How Often Can You Do IPL/At-Home Laser Hair Removal?

Q: How often can you use IPL on your face?

Facial hair is the fastest hair to grow on your body.[<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14764170701817049" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">6</a>] On most devices, you can do IPL once a week to treat unwanted hair on your upper lip, chin, jaw, and sideburns. As of today, there are no home laser hair removal devices on the market cleared for use above the cheekbones and near the eyes due to the risk of ocular damage.

Ask the Expert: How often can you do IPL/at home laser hair removal?

BY SAMANTHA WELCH, ESTHETICIAN

Treatment Plan & Frequency for At-Home Laser Hair Removal

There are always two phases to any laser hair removal treatment:

Start-up Phase: Consists of weekly or bi-weekly treatments for the first 4-12 weeks, depending on your device. The goal is to disrupt the hair cycle by targeting your roots repeatedly during their anagen or growth phase. Once done, your hair will be thinner and sparser, and its growth indefinitely delayed.^[1]

It’s best to use the highest intensity you can for better results.
Maintenance Phase: Once your normal hair growth has been stunted, your treatments can be monthly or as-needed. If hairs start to grow back, treating them will once again make them dormant.

Different Devices with Different Instructions

We've reviewed over 35 at-home laser hair removal devices over the years. The average recommendation for the start-up phase is on a weekly basis.

Doing treatments more than once a week won't expedite results, even with the best-rated IPL hair removal devices.

Your hair will still go through the hair cycle (see below) after your treatments and this takes 1-2 weeks minimum.

Weekly is also as fast as you can go on most devices with minimal risk and without wasting your flashes on already dead hair.

However, you should still defer to your device’s user manual for the ideal home IPL treatment schedule.

IPL hair removal breaks the hair cycle and leaves your hair dormant for long periods of time. This means weeks or months in between shaving. Courtesy of Braun Silk-Expert Pro 5.

Exceptions to the Rule

There are one or two devices that are exceptions to this rule, depending on technology used.

One is the JOVS Venus Pro which recommends 3x a week treatments in the start-up phase.

The JOVS Venus Pro recommends 3x a week treatments in the start-up phase.

– JOVS Venus Pro Hair Removal In-Depth Review: Best for Sensitive Skin

On the opposite end, devices like Silk'n Infinity that specialize in dark skin recommends one session every two weeks as a jumping pad.

Silk'n Infinity Review by Gabrielle Sterin/Healthybeautiful.com

The Silk'n Infinity recommends sessions once every two weeks to start.

– Silk’n Infinity In-Depth Review: Best for Dark Skin

Whichever device you decide to get, it’s much more important to keep a consistent, strict schedule to be able to see results.

You want to gradually damage your roots until it’s no longer able to grow hair at a normal pace.

Maintenance Phase

You can delay re-growth anywhere from weeks to months and years.^[2]

But you have to remember that hair is very resilient.

Front-loading your treatments and then falling behind schedule can allow your follicle to recover and revert back to growing healthy hair.

You need to consistent treatments until you see your hairs get finer and sparser, before moving on to monthly or as-needed maintenance.

What You Should Know:
The Hair Cycle & Permanent Hair Removal

Image: The hair cycle starts from the active growth phase called ANAGEN, followed by the transitional phase called CATAGEN, and is bookended by the resting phase called TELOGEN. This cycle repeats as we replace the hair in our bodies.

Key Points:

Hair growth comes in cycles and in different durations based on the body part. This cycle takes anywhere between several weeks to months.
The goal of every laser hair removal session is to delay this cycle significantly for months to years by slowly damaging your roots.
Laser hair removal treatments are only effective on hair that’s in the ANAGEN phase. Once you’ve treated a hair follicle in the ANAGEN phase, it will accelerate the hair cycle until the strand dies and falls off on its own.

This process cannot be hurried by doing IPL more than once a week. Weekly sessions are the fastest that you should re-schedule treatments.
Doing IPL every day, every other day, and even twice a week runs the risk of damaging your skin or your eyes. You’ll also be wasting your device’s limited flashes.

Related:

Is At-Home Laser Hair Removal Safe? The Complete Safety Checklist for IPL Devices

A Comprehensive Study on the Safety & Efficacy of At-Home IPL Hair Removal Devices

FAQ:
Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if you use IPL too often?

