Page 3 - Chapter 3 - Laser/IPL Hair Removal

Chapter 3 – Fundamentals of Laser/IPL Hair Removal 2nd Edition
This is the first revision of the first edition of the ‘hairy chapter’ of our book. Which makes this the 2nd edition!
Please note that this is the REDACTED version of this chapter. You can buy the complete chapter at our website.
We wrote this book after many years of clinical research and training (more than 60 between us and counting) people in the theory and use of medical/aesthetic lasers and IPLs across the world. Many times, we were asked for ‘a book’ to refer to by trainees. We had to keep saying – “one doesn’t exist”. There are plenty of good medical texts, but these are aimed at medical professionals. There are also a lot of good physics and engineering books – but these are useless for most laser users.
This book describes some of the basic fundamentals of light energy, lasers and IPL systems, in “layman’s” terms. We explain the jargon and some of the more important concepts, which really should be well understood before firing laser/IPL energy at real, living people (if you want them to remain alive and well, and with no hair!!)
Hair removal using light energy is a science – it doesn’t matter if it’s laser or IPL light energy. The fact is, understanding the science will increase your chances of success significantly. There is no ‘art’ or ‘intuition’ with this subject – it is purely science, which is why this book is science-heavy!
This version is the first revision of the original Chapter which we released in September 2021. We have updated this version with some new research material and theoretical results following our modelling work.
We have also added a ‘References’ section at the back of the book, which lists the various publications where we found a lot of useful information. This makes the book a bit more ‘scientific’.
We hope you enjoy reading it.
Additional material, and lots of chat, from and with Lisa McMahon, with thanks.
________________________________________________________________________ 3 Chapter 3, Ed. 2.0 Laser/IPL Hair Removal
© The Laser-IPL Guys, 2025