Today we’re not going to talk about the laser hair removal, but about laser skin treatment. One of my friends, who is also a laser treatment technician, just underwent a laser skin treatment on one of Cutera’s machines. The procedure, called “Pearl”, is designed to replace your top skin surface (also called epidermis) with a new and healthy layer. Think about this procedure as of “shaving off” your old paint and putting on a brand new one.

The picture below illustrates the layers of skin. You can easily see the top layer – that’s what is being replaced. In addition to that, the tissue just below gets heated up by laser, which makes it produce more collagen. This, in turn, makes the new skin looks younger and healthier.

The procedure is very uncomfortable, despite numbing gel or even local anesthesia. Patients usually feel the pinches or other unpleasant skin sensations nevertheless. What laser pulse does here is basically damages the top layer of skin forcing the body to rid of it and grow a new healthier layer. According to Cutera’s web site “The Pearl laser replaces the entire top sun-damaged layer of skin with new healthy skin. Simultaneously, it sends heat to deeper layers of the skin stimulating new collagen growth, filling out and decreasing fine lines and wrinkles. New collagen growth continues for 4 to 6 weeks post-treatment. The combination of new skin and decreased wrinkles results in a healthier, more youthful appearance.”

Usually, there’s only one or two laser skin treatments necessary to rejuvenate even very damaged skin. Since this treatment usually applied to face, extreme caution has to be taken in order to avoid sun exposure. Facial skin remains “damaged” for almost two weeks, so this type of laser skin treatment is best done during late fall, winter or early spring – to minimize time a patient will be exposed to sun rays.

While somewhat painful and expensive in terms of both money and time (you may need to stay home first few days and stay away from social events for about a week or two), this procedure is a tremendous help in rejuvenating your skin from vast majority of imperfections.

Deliberately waited to make a post AFTER a Spa Week would be over. The Spa Week is usually perceived as a time when you have a chance to get a good treatment for cheap. Well, let’s just say straight – you are fooling yourself. Any technician worth their salt would tell you same thing: why would they spend quality time on your treatment if they’re only getting paid a tiny fraction of a laughable amount of money? They don’t. So what you are getting is the cheapest version of whatever is that you’ve decided to do. Got an upper lip hair removal for 50 bucks? Do you think you really got a good service from the tech who was actually paid for the performed procedure something around 5 – 10 dollars? Do you really believe a good laser treatment service should be performed for that low amount of money? Would you yourself work for 5 dollars an hour performing luxury service 10 to 12 hours a day? Does the whole picture gets clearer now?

Now, let’s step back from Spa Week for a paragraph and consider this. Most of the beauty procedures you undergo are not one time deals. You brush your teeth every day. You do your nails every few days. You do your hair a few times a week. Also, you exercise a few times a week. You see your dentist and clean your teeth a few times a year. See a pattern? You build a successful relationship with service provider, you build a trust – and then you both use it to a mutual advantage. You get the service, they get the money. If one of you would not be happy, it can surely find a way to make the other one unhappy too. If you don’t pay – your nails don’t get done, your hair is a mess and even your gym may deny you access (duh!). On the other side – if you aren’t happy with your nails – you may leave less tip or even search for another place altogether.

Back to Spa Week and all the complicated laser treatment procedures. The whole idea of Spa Week is to get you into the laser treatment place and attempt to sell you a package of service. If you don’t need a package – you don’t need a treatment at all – and you will not receive a good treatment, that’s for sure. Most of laser treatment places – or should I say, respectable laser treatment places – would NEVER BOOK A REGULAR CLIENT FOR A SPA WEEK. There could be a few exceptions, but if they value you as a client – you will have to press them hard enough to be booked. Why? Because technicians are overworked, tired and pretty much every treatment is being done as fast as possible – because it only earns a technician a lousy 5 – 10 bucks. Barely a good lunch in Manhattan. Which means your experience during a spa week is pretty much useless – you can’t say how good or bad place is during normal hours, because of how good or bad the place was during spa week. Simply because a lot of places hire extra help for a week or two and then let them go. Because laser treatment technicians are overworked with hasty procedures and multiple sales pitches. Because of the enormous pressure on staff overall – most people barely have time to take a sip of water, let alone have lunch. And most of all – because Spa Week isn’t about giving clients a good treatment, it’s about giving spas and salons a higher foot traffic, so that they can get a stab at larger amount of people.

Spa Week is not about you, it’s about the money. Don’t trust anyone who says otherwise.

Second part of any laser skin treatment consultation is when the technician who will be treating you is asking questions. It is very important to understand that providing inaccurate answers might have consequences for you.

First and foremost: if you had a tan within last two weeks (or plan to get a tan in next two weeks after laser skin treatment) you shouldn’t be treated. Now, a lot of laser hair removal salons wouldn’t ask you or would treat you even if you did, but it’s your skin, not theirs. Of course you will be able to get your money back, but what good these money for if your skin will look 20 years older just because you were too busy to stop and think of consequences?

Second – if you have any kind of skin conditions or allergies you must let the technician know. The reason behind it is not to charge you more for different numbing cream (like some of people think), but to prevent a permanent damage of your skin. It may regrow or it may remain damaged, even doctor is unlikely to predict the outcome, so why risk it?

Third – if you have any other medical condition, you should ask if that might affect your treatment. Laser hair reduction and laser skin treatment are mostly medical, not cosmetical, procedures. Any laser treatment spa or laser hair removal center must operate under a medical supervision, you get skin soothing and numbing medication administered during the procedure, so you should think of it as a visit to a doctor – if you want a proper treatment.

