Nd YAG Laser Hair Removal For Dark Skin

Can Laser Hair Removal Work For Skin Types IV-VI?

Laser and Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) hair removal machines have always had difficulty helping certain people who desire long term hair removal. Specifically, people who have not been able to achieve decent results with either laser or IPL include those with:

• Dark skin
• White, blonde, red or gray hair
• Thin or fine hair

The ideal candidate for both machines have typically been people with dark, coarse hair and light untanned skin. But fairly recent breakthroughs in hair removal technology have changed that, at least regarding skin tone.

The Nd YAG laser hair removal technology and other modern laser machines are now better able to help patients with dark skin. While new laser technologies still can’t assist people with white, blonde, red, gray or thin/fine hair, skin tone is no longer the barrier that it once was.

So which laser hair removal technologies are best suited to people of color and people who have tanned skin?

Nd YAG Laser Hair Removal Machines

The Nd YAG laser was first introduced in 1964 and became used later as a hair removal technology due to its high wavelength – typically 1064 nm (nanometers). This makes it the longest wavelength laser used for hair removal amongst the other technologies (Ruby, Diode, Alexandrite).

The Nd YAG laser also has the benefit of thus being more suitable for patients with skin type IV-VI which other laser hair removal technologies can’t claim. If you’d like to learn more about skin type and hair removal, I’ve written about that too.

Nd YAG Laser Hair Removal Research

Nd YAG Laser Hair Removal: Skin Types IV-VI Patients

A research report from 2012 titled Long-pulsed Nd:YAG laser vs. intense pulsed light for hair removal in dark skin: a randomized controlled trial combined Nd YAG and IPL hair removal treatments for 39 women with skin types IV-VI. The results showed significant hair removal with both YAG and IPL but the YAG laser showed better results and was preferred by patients:

At 6 months, the decrease in hair counts on the laser side (79·4%, P<0·001 vs. pretreatment) was significantly (P<0·01) greater than that on the IPL side (54·4%, P<0·01 vs. pretreatment). Only temporary adverse effects were reported at both sides. Higher pain scores and more inflammation were reported with Nd:YAG laser; however, it was preferred by 29 volunteers (74%). Volunteers reported higher satisfaction score with Nd:YAG laser

National Library of Medicine

The report concluded:

Dark skin can be treated by both systems safely and effectively; however, long-pulsed (1064 nm) Nd:YAG laser is more effective as reported by both subjects and clinician.

National Library of Medicine

Nd YAG Laser Hair Removal: Indian Patients

A second research report titled Evaluation of Long-pulsed 1064 nm Nd:YAG Laser-assisted Hair Removal vs Multiple Treatment Sessions and Different Hair Types in Indian Patients studied the effectiveness of Nd YAG laser hair removal on 59 Indian women with skin type IV-V with different hair types. It also concluded with very positive results:

Six multiple laser treatment sessions with a long-pulsed, 1064 nm Nd: YAG laser with contact cooling were found to be safe and effective for hair reduction in Indian patients with both terminal and intermediate hair. The success rate was found to improve with successive sessions. However, terminal hairs responded better than intermediate hairs.

NCBI

The report went onto to reiterate what was already generally known about the Nd YAG laser for hair removal purposes and also alludes to new cooling technology that helps to make this particular laser safer for people with dark skin:

With the advent of longer wavelength, longer pulse durations and efficient cooling devices, the currently available laser machines can now be used safely for all skin phototypes. The two wavelengths which can safely be used for laser hair reduction on darker skin types are the diode (810 nm) and Nd: YAG (1064 nm).

NCBI

Further to the point, the Nd YAG laser has several benefits over the Diode however for dark-skinned patients:

However, the longer wavelength Nd: YAG laser is considered ideal for treating patients with darker skin, due to reduced scatter and deeper penetration of the laser light.

Also, shorter pulse durations can be more safely used with the Nd: YAG laser than with the diode. This is an additional advantage when dealing with finer hair with shorter thermal relaxation time.

NCBI

The report also concluded perhaps not surprisingly that the effectiveness of the hair removal treatments were directly impacted by the number of treatments although the optimal number needed further study ie. the more treatments, the more hair long term removal is achieved.

Conclusion

• Laser and IPL hair removal technologies have normally had difficulty treating patients with light, blonde, red and gray hair and those with dark skin. Laser technologies have difficulty treating hair with little melanin and skin that has significantly more melanin.
• Newer laser technologies however can increasingly assist patients with skin types IV-VI than older technologies like Ruby and Alexandrite.
• Nd YAG laser is a long wavelength laser that on the one hand can penetrate deeper into the skin to hit the bottom of the hair follicle but on the other hand is safer for patients with dark skin who could previously get burned by older lasers.
• Research has shown the Nd YAG laser to be effective and safe for hair removal for potentially all skin types I-VI who still meet other criteria ie. dark and coarse unwanted hair.