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Light & Laser · Screened before booked

IPL is not a laser.

One is filtered broadband light hunting pigment and redness. The other is a single wavelength cutting microscopic columns of heat into skin. Different devices, different downtime, and (the part that matters) different lists of who can safely have them.

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Denver at sunset from the park
The difference, and why it is not pedantry

An IPL photofacial uses intense pulsed light: a broad band of wavelengths filtered toward the ones absorbed by brown pigment and by the red of a superficial vessel. Not coherent, not one wavelength, not a laser. It does scattered sun spots and diffuse redness well. It does not do texture. It removes nothing and resurfaces nothing.

Fractional non-ablative laser resurfacing is a different machine entirely. One wavelength, delivered in a grid of microscopic thermal columns, leaving the tissue between them intact so healing runs faster than across a fully resurfaced face. That grid changes texture, pore size and older acne scarring, and makes the downtime real rather than notional.

The distinction is not vocabulary. IPL targets pigment, which means the device cannot tell the sun spot you dislike from the melanin living evenly across your skin. That one fact governs the rest of this page: who is a candidate, how long you stay out of the sun, and who gets told no here.

Side by side

IPL photofacial
Broadband light. Brown pigment and superficial redness. $425 a session
Fractional laser
Single wavelength. Texture, pores, older scarring. $850 a session
Radiofrequency
Heat, no light. Mild laxity. No pigment target. $750 a session
IPL downtime
Warmth for hours; treated spots darken, then flake over one to two weeks
Laser downtime
Three to five days of swelling, bronzing and a sandpaper texture
Screening
Fitzpatrick type, medication list and a test pulse (before anything is booked)
Fitzpatrick · Skin type and candidacy

The device cannot tell your melanin apart.

The Fitzpatrick scale describes how skin responds to ultraviolet light: how readily it burns, how readily it tans. A crude instrument, and not a description of anyone's ethnicity. It is, however, the best predictor of whether a light-based device finds its target or finds you.

I
Always burns, never tansVery fair
Very little background melanin to confuse with a target. Typically the most straightforward IPL candidate.
IPL suitable
Yes
II
Burns easily, tans minimallyFair
Standard settings, standard protocol. Still postponed after recent sun.
IPL suitable
Yes
III
Burns moderately, tans graduallyLight-medium
Treatable at more conservative settings, with a test pulse a week ahead. The largest group we see.
IPL suitable, cautiously
Yes
IV
Rarely burns, tans wellOlive to light brown
Assessed individually and often declined. The risk is post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation: trading the spots you arrived with for a wider, more stubborn patch.
Case by case
Often no
V — VI
Burns rarely to neverBrown to deeply pigmented
Not treated with IPL here. A limit of the device, not a judgment about your skin. And a practice willing to run it anyway is telling you something.
Not a candidate
No
If IPL is off the table

Being outside IPL's range does not mean nothing can be done. It means light aimed at pigment is the wrong tool. Radiofrequency has no pigment target, so skin type is barely a constraint. Fractional resurfacing at conservative settings is often reasonable where IPL is not. Microneedling, on the skin side of the menu, works mechanically rather than optically. For uneven tone, a topical and prescription protocol frequently outperforms any device.

Melasma is its own conversation. Hormonal and heat-driven as much as sun-driven, and IPL can worsen it regardless of Fitzpatrick type. If what you are pointing at is melasma, expect us to say so and steer the plan elsewhere.

Sun · Before and after

Denver sits at 5,280 feet.

Thinner atmosphere, more ultraviolet, and a ski season in the middle of it. The rules below are not decoration. A tan temporarily makes skin behave like a higher Fitzpatrick type, and a device set for the person we screened is wrong for the person who shows up.

01
Four weeks before
No deliberate sun · no tanning beds · reschedule after a ski week
02
Two weeks before
No self-tanner · it reads as pigment to the device
03
Two weeks after
Out of direct sun · broad-spectrum SPF daily, reapplied
04
Forty-eight hours after
No sauna, hot tub, hot yoga or hard workouts
What the days afterward look like

After IPL, treated spots typically darken over the first day or two (often described as coffee grounds), then lift and flake away across one to two weeks. That is the treatment working, not a burn, and picking is what turns a good result into a mark. Most people wear makeup the next day.

After fractional resurfacing, expect swelling on day one, a bronzed and rough texture through days three to five, then a shed. Plan it into your calendar rather than around it.

Sessions · What is realistic

How many, honestly.

Session counts here are what these protocols typically take. Ranges, not promises, revised against your photographs rather than against a package you already paid for.

01
IPL photofacial — faceBroadband light
Three sessions, three to four weeks apart, then maintenance once or twice a year. Damage accumulated over decades does not clear in one pass, and a single session reads as modest improvement rather than the photographs people arrive holding.
3 sessions · 3–4 wks apart
$425 · course $1,150
02
IPL — face, neck & chestBroadband light
The same protocol carried onto the décolleté, where damage is usually worse and rarely treated. Neck and chest heal more slowly; settings come down accordingly.
3 sessions · 3–4 wks apart
$525 / session
03
Fractional resurfacingNon-ablative laser
Three sessions, four to six weeks apart, with remodeling continuing for months after the last. Acne scarring often takes more. A consultation is where you find out which kind of scar you have.
3 sessions · 4–6 wks apart
$850 · course $2,300
04
Radiofrequency tighteningEnergy, no light
A course of four, spaced monthly. Mild laxity only. Not a substitute for a surgical result, and anyone saying otherwise has a machine to pay off.
4 sessions · monthly
$750 / session
Screening · Who we decline

The list of not today.

Light is screened harder than anything else on the menu, because the failure mode is a mark you did not arrive with. Any of the following stops a booking, and all of it is taken in the clinic rather than through a web form.

  • A TANRecent sun, a tanning bed, or self-tanner still on the skin. Fitzpatrick II with a tan is not Fitzpatrick II this month.
  • SKIN TYPEFitzpatrick V and VI are not IPL candidates here; type IV is assessed individually. We tell you what we can do instead.
  • MELASMAIPL can worsen it. If that is the diagnosis, the plan moves off light and onto something that will not feed it.
  • MEDICATIONSPhotosensitizing drugs (some antibiotics, diuretics and supplements) and recent oral isotretinoin all postpone treatment.
  • PREGNANCYWe wait. There is no aesthetic reason urgent enough to do otherwise.
  • NO TEST PULSENothing is treated without a test pulse, and nothing is sold as a course before that test is read.
Common questions

Reasonable questions.

Does IPL hurt?

Most people describe each pulse as a rubber band snapped against warm skin, sharpest over the bony areas. A face takes minutes. Cooling helps, and eye shields are worn throughout, so you see the flashes rather than the room.

Why won't you treat me if I just got back from Mexico?

Because a tan is extra melanin sitting between the device and its target, and settings that were right in February are wrong in July. A delay, not a refusal. Better than treating you into a pigment problem that takes a year to resolve.

Will one session be enough?

For most people, no. These protocols are built as short courses because that is what they require, and a practice quoting one session is quoting a price rather than a plan. You get a range at consultation and a look at your photographs before anyone suggests a fourth.

— Step one

Screened first. Treated second.

Thirty minutes with the lead nurse practitioner: skin typing under proper light, a medication review, a test pulse, a written plan. Please don't send medical history through the website. We take it in the clinic.

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Tue — Sat · 9 — 6248 East 3rd Ave · Denver720.555.0177consult@alderaesthetics.co