Can all hair and skin colours be treated?

Can all hair and skin colours be treated?

Melanin is the target for laser/IPL in hair, so if there is no melanin (in white, grey and some blond and red hair types) light-based treatment will be ineffective. Some clinics offer special hair dyes to artificially pigment the hair but we have not seen any good evidence for effectiveness.

Of course, melanin is also the pigment in skin colour and laser/IPL systems may destroy skin pigmentation very effectively and cause major problems. Again, this is a matter of having the right equipment being used properly. More sophisticated laser/IPL systems can treat even the darkest skin-types, while cheaper or inappropriate systems will pose a real threat of burning, scarring and pigmentation disturbance if used on dark skin.

If you have Mediterranean, Asian of African skin-types, you need to seek out providers who know what they are doing with dark skin and have access to laser/IPL systems designed to be used for dark skin-types.

If you are tanned, you should not undertake treatment of any kind until the tan has faded to your own natural base-shade. 

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