FDA-cleared medical and cosmetic devices are generally considered safe. However, as with any procedure, there are still risks involved.[4]

The most prominent ones are temporary epidermal or skin damage and eye damage.

High-end devices like the Silk’n Infinity, JOVS Venus Pro and the Ulike Sapphire Air+ IPL Hair Removal Handset mitigate these risks with various fail safes.

The average IPL device, however, relies on the user to know and follow all safety protocols.

Ocular damage can be prevented by IPL safety glasses.

If you’re not wearing safety glasses, doing IPL too often can harm your eyes.

You also risk irritating your skin if you’re not too careful.

Side effects may include redness or some slight swelling, among others.

References: Silk'n Infinity Review, JOVS Venus Pro Review

Can you do at home laser hair removal every day? Can you use IPL every day?

It's not recommended to use IPL every day.

Doing this won’t speed up results because it takes time for the damaged hair to die and shed naturally from the IPL.

You’ll only be wasting your device’s limited flashes on hair follicles that are already on their way out.

You also risk unnecessary damage to your skin when your follicle is no longer able to absorb the heat from the IPL.[5]

Once you’ve effectively done your scheduled treatment, it’s best to wait at least a week before doing another session.

How long can you go between IPL hair removal treatments?

The most you can go without treatments is 8 weeks.

Any more, and you’ve given your hair follicles ample time to recover from the damage of your earlier treatments.

After this period, especially with at-home laser hair removal, you may need to reset your treatment count and start over.

Can you use IPL every other day?

Two days is not enough time for the treated hair to die and fall off on its own.

Weekly treatments are best when using laser hair removal treatment at home.

This gives your hair follicles ample time to go through the hair cycle and shed dead hair naturally.

How often can you use IPL on your face?

Facial hair is the fastest hair to grow on your body.[6]

On most devices, you can do IPL once a week to treat unwanted hair on your upper lip, chin, jaw, and sideburns.

As of today, there are no home laser hair removal devices on the market cleared for use above the cheekbones and near the eyes due to the risk of ocular damage.

Can you use IPL more than once a week? Can you use IPL twice a week?

Once a week is the most you can do for the majority of IPL devices.

Doing it more frequently than that will not accelerate results as you’re just treating already dead hair.

Can you use Braun IPL twice a week?

Braun recommends weekly treatments for the first 4-12 weeks.

The goal is to disrupt the hair cycle by targeting your roots during their anagen or growth phase.

Once done your hair will be thinner, and sparser, and its growth indefinitely delayed. It’s best to use the highest intensity you can for better results.[7]

References:

Roosen, Guido F., et al. “Temporary hair removal by low fluence photoepilation: histological study on biopsies and cultured human hair follicles.” Lasers in Surgery and Medicine: The Official Journal of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery 40.8 (2008): 520-528.
Trelles, M. A., C. Ash, and G. Town. “Clinical and microscopic evaluation of long‐term (6 months) epilation effects of the ipulse personal home‐use intense pulsed light (IPL) device.” Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology 28.2 (2014): 160-168.

Lee WW, Murdock J, Albini TA, O'brien TP, Levine ML. Ocular damage secondary to intense pulse light therapy to the face. Ophthalmic Plast Reconstr Surg. 2011 Jul-Aug;27(4):263-5. doi: 10.1097/IOP.0b013e31820c6e23. PMID: 21346668.
Moreno‐Arias, Gerardo A., Camil Castelo‐Branco, and Juan Ferrando. “Side‐effects after IPL photodepilation.” Dermatologic surgery 28.12 (2002): 1131-1134.
Stangl, Sabine, Ina Hadshiew, and Wolfgang Kimmig. “Side effects and complications using intense pulsed light (IPL) sources.” Medical laser application 23.1 (2008): 15-20.
Casey, Angela S., and David Goldberg. “Guidelines for laser hair removal.” Journal of Cosmetic and Laser Therapy 10.1 (2008): 24-33.
Lepselter, J., and M. Elman. “Biological and clinical aspects in laser hair removal.” Journal of Dermatological Treatment 15.2 (2004): 72-83.

Ask an Esthetician, Laser Hair Removal

by Samantha Welch