IPL Laser Treatment Review with Before and After Picture

I’ve been flat out with moving into my parent’s place for the next couple of months, so blogging can be a little challenging as I only brought the bare minimum things for myself and 5 car loads for my baby lol (as a typical mommy would do…) Anyhow today’s post is about my recent experience of IPL treatments. I have been asked by my readers about how I look after my skin so I thought I’d share my first laser treatment experience with you all which has done wonders to my skin.

To begin with, I’d like to set the record straight that this review is solely for sharing my experience with this popular laser treatment but it’s really not for encouragement. I have had freckles since I was a teen – partly genetics, partly due the harsh sun in Australia. I went through a long phase of “I wanted to be tanned so I wouldn’t look like a typical fair Asian girl‘ and I had spent most of my weekends on the beach sun tanning or at a solarium during my teenage years. It was one crazy phase that I really regretted as I suffered from really bad sun burns and ended up with pigmentation problems. The freckles never really bothered me (as I thought they looked quite cute) till I got pregnant and they became extremely dark, prominent and just looked terrible. Looking back some of the pictures that were taken during pregnancy, I was shocked and decided that I needed some proper treatments to get rid of these.

After a consultation with a dermatologist, I was recommended with 2-3 sessions of IPL treatments. The laser treatment itself was not as painful as I anticipated. It goes for about 15 minutes for the whole face and most of the time it felt like a rubber band snapping your face. There were some very uncomfortable moments, but they were very short lived and by the time you realized the pain it was already gone. After each treatment the face would appear quite red (like as if you had a sun burn) for hours, and it goes away by next day. It is absolutely normal to have the pigmentation appear even darker (like dark brown spots) during the first week of the treatment, and they will slowly fade away.

Results after each treatment

1st treatment: The outcome was amazing after the first treatment – it had removed about 60% of the pigmentation on my face, with the rest of the pigmentation looking more faded. After about a week, my face just looked much more clear and clean. I couldn’t be happier with the result. The downside was my skin felt extremely dry than usual during the first few weeks, and I was recommended to use biocellulose masks daily that are designed for hydrating and repairing post procedure skin. My recommendations are this one by Sarah Chapman, or this more affordable one by DHC.

2nd treatment: I went for the 2nd treatment after 8 weeks after the first one. It had removed another 20% of the pigmentation. The result wasn’t as impressive and noticeable as the first one, but it was expected as most clients benefit the most from the first treatment, and any subsequent treatments were more for maintenance purposes.

3rd treatment: Unfortunately there was no change after this compared to the 2nd one, so the money was wasted this time around… I was advised that this is the best result I would get from the IPL treatments, and I should stop from here. Some clients would still get some improvement from the laser depending on the skin condition, as for me I am still left with some pigmentation that was caused genetically so there is nothing the IPL can do.

Overall I am very pleased with the total outcome as it has cleared about 70% of the pigmentation, with the rest looking faded. Though my face is still not flawless as I would hope for, but the removal has made such a huge difference in how clear my complexion looks. I am happy with this drastic improvement with as little as 3 sessions (2 would do actually). In my opinion they are totally worth the money, time and effort spent. Here is a comparison picture of my FOTDs – one was taken during pregnancy, one was taken recently. Note that I wore the same coverage of foundation in both pictures.

More facts

- I did not see any changes in pore sizes, fine lines/creases, skin firmness.

- The result of the treatment doesn’t last a lifetime. The removed pigmentation will eventually come back over the next 1 to 2 years, but they will still look better than how they originally were, provided if you take very good care with sun protection. To maintain the optimum result, I was also advised to come back for at least one treatment a year.

- I was also advised to always include a brightening skincare products in my skincare regime going forward. I should look for product that contains Hydroquinone 2% such as this one or this one, or the equivalent but more gentle such as this one by Clarins, and continuous use should further improve the appearance of the pigmentation.

- Each treatment costs about $310 in Sydney. This is quite a premium price for what I paid, and I believe you can find cheaper deals if you shop around.

Have you had any type of laser done? I would love to hear your experience!