Equivalent settings between Apogee/ Coolglide ?

Hair Removal Methods Laser hair removal
#21

I talked to the tech who treated me with the Apogee - yag side about my seemingly very low settings . She said that she test to see when there is spark and burning , and when she sees the reaction she is looking for those are her settings. She said It is not necessary to go up from there and risk blistering the skin etc and those setting are what is effective for that individual.She did NOT feel that my settings were at all low.

When i asked why i was treated with the yag protion over the alex even though i have light skin and dark hair she explained that the idea that alexandrite is better than yag for light skin is old school thinking and no longer accurate. She said that this idea remains because the Alex was invented and around before the Yag and that Yag is not less effective on light skin than Alec , its just that it treats all skin types.

Often I find such contradictory info that it makes one wonder?!!

#22

Yag is not better than alex for light skin or just as good in any way. I’ve treated many areas with both and had way better results from the alex. I’m a skin type 3 or so. When I would use the alex on my forearms I’d get 100% shedding, but the couple of times they used the yag when they thought I was a bit tanned, I had maybe 80% shedding. The settings were high as well, it hurt just as much if not more than the alex.

When I did my legs before, the place I went to had the Apogee Elite MPX. She treated my thighs with the alexandrite, and then the machine died and kept rebooting so she switched to the Yag using high settings also and treated my lower legs. About 10 days later my thighs were completely hair free, but my lower legs had zero shedding.

The only place I’ve had any good results with the yag is on my face where the hair is super dark and coarse.

#23

Laser hair removal is becoming very difficult to have done because anyone can own a laser now. You have beauty salons that do skin treatments or even cut hair suddenly now doing laser hair removal. They go for their short training, are told the benefits of the yag vs alex etc and that’s as far as it goes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a clinic to have a treatment, and they’ll use maybe Apogee, or Soprano or whatever, and I’ll mention another laser I’ve been treated with like GentleLASE or LightSheer and they’ll have never heard of it. A good friend of mine got me into LHR as she works at a plastic surgeon so I went for some treatments. I stopped when I found out it was an IPL they were using by Lumenis (ironically I had amazing results from it some of the best I’ve had). When I told her I switched clinics they said I should have told them I wanted a real laser because they can refer me to a clinic that uses the BEST laser there is on the market. I’m like GentleLASE? And they’re like no, ummmmm LightSheer that’s right.

So the problem is they don’t even know what they’re talking about. They’re told their laser is the best and so of course they’re going to believe that and tell you that. They’re also told that it’s much harder to burn someone with the yag than the alex so people use caution. Even the clinic I go to uses really high settings for me, but that’s more luck than anything that I was able to talk her into doing it and show her that my skin can handle it and that she’s actually open to doing that.

I went for GentleLASE on my legs once (posted a review of the place on here) and the girl immediately looked to her Candela chart on the wall to figure out what settings needed to be used. I’ve had GentleLASE done on other areas before and it hurts a fair bit, but when she treated me I felt absolutely nothing. So you have to just keep trying different places.

#24

Thanks Edokid. Yes with the incredible range in responses to the same question it does seem that most just repeat what their company tells them. Yes in many ways , due to the newness of laser the info is all over the road!

Course the Apogee I was treated with has Alex and Yag but she chose mainly to use the yag.She said alex was better for areas that had light hair so she only used it on face. She also showed me how it was effective all over herself including face which is fine hair . I cant believe these folks would just outright lie??!!

I appreciate your responses and your experience. Unfortunately here where i live i have only one choice which is Yag. I got a great price so I wonder if it is better to carry on with remaining two treatments or avoid , get money returned cuz it will thin the hair too much for the Alex to treat in future treatments. For future treatments i will travel out of town for ALex!

#25

I don’t think that you can “ruin” the hair for an alex by using a Yag at all. Yag is just more effective on coarser hair. Alex works on all hair, coarse and a bit finer. So basically what would happen (assuming the yag is used properly at high settings) is that it would kill all the very coarse hair but mostly ignore the really fine hair to medium-fine hair. On the other hand an alex would treat the coarse hair plus that medium-fine type hair. Even the alex can’t treat very fine hair though, it’s just a bit more effective than yag on the fine hair.

Alex is better on fine hair, not lighter hair. The only strange thing about the comments is that if your skin type isn’t tanned, then there’s really no reason that the yag would ever be considered better. The only time I’ve ever had places use the yag over the alex is when it’s summer or I’m a bit tanned and they’re afraid the alex will burn me. The place I go downtown usually is flexible and will use the alex anyway and just make sure to really cool the area down after and what not. There was another place I went to uptown though with the Apogee Elite and she refused to ever use the alex on me always saying I’m way too dark, even though I had only a very very minor bit of colour to me.