About the treatment
The one treatment here that neither removes nor adds anything
Nearly everything else on our list works either by stripping a layer off you or by doing measured harm and relying on your body to rebuild. Red light therapy does neither. Nothing is exfoliated, no temperature is reached that would harm anything, the panel never makes contact, and there is no product involved at any stage.
A bank of LEDs throws two particular bands of the spectrum — deep red and the near-infrared just past it — at uncovered skin. Those bands travel into the tissue and are taken up inside the cell itself, where they increase how much usable energy it has to work with. A cell with more energy repairs, builds and calms itself more effectively. That is the entire proposition, and it is why the treatment feels like nothing is happening.
Not one photon of it falls in the ultraviolet range, which is why tanning, burning and cumulative damage are all off the table. You lie under the panel with your eyes shielded at our Ranchlands Boulevard clinic in northwest Calgary, feel a mild warmth, and leave looking exactly as you arrived.
What it does
Four uses, in descending order of how confident we are
Red light attracts wilder claims than anything else in this industry. Ranking them honestly is more useful to you than listing them all as equals.
Calming redness and irritation
The most reliable thing it does, and the fastest to show. Reactive, flushing, easily provoked skin generally settles noticeably across a course, and this is where we see the clearest response in the clinic.
Recovery after another treatment
Added at the end of a peel, a facial or anything involving heat, it visibly shortens how long the skin stays angry. This is why it appears as an add-on more often than as a treatment booked on its own.
Firmness and fine lines
Slower, subtler and genuinely cumulative. Expect months rather than weeks, and expect the difference to be the kind you see in a photograph rather than the kind anyone comments on.
General tone and brightness
Real but modest, and easy to confuse with the temporary flush a session produces. We would not sell a course on this alone, and if it is your only goal there are quicker routes to it.
Why here
The treatment we book after a weekend in the mountains
Skin that has spent two days at altitude comes back in a specific state, and there is very little we can safely do to it. This is the exception.
Windburn is inflammation
Hours in cold moving air leaves skin red, tight and sore in a way that has nothing to do with sunburn. Exfoliating it is the wrong move. Calming it is the right one, and light is the gentlest way we have of doing that.
Colour picked up off the snow
If you have caught the sun at elevation, every acid, blade and laser on our list is off the table for a fortnight. Red light is not, because it adds no ultraviolet and takes nothing off.
A long stretch of very little daylight
From November onwards the days here are short at both ends and most of them are spent indoors. Skin looks flat by February, and a standing appointment through those months is a deliberate answer to that.
Nothing can interrupt the schedule
There is no waiting period after sun, no restriction because of a tan, and no healing skin that needs guarding. Whatever the weather does, and whatever you did at the weekend, the appointment goes ahead.
Indications
What is it good for?
Redness, recovery, firmness and the slow structural side of ageing.
It is not a resurfacing treatment: texture, congestion and dullness on the surface belong to a Hydro Facial or an AFA peel, with red light added afterwards. The full list for northwest Calgary is on our Calgary NW clinic page.
Judging it
How to tell whether it is actually working
This is slow enough that memory is useless and enthusiasm is unreliable. Three ways to keep yourself honest.
Photograph before session one
Same light, same time of day, no make-up, face straight on and then turned. Without that image you will be comparing your face today against a memory of it, which nobody does accurately.
Count things rather than judging overall
How many days a week is your skin flushed? How long does redness last after a hot shower? How quickly did you settle after your last peel? Those questions have answers; how does my skin look does not.
Give it a fair run before deciding
Two or three sessions tell you almost nothing. A proper course, attended regularly, is the smallest sample worth forming a view on, and we would rather you committed to that or to nothing.
Getting ready
Pre & post treatment
Almost no preparation, and no recovery whatsoever. The two things that do matter are turning up with nothing on your face and turning up regularly.
On the day
- Nothing on your face when you arrive. Foundation, SPF and a thick moisturiser are all barriers the light has to get through first.
- Mention any medication with a photosensitivity warning, and any condition that light aggravates.
- Eye shields on and kept on — not because the light is harmful, but because it is extremely bright.
- Book it after your other treatment, never before. That is the order that helps.
- Come even if you are windburnt. That is one of the better reasons to be here.
Afterwards
- Nothing at all to recover from. A brief warmth, then straight back to your day.
- Apply your serums immediately. Skin absorbs well right afterwards, so use the good ones now.
- No restrictions on exercise, heat, sun, make-up or anything else.
- Keep the appointments regular. Consistency is what produces the result; occasional sessions do very little.
- Do not stop everything else. This works best as part of a routine rather than as a replacement for one.
Results
LED light therapy before and after
One of our clients, photographed at the start of a series of sessions and again at the end. Calmness and an even surface are what moved; nothing here has a hard edge to it, and that is the nature of the treatment.
Age, the state of the skin beforehand, the length of the series and whether the appointments were kept to a rhythm all move the outcome. Be suspicious of any overnight transformation attributed to a light panel — something else produced it.
Also on Ranchlands Boulevard
Treatments red light works well alongside
- Hydro Facial in Calgary NW — takes the dead layer off first, which gives the light a better surface to work on
- AFA Chemical Peel in Calgary NW — red light afterwards shortens how long the skin stays pink
- Face and Neck Tightening in Calgary NW — the structural treatment this supports between sessions
- Dermaplaning in Calgary NW — a blade rather than a light, and often done in the same appointment
- LED light therapy brand-wide — how the treatment works across all our clinics
