How Lasers Target Hair Pigment

Name: How Lasers Target Hair Pigment
Uploaded: 2024-12-18T17:00:10+00:00
Duration: 32 s
Channel: Dr. Charles Mok
Description: Hair-removal lasers emit a single wavelength that targets melanin in hair follicles. Gray hair has no melanin so lasers can't treat it, blonde hair has…

18 Dec 2024 · 1 min

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Hair-removal lasers emit a single wavelength that targets melanin in hair follicles. Gray hair has no melanin so lasers can't treat it, blonde hair has too little to work well, and dark skin is harder because the skin pigment absorbs the laser meant for the follicle.

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Just a brief overview how lasers work for hair removal. The laser is a single wavelength of light that has a chromophore or a target, a color of a target. In this case, it is particularly pigment. Now, there's a little bit of targeting to red blood vessels, to water, but the main target is the pigment. The laser types that we use, there's different wavelengths, but they're generally aimed at that particular pigment of the melanin in the hair follicles. Again, gray hair is no melanin. A blonde hair is very little. Still harder to treat, still treatable. Gray hair can't be treated as absence of melanin. Then you have dark skin that has a lot of pigment in it as well. So it's competing with the hair follicle. It.