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A10 - What are the threshold (minimum) fluences needed to ensure successful hair removal?
This is not easy to determine! It depends on the type of device you are using – IPL, diode, alexandrite, Nd:YAG laser. It depends on the depth of the follicles. It depends on the hair colour.
I built a computer model to try to calculate these fluences. It considers all of the above, but today I will just consider an IPL treating very dark hair, as a starting point.
First, we should consider what we are actually trying to do...
To effectively kill hair follicles, we need to essentially ‘cook’ the germ/stem cells, irreversibly. To achieve that, we must apply a certain amount of energy over a certain time – just like any cooking!
So, we need to find the minimum amount of heat (light) needed to cook these cells properly.
My model allows me to apply different fluences over different pulsewidths to hair follicles at various depths.
Here is what I found (for IPLs):
Threshold fluences for an IPL unit
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