FAQs

Does laser work on darker skin?

Yes!

Today, laser is both safe and effective on humans of every skin colour, even the very darkest. At Bluebird, we have many clients with the darkest human skin tones and get fantastic results for them!

To explain why this wasn’t possible years ago, but is now, let’s dive into the some science and history:

When laser hair removal first became commercially available in the 1990s, the machines being created, diode and alexandrite lasers, caused extensive heating in both hair and skin cells. For “white” people, folks with Fitzpatrick skin types 1-3, this wasn’t a problem, because their skin absorbed little heat anyway.

But for “brown” folks, Fitzpatrick skin types 4-6, this was a big problem! For folks with lots of melanin in their hair and skin, the lasers would heat up hair and skin both, risking hyper- and hypo-pigmentation, and burning. Because of this, folks with darker skin were told that they weren’t candidates for laser hair removal.

Fast forward twenty years and a new kind of hair removal laser was developed. It was called the neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet, or Nd:Yag for short! This laser works at a longer wavelength of light that is not absorbed readily by the melanin in skin cells. The development of this laser finally made it possible to provide safe and effective laser hair removal to folks with lots of pigment in their skin.

At Bluebird we have two Nd:Yag lasers and use them with great success on our Fitzpatrick skin type 4-6 clients. It is a pleasure to be able to truly provide laser hair removal to everyone here, and it is our Nd:Yag lasers that make this possible. They allow us to be able to get great results for even the darkest humans.

If you fall into this category, we’ve got you!

Also read: So how does laser work?