I’ve just had my first session with Gentlelase on my face in London. It went fine but I have a question about the settings and my skin type.
At my patch test the technician assessed me as type IV. I have very fair (i’m the lightest person of anyone I know) and dark black course hair. I almost always burn in the sun, sometimes tan. However, I am of persian/middle eastern origin and think this may be why she put me as a IV.
My question is whether this is right and also whether this will affect the effectiveness of my treatments. Should I question this again when I go back next month? The LAST thing I want to do is burn but I need this to work!
Yes, do question her assessment of your skin type. Your description does not match the charactaristics of a type 4 skin. Did your session go well? Healing? You sound like you are definitely lighter and so, the GentleLASE sounds perfect for you. The only thing that concerns me is that you are having your face lased, thus taking the chance of falling into risky territory for laser hair stimulation.
Good luck and please read the laser FaQ’s, if you have not already.
The Persian/Middle Eastern origin is the reason for being a type IV. Even though you may be very pale, you have the possibility of having underlying pigment which could cause you to burn. How many settings did they test you on?
This is the problem with using the Fitzpatrick skin type score for laser hair removal. The system was designed to identify and categorize one’s response to UV radiation and propensity to burn or tan. Not to the wavelength length that is used in laser hair removal. And in fact, the mechanisms by which one burns with UV and one burns with laser hair removal are very different.
Using ethnicity with Fitzpatrick makes sense for UV, it makes really no sense for laser hair removal. All the Fitzpatrick system really does is provide a proxy for what we are trying to determine, the propensity of someone to absorb laser energy and convert that to heat.
There are other issues involving ethnicity with laser hair removal but skin type is not one of them.
Thanks for your replies. My 1st treatment went fine, it wasn’t that painful and all redness was gone within the hour and I was back to normal. I forgot to get the settings used but will ask next time. The reason the type 4 setting surprised me was because, based on the info I’d already read, I would’ve assessed myself as a type 1 or 2.
If I continue based on type 4 settings, when my skin probably isn’t, does that mean the treatments will be less effective? The technician did say that we would see how it goes and they would patch test me for a lower skin type if I didn’t see results.
I would definitely call and find out the settings used (joules and spot size). Women with your ethnicity have a higher tendency of stimulated growth on the face. It’s important that high enough settings are used. It sounds like they’re following some sort of a chart for skin type and associated “setting”, which isn’t the best way to determine what setting should be used to get results for your specific situation. You need someone who is experienced enough to KNOW what settings your skin should be able to handle based on their past experience. The fact that you didn’t feel much worries me in a sense that either the settings were sort of low or that your hair is not coarse enough. Please do find out the settings and report back. Also, check out the recent post on the forum on various London clinics.