We designed this page to provide you with a basic education of Cosmetic and Beauty use of skin lasers compared to surgical use of skin lasers.

Example of Surgical skin laser: The C02 laser is used to burn and vaporize layers of skin off a person's face. This is almost the same as using chemicals to melt the skin.

The result is a face that looks as if the skin has been removed. Is Red and Painful and requires 6 months or longer to heal. This is also very expensive.

This type of lasering is called ablation.

The long term result is new skin grows to replace the old skin. The new skin would not have the scars or other problems so looks more clear and younger. But, expensive, painful, do not go see people and requires 6 months of healing.

We do not offer that type of medical laser service but wanted you to be aware of what it is.

Here are examples of Cosmetic and Beauty use of skin lasers along with various facts to help manage your expectations:

1 - Using an IPL device and a pico-laser to treat sun damaged skin such as brown spots and freckles.

This is very important: Lasers are designed to target color. Assume a person has light to tan/Latin colored skin. The laser settings can be adjusted to target and clear freckles and spots. However, if a person has dark or black skin there is a risk the laser may also clear their natural black color.

This is why we suggest people with dark to black skin do not use skin lasers.

A - The Pico Laser can target specific spots and freckles. The laser hits the cells that contain the dark color and causes them to break up. Using a freckle as the example, it may turn red like an insect bite. Same as an insect bite the spot may form a scab, dry and flake off or be absorbed into the body.

This can take 4 weeks to clear and heal to observe the final result.

B - Let's imagine an arm has many sun-spots and freckles. This is too many to target individually with the pico-laser so an IPL may be used as it covers a larger area of skin.

Imagine the IPL is used on the arm. It feels like being touched with something hot. Not painful but you can feel the heat. Numbing cream, same as with tattoos, can soothe the skin so you do not feel much.

C - The IPL can cause the arm to look pink as if a sunburn. And, many spots and freckles become DARK. You may think this is worse. This is expected.

When spots become more dark it means the IPL light affected the skin cells and damaged the dark color, which is called Melanin.

The dark color rises up towards the skin surface and looks like coffee grounds or ground pepper. The skin feels rough.

Over some weeks many spots flake off or are absorbed into the body.

The old damaged skin is replaced by new skin that is clear.

This takes time. Same as if you had a small bruise or scrape on your skin and it takes time to heal and the scab flakes off and the damage is cleared and gone, same happens with many laser skincare services.

This is why you must learn and become educated about your skin issues and needs so you understand which laser services are the best options, how much time is required between appointments for healing etc.

D - Using the arm as the example it may require a number of appointments where the IPL is used to treat the entire arm while the pico-laser is used for specific and more stubborn spots.

This same process applies to many different skin issues such as red/dark acne marks.  An example is using the pico-laser to treat red or dark acne marks and allowing weeks to heal. Then, observe the result. Imagine the first appointment cleared 75% of the acne marks. When healed it is easy to notice the remaining 25% and schedule another appointment to clear them.

How is clearing spots, marks and freckles different from treating melasma or causing skin to produce more collagen to look younger and more healthy?

The laser attachments for treating spots, freckles and other color damage are different from melasma or causing collagen.

Example: Imagine a person has blotchy skin on their forehead ( melasma )  The laser attachment and settings do not target color like a spot or freckle. These laser attachments and settings pass through the skin surface down to deeper layers.

A good example is thinking of a boat floating on the ocean. If the boat were a spot the laser hits the top of the boat at the surface.

If the boat were Melasma the laser passes through the boat and affects the water just underneath the boat and works upward from the bottom of the boat.

This type of laser causes the cells that produce the blotchy color to be damaged so they stop producing much color.

As those damaged color cells are absorbed into the body there are fewer of these cells to continue producing the discoloring of the skin.

Over time and with several treatments the blotchy area of skin starts to look more blended and not as noticeable.

A key issue is if you want to RUSH and use too powerful of laser power, you can cause some unwanted damage to the blotchy skin which can make the appearance more noticeable.

It is better to be patient and use a slow and intelligent process.

With this type of laser service there is no immediate visual result. There may be some slight pinkness to the skin but no frosting or obvious reaction as seen with freckles.

This is where your education and patience are most important. The laser technician would select the lower power settings at the first appointment. This is to test how your skin reacts.

With melasma or causing skin to produce more collagen you do not see any obvious skin reactions. It takes time for the laser's affect on the deeper layers of skin to slowly affect the cells such as clearing melasma or causing cells to produce more collagen.

