A few years ago, I had laser hair removal at one of the chains and ended up burned on my underarms. Needless to say, I never went back. HOWEVER, the hair that was treated is much less than it was before, so it did work, even with only 3 treatments. I’ve decided to maybe try and finish the underarms up, but I will never go to one of those chains again. Instead, I booked a consult at my dermatologist’s office. I’ve been seeing him for years, and I trust him. The laser is in his office, but a trained nurse does the actual procedure. They use the Soprano XL, which I know is still somewhat new and has mixed reviews, but I have a good feeling about it and will let everyone know what I find out.
Good luck.
Not really mixed reviews, it works great and is much safer/easier than most other machines. But of course it still depends on the person performing the treatment.
I would do a test spot first. This is a relatively new machine compared to others and I would make sure the person operating it knows how to use this machine specifically well.
I assume you have no side effects left from that burn?
The Soprano XL is an upgrade to the Soprano and has been around about 3 years now. It has made a huge difference in the treatment of skin types 4, 5 and 6. I have being doing LHR for 6 years now as an RN and I love this machine. I quit using numbing years ago, it just isn’t necessary. judy m
This is a diode, which means it shouldn’t be used on anyone with a skin type of darker than a 4. Sure, you can use it, but the settings you’re using to avoid burning the darker skin won’t produce permanent results as they’re too low to damage the follicles permanently.
This machine is not painless. Once again, that’s the result of using low settings. You can make any machine painless by doing that. The problem is the lack of permanent results.
3 years is very little time considering others have been around for 10+.
In general above skin type 4 you will lower the settings but from experience, the settings you can use depends on the person. I’ve seen people at skin type 4 screaming and others at skin type 6 barely feel the same level.
Up to skin type 3 it’s almost painless, depends the area and person.
Your right the old diode lasers such as the lighsheer should not be used on skin type 6 and only with caution on skin type 5. But the soprano XL while it is a diode laser uses 5-10j of energy. And that is very gentle compared to 15-60j with the old machines, such as an original Lightsheer. I used a light sheer for 3 years, and it was very effective, paticularly with fair skin and dark hair, but it could really have a bite to it and I know there was more risk.
Using lower energy levels allow the RN/MD to work in motion and do numerous passes. By using these levels we are not delivering inferior treatment, we are providing hair removal for people of color, that formally didn’t have lots of options. I find the XL paticularly effective for Indian skin.
I had to reschedule the appointment, so now we won’t know for another week or so anyway. The burns I had on my underarm DID go away, but needless to say it turned me off on laser hair removal for a good while. The place I am going to is my doctor’s office, and the treatments are done by a nurse. I think they’ve been using the laser for several years, since it came out. I will definitely have a test patch done before I commit to anything.
judy, how does applying the same settings several times over on the same area change the effectiveness? It doesn’t. It’s like saying that a dull knife will actually cut if only you try it 5 times.
The comparison is more like painting a wall with thin paint. Each coat you add gets you a little closer to the coverage desired. With Indian or black skin if you throw too much energy in all at once people get burned. But if you add just a little but keep adding you can treat the hair and not damage the skin. Maybe it sound undoable but I assure you it isn’t. I have happy unburnt clients that are loosing hair, black and Indian.
I don’t know if you understand how laser actually disables hair. It needs to penetrate deep enough and enough heat needs to be applied in order to do this. Going over the same area multiple times doesn’t make the laser penetrate any deeper or heat up the follicle any more.
I suspect you haven’t actually seen those clients 6 months after their last treatment when most of the hair is back.
You are wrong about the follicle not heating up with mutliple passes. I see the hair darken during treatment (carbonization) and other clinical evidence of effective treatment such as a small amount of swelling aroung the hair follicle.
I also feel confident about effectively removing hair on a long term basis because I see my clients for other treatments at our med spa and their hair is not all grown back in after 6 months. While I am sure there is someone out there that has full regrowth, they are not the majority.
LAgirl, as i explained to you before, the way the Soprano XL works is by gradually heating up the area by doing multiple fast passes over the area. Much like boiling water using a small flame vs. large flame.
What I’m trying to say, with the Soprano XL going over the area multiple times doesn’t make it penetrate any deeper but it does heat up the follicle.
I think in terms of it gradually heating it up, it makes sense. I think of it like holding your finger in a flame of a candle, it’s going to burn after a second, but if you pass it through quickly, it doesn’t hurt, keep doing that back and forth 5 times and it’s going to heat it up as well to close to the same temperature as holding your finger in it.
Where I have issues is with how that’s supposed to make something pain free. You’re still getting to the same temperature, just gradually versus one shot of it. If you put the element on your stove on high, leave it for 5 minutes then come back and push your finger down on it, you’re going to get a bad painful burn. If you put your finger on it while it’s off, then turn it on to high and leave it there while it heats up, sure you’re going to eventually get to the same temperature, but it’s still going to burn in the end. Unless it’s more of a mind thing, because it starts off feeling nothing then gradually gets hotter, I don’t know! I am very fascinated with the Soprano XL though because it seems like such a neat idea. I think its just the pain free thing that concerns me, I’m stuck on no pain no gain! I think the in motion technology is cool though since it seems like it would reduce patchiness or missed spots and seems like it would be faster than using a standard laser with a 15mm spot size on a large area like legs.
Pulse width is basically a measure of how fast the heat is being applied. It’s measured in milliseconds for a reason…it needs to be VERY fast because the heat doesn’t exactly stick around. I don’t see how you can treat faster manually than the laser can in milliseconds.
LAGirl, how does pulse width work with an alex laser though where it just fires? Like GentleLASE I know is 3ms, but when I had Apogee Yag on my face last time it was 20ms they used. I know it’s adjustable, but if lower is better, why do places use higher? Like when she’s done my forearms and hands, I remember my tech before when using the alex portion, finishing my arms then saying she’s adjusting the pulse width since the hair is finer on the hands. If it’s just firing one shot, how does pulse width work? I remember someone elses post on here being treated with apogee alex and they had 40ms pulse width as well, I just find that confusing since I get great results still.
It’s safer to increase the pulse. They do this on darker skins often.
I don’t expect it to be pain-free; I never found the other lasers very painful,either. It’s supposedly got less risk of burning and side effects, which I DO care about. Anyway, I’ll update everybody when I finally get in for that test session.
All lasers have the same chance of burning. It’s all about the settings.
I would say that the answer is a mix of both your answers.
It is much harder to burn a person when using SHR mode than other traditional laser machines, but at the same time of course it’s all about settings, if you use too much on someone you shouldn’t like a black person, then you will burn them. It is a diode after all.
But ill say again, it is much harder to burn a person using the SHR mode on the Soprano. Hopefully LAgirl won’t kill me but ill go as far as say that it takes less skill to operate the Soprano rather than GentleLase for example.