Red Light Therapy Before and After

September 27, 2023

With the help of Instagram bloggers and YouTubers, LED face mask became popular, especially the Red light therapy. It’s promised that Red Light Therapy (RLT) has an anti-aging effect on your skin. Red light therapy can not only make your skin look healthier but more importantly fine lines and wrinkles and even get rid of hyperpigmentation.

What is Red Light Therapy?

Red light therapy is an application, which uses light-emitting diodes(LEDs) on your skin to enhance circulation, relieve pain, and promote healing. In the dermatological sphere, Red light is usually used to decrease inflammation, stimulate collagen production, and support the skin barrier. The Red light therapy uses lights between 630 and 660 nm, it doesn’t penetrate the deeper layers of the skin, but it works effectively for the surface of the skin. It can help you with skin issues, like wrinkles, redness, acne, and pigmentation.

Currently, you can have the red light therapy treatment in a clinic or using at-home devices, which are more affordable.

Benefits of Red Light Therapy

Originally, the Red Light Therapy was used by NASA to help astronauts to heal wounds, but then it started being investigated, and now the red light therapy is used in different spheres. Here are the 5 main benefits:

Skin care and wrinkles reduction: Skin cells absorb red therapy light, which stimulates the production of collagen, elastin and fibroblasts. These are the main ingredients that give your skin elasticity and firmness, which disappears when people get old. Red light therapy also delivers more nutrients and oxygen to the skin which helps cells to rejuvenate, promoting tissue repair. So the red light gives you the glow that makes your skin look healthy.
Reduce pain and heal wounds: red light therapy has proven effective against mucositis, dental pain, menstrual cramps and even neuropathic pain from amputation. Pain relief happens because of the anti-inflammatory effect. It also helps with wound healing by increasing the flow of oxygen, which can speed up the natural healing process. Because of the oxygenation, blood vessels can form, repair the wounded area, lessening pain and scarring. Red Light’s healing ability was tested by NASA, and showed great before and after results.
Mental health: because of the lack of sunlight, some people may have seasonal depression. Red Light Therapy can increase energy levels, improve mental clarity and reduce seasonal depression(SAD).
Revives immunity: red light therapy can boost the production of nitric oxide and melatonin, two components that play a big role in our immune system and helps to improve the quality of sleep.
Hair loss: one study found that, men and women who were struggling from alopecia used at-home Red light light devices for 6 months and after comparing their before and after results realized that hair grew thicker.

Red Light or Infrared

The only difference between red light and near infrared light is their wavelength, red light usually has 630-670 nm length, while near infrared has 810-850 nm length. Both lights have similar effects on the skin, like rejuvenation and anti-inflammation. However, because of the short wavelength 630nm-670nm red therapy light doesn’t achieve the deeper layers of the skin, but it is still effective for the skin's surface. 630-670nm red therapy light can mainly rejuvenate the skin, improve skin tone, reduce wrinkles and heal sun damage.

How near-infrared light does work?

810-850nm Infrared light penetrates deeply, and it helps you not only rejuvenate the skin but also has benefits like pain relief, detoxification, improved sleep and even weight loss. When your body absorbs the light, it breaks up fats and toxins trapped in water molecules, this process makes us sweat and that’s why an infrared session is one of the best ways to detox your body!

Red Light Therapy Research

The main benefit of Red Light Therapy is reduction of age signs, like wrinkles, roughness and pigmentation.

In the “Efficiency of Red and Near-Infrared Light treatment” study conducted in 2014, the scientists from Germany assigned 136 volunteers age between 27 and 79 to take Red Light therapy twice a week. After 30 procedures they used clinical photography, digital profilometry and collagen measurements to compare the results before and after using Red Light. The majority of subjects displayed the increase of collagen density, wrinkles became less visible and roughness of the skin disappeared.

red light therapy

Another study “The use of light-emitting diode therapy in the treatment of photo-aged skin” by Cosmet Dermatol tested 13 subjects with wrinkles and photo damage. Patients received 20-min duration red light treatments once a week for 12 weeks. After 12 weeks measured data showed significant results, like fine lines and wrinkles, especially in the periorbital area. 91% of volunteers mentioned the improvement of skin tone and 82% reported the enhancement of skin texture.

The Photochem Photobiol in their research “A prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blinded, and split-face clinical study on LED phototherapy for skin rejuvenation” combined the 830 nm near infrared light and 633 nm red light to investigate the difference between three different settings (red, infrared and combined). 76 patients were treated with red light twice a week for 4 weeks. After 8 procedures, scientists performed an ultrastructural examination and investigated that fibroblasts were surrounded by abundant elastic and collagen fibers, therefore, the amount of wrinkles reduced up to 36% and elasticity increased by 21%.

Generally speaking, both types of light demonstrated efficiency and safety for skin inflammation, rejuvenation and producing collagen.

Red Light Therapy Before and After

Since Red Light Therapy started to appear in social media, more people decided to give it a try. According to the users before and after photos, we can see that Red Light Therapy is really effective against wrinkles and aging pigmentation. Here’re some of the reviews:

red light therapy before and after

One of the customers shared her experience, “I bought the red light therapy mask 3 years ago and keep on using it religiously. I have received many compliments about my skin. I’m fond of it and can’t wait to start using the new improved version”.

red light therapy before and after

“After 2 months of using Red Light Therapy, my skin feels and looks more hydrating and glowing, and I started to use less moisturizer. The wrinkles near the eyes reduced and even dark circles under the eyes became less visible” - another customer said.

red light therapy before and after

“The skin became more elastic, pleasant to the touch, very liked that there were fewer wrinkles near the eyes. Redness also goes away and pimples heal faster. The result makes me very happy. The skin has a healthy appearance and natural luster”.

red light therapy before and after

As we can see, regularity and consistency is the key if you want to reach better results. Even after the first session, you can mark the visible result, especially if you combine it not only with the serum, but also with a moisturizer. The skin tone becomes noticeably more even, and looks healthy. After a couple of months, you will see more significant results. The skin becomes not only more elastic, and does not experience any discomfort in the form of dryness or tightening, the mask serves as an excellent prevention from age changes, skin texture becomes even and noticeably tightened.

Conclusion

Red Light Therapy is one of the ways to approach glowing and healthy skin, there are no risks and it is very affordable compared to expensive laser surgery. Depending on the wavelength you choose, it can help you to solve many skin problems. However, you have to remember that only healthy lifestyle and your daily routine will help you to reach the better results.