A practitioner analyzes the Aurora

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#1

From a reader in May 2005:

Hiya Andrea,

As you may remember, i told you i would let you know how i made out in seeing the aurora and its presentation.

What i liked:

It has a bigger head so its one pulse compared to four of lightsheer.

The hair does not shed for three weeks so appointments are six weeks apart for face and eight for body. So, sales wise this is good.

There is a safety mechanism to protect the skin so it doesn’t pulse unless the contact is there. The hand part is lighter too.

The sales rep said there is no documentation on lasers penetrating past four mm. Becuase this has the radio frequency along with IPL it can penetrate30-40% more. (Im just saying what he said)

What i don’t care for.

You have to pull the trigger with every pulse as opposed to the diode and the foot petal and just keeping your finger on it.

Now, the radio frequency pretty much stays the same when treating. Its the IPL that you adjust.

I spoke to some people who have used it. One from your forum who said it doesn’t work at all. And i spoke to a nurse who has three here in Toronto. She actually prefers it over the diode because the limitations are less.

Here in Canada due to different regulations (or should i say, no regulations on LHR), we can buy a unit which is exactly like the aurora only doesn’t have attachments. With the aurora you can have the attachment that does facial rejuvination. ( I think that is better left with a surgeon or dr. myself) So, we can buy a pitanga in Canadian funds instead of the Aurora which is in US funds.

Hope this has been helpful. Im still a bit nervous and sure hope i made the right choice!!

#2

Thanks for the update. The Clinical Papers on the Syneron site talk about the Aurora penetrating to a depth of 4 mm, nothing more. The Comet may penetrate deeper as it uses a diode laser as opposed to simple IPL. It depends on spot size too.

Based on my experience and what I feel during treatments, I feel the pulses from the Nd:YAG Lyra-i more deeply than the Aurora. Also in one of the clinical papers they do mention that for light skin and dark hair, the lasers do perform better than the elos system. Again this may change with the Comet, since it is a true laser rather than IPL. So with the Comet you get the benefit of a diode laser plus the added benefits of RF energy.

I did have some success with the Aurora on white/light colored hairs but I reached the point of diminishing returns. I needed higher fluence levels that the Aurora could not provide. Again the Comet may address that issue as it can go up to 50J RF and 50J diode laser.

RJC2001

#3

Keep in mind that the highest correlation of penetration depth is spot size. Wider the spot, deeper the penetration. The question of attentuation (energy scattering) hasn’t been addressed consistently or comparatively in the published literature. We need a good controlled study with same spot sizes and different wavelengths.

Thanks as always for your info!

#4

That’s why I think laser doesn’t always get all of the hairs, some of the follicles are just too deep. That’s why I say, “finish with electrolysis.”

The diode laser mfrs. say that for a given spot size, their laser penetrates deeper than the shorter wavelength alexandrite lasers. Likewise, the Nd:YAG laser, for a given spot size, penetrates deeper than the diode or alex laser. At 1064 nm, it does have the longest wavelength. And from my engineering background, whether RF or optical, longer wavelengths do travel a greater distance before being attenuated. So they are reasonable claims.

One of the laser info sources on hairfacts had a good graph of the absorption characteristics of the different lasers.

RJC2001