they have been told “You’re not doing it properly” by their suppliers. What a cop out!

One of these days I might have to ‘name and shame’ all those companies that I am aware of…

I have deliberately not named the manufacturer of the laser above – they are a large, well-known company who build excellent devices. But they need to ‘up their game’ and supply proper training too!!

Frustrated and angry,

Mike.

If you would like to learn more about how to use your laser or IPL properly, please come along to our MasterClass in Luton, north of London, on September 24/25th. Contact us on DermaLaseMasterClass@gmail.com for more details.