Skin · ExplainedIPL or Laser for Pigmentation?

The actual difference

A laser emits one wavelength of light. IPL emits a broad spectrum and filters it down to the band needed for the target. That flexibility is IPL's advantage — the same handpiece can be filtered for the brown of a sun spot, the red of a vessel, or the bacteria in acne.

It is also why IPL in careless hands causes damage. The settings must match your skin as well as the target, and that is a clinical judgement rather than a menu choice.

What responds well to IPL

• Sun damage and age spots — discrete brown marks with clear edges
• Freckling from cumulative sun exposure
• Redness, rosacea and thread veins — a different filter, same device

The mechanism is satisfying to watch. Light is absorbed by the melanin in the spot, which darkens over a few days, lifts to the surface and flakes away over one to two weeks. Clients often panic at the darkening stage. It is the treatment working.

Melasma is the exception, and it matters

Melasma — the diffuse, symmetrical patches across cheeks, forehead and upper lip, often triggered by pregnancy, the pill or HRT — is hormonally driven and heat-sensitive. Treating it with IPL frequently makes it worse, sometimes considerably and sometimes lastingly.

If a clinic offers you IPL for melasma without assessing it properly, go elsewhere.

That is not a cautious disclaimer; it is the single most common way pigmentation gets worse in this industry. Melasma is managed — with pigment-inhibiting homecare, sun protection, gentle resurfacing and patience — rather than zapped. Our pigmentation page goes into the distinction.

Why the diagnosis comes first

Sun damage and melasma can look similar to an untrained eye and behave completely differently. Post-inflammatory pigmentation, left behind by acne or an injury, is a third thing again and usually resolves with time and barrier support rather than light.

So the consultation is not a formality. Skin analysis, history, medication, whether it changed in pregnancy, whether it worsens in summer — those answers decide the treatment. Getting this wrong is expensive in both directions.

Skin tone matters too

IPL is less suitable for the deepest skin tones than some laser wavelengths, because the broad spectrum is absorbed by background melanin as well as the target. Where that is the case we will say so and recommend something else — usually a gentler resurfacing course with peels and the right homecare.

What a course looks like

Discrete sun damage often responds in one to three sessions. Our IPL pigmentation treatment runs from £70 for a small area, £160 full face, or £415 for a course of three.

Whatever the protocol, daily SPF for the whole course is compulsory and sunbeds are out entirely. Treating pigmentation while continuing to accumulate sun damage is pouring water into a bucket with a hole in it.

The unglamorous part that actually works

Pigmentation responds better to preparation than to power. Four weeks of the right homecare before treatment materially improves the result and reduces the chance of rebound. We will set that at consultation, and we would rather delay a session than treat unprepared skin.