Page 29 - Mike Murphy's Blog Posts
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A9 - What is the risk of 'burning' the skin with a laser or IPL?
Many people are worried about ‘burning’ the skin during laser/IPL treatment of hair, tattoos, blood vessels etc. But, what is the actual risk?
Well, we can work this out knowing the skin colour and the applied fluence. Now, as many of you already know, I don’t like the Fitzpatrick Scale because it does not determine skin colour (contrary to popular belief!!). In fact, the Fitzpatrick Scale looks at the skin’s response to ultraviolet light energy and what that exposure may do.
It does NOT tell us the colour of the skin!!
But we can use another method to precisely determine the colour. Using data from an American scientist, Steve Jacques, we can determine the ‘colour’ of the skin by specifying the concentration of melanin in the epidermis.
Skin colour Melanin concentration
1 2 3 4 5 6
Up to 10% 10-16% 16-23% 23-33% 33-43% >43%
Skin colour = concentration of melanin
A more accurate way of defining skin colour
Mike’s Blog Posts
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