Clinically-proven hair reduction

 

The heart of the iPulse™ Personal technology, as in the professional systems, is the intelligent control of the output of energy. This is particularly relevant for a consumer use unit: with a very simple user interface iPulse™ Personal produces consistent power and spectral output throughout the pulse duration selected by skin tone to be treated.

 

iPulse™ Personal delivers permanent hair reduction with a mains power driven system, which can be used at home. It has three settings for different skin tones:

 

1. Fair—for very light skin
(Fitzpatrick I) at 10 J/cm² and a single pulse of 25 ms

 

2. Medium—for average skin
(Fitzpatrick II) at 10 J/cm² with a double pulse of 40 ms

 

3. Dark—for olive skin
(Fitzpatrick III) at 7 J/cm² with a double pulse of 60 ms

 

The wavelengths delivered are 530 nm to 1200 nm.

 

iPulse™ Personal is typically used for 6 – 12 weekly treatments depending on the body area being treated. Use on the dark setting may require more applications. Designed primarily for safety, the applicator head uses a four-point skin capacitance safety system all of which need to be against skin to trigger light from the iPulse™ Personal.

 

The iPulse™ Personal does not require the use of safety goggles as ocular exposure has been restricted to less than the new published British Standard for intense light retinal exposure limits*. This has been measured and confirmed at the UK's National Physical Laboratory.

* BS 8497-1 2008

 

Proof of clinical performance

 

The iPulse™ Personal has been tested extensively. UK efficacy and safety trials have been led by Dr R. Emerson a leading Consultant Dermatologist. These have produced the following data highlights, which show that the system can deliver similar efficacy to many professional salon IPL systems.

• At one month follow-up, after three treatments, the mean percentage hair reduction was 47% (Table 1) and 94% of subjects treated showed a significant percentage of hair reduction in treated areas, with a mean reduction of 52%, (range of hair count reductions 15% – 100%).
• At the six months follow-up after three treatments, the mean percentage hair reduction was 41% (Table 1), with 84% of study subjects treated showing a significant percentage of hair reduction in treated areas, with a mean reduction of 51% (range of hair count reductions 25% – 86%).
• No side effects were observed during or immediately after treatment, or reported later by study subjects even when contacted proactively by the treatment therapist. Only some erythema was noted immediately post treatment.

 

Safety

 

UK multi-centre safety trials were conducted by Principal Investigators Dr P. Bjerring and Dr R. Emerson involving two geographical locations and over 120 subjects. Volunteers tested with Fitzpatrick Skin Tones I – IV produced no significant adverse reactions following self-application of the iPulse™ Personal.

 

Consumer reaction

 

Hair removal is one of the biggest problems consumers would like to solve in a better way. Key consumer ideals from products are:

1) long-term results

2) easy and convenient to use

3) pain-free, and

4) affordable.

 

Competitor's methods fall down on one or more of these.

 

During extensive trials and product testing, consumer reaction has been very positive with a large body of people finding it a useful addition to their current hair removal method and many finding it a replacement. Key 'likes' were around the long-term benefit. Pain was measured, in the Clinical Trials after each of the three weekly treatments, on a 10 cm visual analogue scale from "no discomfort whatsoever" to "worst pain imaginable". Measurements were taken from the marked scale to provide a data pain score from 1 – 10, with average recorded values of 1.5 – 1.6 (range recorded by subjects 0 – 8).