There is a notion, quite noticeable in New York, less so in other places, that laser hair reduction and removal procedures are somewhat similar to hair styling. Like it’s something you can get between a tanning salon and a restaurant date tonight. Quite often it isn’t so, therefore being mindful about the consequences is greatly advised.

There’s been a number of lists put together by various people as to what to ask at your consultation. In most cases they feature or highlight certain areas where the affiliated salon or spa have strength or to diminish the competition. Since this blog is not affiliated with any spa, laser removal center, laser cosmetic salon and so on, we decided to put our own list of things to ask at your laser treatment consultation. The main reason why we think this list is better is because you will be able to understand the technician’s responses or at least spot a bias pretty quickly. Make sure you are talking to a person who will be providing the laser treatment, as we noted before is isn’t always the case, at least in some New York City’s laser hair treatment places.

We highly recommend visiting a few spots, especially in New York, and provide your feedback. Feel free to tell us what worked and what didn’t.

1. What is my skin type?
Also known as Fitzpatrick skin type, it is basically telling how dark your skin is, its level of melanin and what settings the technician needs to use for your skin. The determination of your skin type is the first and most important step in any laser skin or hair reduction procedure, because almost all the settings are based on that. You might want to write down the type at each place you visit to see how they differ.

2. What is the laser treatment machine you plan to treat me on? Is it approved by FDA?
Depending on your skin type certain laser treatment machines will either burn your skin or just won’t do you any good. What you should expect is an explanation of the quality of treatment. There are many machines for each type of skin, so there could be a case when experienced technician can give you better laser skin treatment on the available laser machine than someone with three hours of the training on the best machine ever. It takes two (machine and technician) to get the best result, so keep that in mind.

3. What kind of pain should I expect?
Depending on the settings – speed, intensity and pain numbing gel applied before treatment your experience will vary. Note, however, that if it doesn’t hurt – you’re doing it wrong. There are, of course, cases, when laser treatment goes lightly on you, but it is not the rule. Your skin should give you some feedback, so if you are treated for the first three times and you don’t feel anything – chances are the technician isn’t killing follicles, but just burning hair on the surface. Which means you will keep coming back for treatments again and again.

4. What are the after-effects for this procedure?
Depending on the procedure, your skin type and amount of hair the after-effects could vary drastically. Ask and compare.

5. What if something goes wrong?
Ask what happens if you get burned (it is usually pretty obvious right away). Does the place have any cream or solution for burned skin? Will the doctor prescribe something or can they administer it right away? Things happen, so be cautious, pay attention to answers.

6. How many treatments should I get? What is your policy if I still have hair after these treatments?
Basically, the hair never goes away completely. After proper laser hair treatment the growth of hair is reduced dramatically and the remaining hair cannot be removed by laser anymore because it gets too light. However, some touch ups might be needed, depending on your individual skin and hormonal features. The way you will respond to treatments should tell your laser technician the outcome.

To conclude – please don’t forget that laser hair removal or reduction, laser skin treatment and other laser-administrered procedures can greatly damage your skin. It is in the hands of the technician who is treating you to give you either a smooth silky skin or burned and damaged one. You have to work with your technician to achieve the best results based on your individual skin features.

It is often said that you get what you paid for. For most of the cases it is sad but true. However, most of laser treatment clientele, at least in NYC, believe that there is some sort of a scheming going on and if you look hard enough you can find same service for a lot less. Well, the good news is – you just might. If you stumble on a particularly good laser hair technician who is not driven nuts far enough by a greedy boss. So in other words you have to be at the right time, in the right place AND that laser hair removal technician has to have access to a laser treatment machine that would allow you to get the result you want. If your skin is dark and there is no YAG machine (we’ll get to specifics later) – chances are you are just wasting your money no matter what the girl on the reception desk is telling you.

Actually, by spending quite some time on both sides of laser machine one could easily come up with things to ask. Think of it as of an interview. You are giving this specific technician your skin. Depending on how professional and knowledgeable they are your skin may look flawlessly great or desperately burning for next couple of weeks. Some procedures actually require the technician to give you a controlled burn, so you have to have trust in that technican. Go for a few smaller-scale procedures first, see how that works out.

Particular to Manhattan there are a few places where you really would pay almost nothing, but if you get just nothing in return – consider yourself lucky. This usually happens because of the business model these NYC laser spas are following. They hire one or two knowledgeable people, promising them everything and a kitchen sink. Then they hire a dozen off-the-street girls who undergo some vendor-based training (which would be a few hours at best) and around a week of sporadic hands-on training by those knowledgeable people. Whom they soon replace – in a matter of two-three months. In the next four to six months they keep treating clients, burning quite a few so that the spa is forced to either provide a money back or free sessions. Once the number of disgruntled clients gets high enough pretty much everyone is fired and the cycle starts again.

Most of these so-called “professionals” have little – if any – understanding of the actual physics of the procedure, therefore lacking the basic knowledge needed to determine the proper treatment. In oh so many cases in Manhattan the sale is made by receptionist who have no idea what exactly is that she’s selling. A lot of NYC laser spas and salons don’t let laser technician speak to prospective clients – because owners are afraid to loose clients to technicians’ side gigs. This rises mistrust between technicians and business owners to such a degree that technicians, in fact, do opt out for doing side gigs on owner’s machine. In these cases tips easily outweight salary while leaving owner totally unaware of the situation.

While not making any recommendations, the general advice here is if you find a laser technician that gives you a result you want – stick with her (or him). There’s plenty of laser skin treatment places in NYC so as long as that person is employed somewhere – you should be fine.