These types of skin laser services require multiple appointments because this is a slow, steady process.

Assume you have this type of service done on your face. In 2 weeks you can send clear pictures of your facial skin to the laser technician. They can review and discuss the plan with you.

It may be the first appointment was successful and on track or maybe the decision is made to increase the power setting for your next appointment.

It is more intelligent to start slow and increase power based on your skin reaction than rush and want be too aggressive at the first appointment.

So, with spots and freckles, spider veins and even tattoos you can observe immediate skin reactions. Allow time for skin to heal, clear and then decide on remaining appointments until achieving your desired result.

With melasma or causing skin to produce more collagen where this happens in deeper layers of skin, there is no obvious skin reaction to see with your eyes. It takes time for this type of lasering to affect the deeper layers of skin. Could be to slowly clear melasma or cause skin cells to produce more collagen. This happens in the deeper layers of skin.

These services normally require multiple appointments where each session is like adding more energy to the treated area and increases results over each session.

Also, assume you clear sun-spots from your arm. Those same spots do not grow back. If you continue going in the sun and use strong SPF sunblock you should be ok. If you continue spending a lot of time in the sun the same cleared spots may not come back but over time new spots can develop.

You can come back for more appointments a few times per year to catch and clear any new spots early.

With collagen stimulation this requires ongoing appointments such as once per 3 months or even every month depending on your goals.

Example: A girl may need to color her hair once per month to treat the roots, so the roots are not noticeable.  A person may need a massage once per month to keep their neck muscles from becoming tight. With collagen stimulation the skin slights are slightly damaged which causes them to produce more collagen. After a month or two the skin cells are back to normal and collagen reduces back to normal.

If your skin is 65 years old normal means 65 years old. If you want to keep your collagen level to that of a 35/40 year old person you may need monthly appointments to keep the skin producing more collagen, same as needing to get hair colored every 1 or 2 months.

Does lasering hurt?

Skin lasers may cause a slight itch after the laser hits a spot of skin. Cosmetic and beauty lasers do not cause pain, but firing the laser at a large number of freckles or spots, or treat a large area of skin can cause some itching or the feeling of a sunburn. 

This can be controlled with numbing creams, same as when getting a tattoo.

In the Dominican Republic, is a Doctor required?

In the USA and Canada a doctor is required to be at the location where skin lasers are used, although the doctor is not required to have any training or personally use the lasers themselves.

The government just wants the doctor's license to be at the laser location such as an office or Med Spa. It's all about the money!

An ear nose and throat doctor can start up a skin laser business and not have any experience or training with the lasers yet a cosmetologist with 20 years of skincare experience cannot do this. Welcome to the politics of the USA!

Doctor licenses and numerous State medical licenses are required just to buy a laser in the USA or Canada.

Then comes the expensive insurance and risk of lawsuits, especially frivolous lawsuits from clients who just want to win money.

None of these regulations or costs ensure the person using a laser has training and experience.

Medical/Doctor or Nursing colleges do not teach how to use skin lasers.

As you can imagine, all of these rules, regulations, licenses, insurance and risk of frivolous lawsuits make the cost of offering laser skincare very expensive in USA or Canada and is why the prices for these services are so costly.

An example is $800 to $1500 per hour in cities like Miami.

The only source of training for skin lasers is from the manufacturer, usually videos. And, practicing on artificial skin same as learning how to tattoo.

Also, laser technicians and doctors practice with volunteers. The volunteer gets free laser skincare and the laser technician or doctor is practicing with real people.

The Dominican Republic does not have the same rules and regulations as in the USA.

Not having so many regulations makes the overhead costs lower than in the USA which explains lower prices in the DR for skin laser services!

In the Dominican Republic if a laser is used to perform surgery, this must be done by a trained surgeon.

However, if the laser is used for anti-aging, sun damage and other cosmetic purposes no doctor or special licenses are required. A person with skincare experience can be trained by the laser manufacturer.

It can be argued that a person with hands on experience with skincare is more qualified to learn how to use skin lasers than a doctor who has zero experience with skincare.

Our laser technicians are skincare experts with medical doctor oversight.

Regardless if a doctor or skincare specialist is using the laser on your skin, the first step is a test patch. This is to observe how your skin reacts prior to any additional work.

This test patch step ensures you and the laser technician stop to observe how your skin reacts before deciding to continue.