The Intense Pulsed Light technology for the home sounds pretty smart. Break the cycle of unwanted hair regrowth with the Philips Lumea Prestige IPL Hair Remover. After 14 years of research with leading dermatologists, Philips Lumea places IPL technology, into your own hands.
First the basics
The light pulse technology does not destroy the hair follicles, but stimulates them to go into the resting phase. The consequence? Hair falls out naturally and hair growth is prevented. With consistent treatments (more on this below), the skin becomes hair-free in the long term.
Intense Pulsed Light (IPL)
Gentle, pain-free pulses of light are applied at the hair root to prevent it from growing back. Naturally it’ll take several treatments to achieve hair-free smoothness, but studies have shown that users have achieved up to 92% hair reduction in just 3 treatments*. To maintain, simply touch up every 4 weeks, or as much as is needed. After 8 touch-ups, enjoy hair-free smooth skin for 6 months**. Lumea is the only IPL with SenseIQ – a technology designed to understand what your skin needs during treatments, and adapts to be as sensitive as it is effective.
How IPL works
IPL emits a wavelength into the skin, which is absorbed by pigment (aka your hair). This turns into heat, which kills the ‘growing cells’ that make the hair. Effectively, this puts the follicle into a resting phase, which means that hair growth gradually declines.
*Measured on legs, 27 out of 55 women reached 92% or higher results.
**Median result 78% hair reduction on legs, after 12 treatments.
Suitable for a variety of hair and skin types
The Philips Lumea Prestige can be used on naturally dark blonde, brown and black coloured hairs and on skin tones from very white to dark brown. As with other IPL based treatments, it can’t be used to treat white or grey, light blonde or red hair and is not suitable for very dark skin. This is due to the high contrast required between the pigment in hair colour and pigment in the skin tone.
SmartSkin sensor
Philips has taken into account the fact that your skin colour may vary across your body by including a SmartSkin Sensor, which will suggest the best intensity setting for your skin tone.
3 Curved attachments
These are shaped to ensure optimal skin contact for ultimate precision.
- Face attachment delivers a gentle, precise treatment for upper lip, chin and jawline. The smallest attachment with a window size of 2 cm² was designed for the face and has an additional UV light filter. The treatment time is given as 1.5 minutes, but that’s totally cool where you have hair everywhere
- Precision attachment tackles bikini line and underarms. The middle attachment (3 cm²) is suitable for “sensitive zones” (these are clearly the armpits and bikini line!) And is slightly more curved towards the outside in order to also reach “ricochets”.
- Body attachment is designed to quickly and effectively treat larger areas, such as legs and arms. The largest attachment with 4.1 cm² is the fastest of all, thanks to the large treatment area and – because it is flat – allows optimal skin contact, which ensures that it goes really quickly on the legs, arms or stomach.
Mains-power & cordless
- The Prestige is the only device to work both on mains-power and cordless. You will love this freedom to use it wherever you want.
- Go cordless for full freedom of movement or stay plugged in for an uninterrupted session.
- It’s best to use corded for most of your body because the flashes are fast (every 2 seconds) and you won’t need to stop and recharge. This gets your pins done as quick as possible. And it’s no bother because the long handle keeps the cord out of your way as you work around your body.
- Then, simply remove the cord for smaller or hard to reach areas where the cord restricts you.
- Therefore, cordless operation is no good for legs or a whole-body session. But it’s fine for smaller areas like the face and bikini line where you need fewer and slow precise flashes.
Lumea Coaching App
- Download the FREE Lumea App for a personalised treatment schedule, including tips and advice. With the Lumea Coaching App (free in the App Store and on Google Play ), there is a personalized treatment plan in addition to precise step-by-step instructions and application tips. In this way, you will receive a reminder directly from the app at the “ideal” interval for the next treatment.
Video illustrating how to operate the Lumea Prestige IPL
Getting to Use Lumea Prestige IPL
The following video explain how to go about using the Philips Lumea Prestige IPL BRI954, It shows how to use, download App, setting up, attachments explanation, preparations and usage.
These hairs naturally shed in the following couple of weeks post-treatment, and any re-growth is inhibited, resulting in silky-smooth skin for longer – and the Philips Lumea Prestige provides all this from the comfort of your own home. All you have to do is use the device every two weeks for six to eight weeks (don’t worry, you’ll notice a reduction of up to 92% after just three treatments) and enjoy continuously smooth, summer-ready skin.
While the Philips Lumea Prestige eliminates the schlep across town for a salon appointment, it still delivers salon quality; the device also has a range of four tailor-made attachments to suit different parts of the body for a flawless finish, including a body attachment with a large treatment window, a facial attachment with a gentle-on-skin integrated light feature, a convex underarm attachment and a targeted bikini attachment for those more stubborn hairs. Oh, and you can use the device corded or cordless, meaning ease of use for those harder-to-reach areas as well as lasting plug-in power for the larger regions of the body.
FAQs
The FAQs are partially taken from HeyPretty site
1. Does it hurt?
No. I always say that in certain places it can feel a bit like someone is pecking at you … but in general it’s really not a thing! For the best results, however, you should still choose the highest light intensity that is suitable for your skin tone (and that is still comfortable to the touch). For me, I can say: Even at level 5, it really doesn’t hurt!
2. Do I always have to be freshly depilated before using the Lumea?
Yep, honey. It doesn’t really matter how you remove the hair beforehand – whether it is shaving, epilation, depilatory foam or wax: the main thing is that no visible hairs peek out. You will know why, at the latest when you “flash” a hair and have the smell of slightly scorched keratin in your nose. Personally, I always plan the treatment one day after shaving!
3. How long does it take to see success?
Philips recommends that you do the first 4-5 applications with an interval of 2 weeks. In the post-treatment phase (which also consists of 4-5 treatments on average), an interval of 4 weeks is recommended. It depends on the strength of your hair growth, but after about four treatments I noticed that the hair on my legs had grown back much less … and it took a good five months in total to feel that I was “hair-free”.
4. Do you have hair-free skin forever?
The same applies here: It depends on your individual hair growth … but “top-up” treatments are usually necessary later. I use my Lumea about every two months when I see tiny hairs again. But compared to “untreated” skin, the difference in effort is really huge, and you save both time and money on wax / razor blades and the like in the long run!
5. Are there people for whom IPL and the Lumea are unsuitable?
Yes: Those who want to play laser tag with the device. JUST KIDDING, nobody does that! The answer is “yes” anyway, because IPL is only suitable for people who have a visible difference in the pigmentation of skin and hair. This means that IPL is not suitable for light blonde, gray, red or white hair .
6. The battery of my Philips Lumea Prestige runs out very quickly, Lumea was not fully charged
If your Philips Lumea Prestige is not fully charged when you start a treatment, the battery will run out during a full body treatment. We advise you to always fully charge the device before you start a treatment or to use it corded.
7. You are over-using your Lumea
The battery of your Philips Lumea is not enough for a full body treatment. We recommend you to use it corded while treating large body areas such as legs and/or arms. You can use it cordless on smaller or harder to reach areas like the face, armpit or the bikini area.
If you have tried the above advice but are still not satisfied with the performance of your Lumea’s battery life then please contact us for further support.
8. How long does the battery last?
When use cordless, the flashes are 2x slower (every 3.5 seconds) and the battery lasts around 30 minutes (or 130 flashes at light intensity 5). A full charge takes 1:40 hours.
The battery of your Philips Lumea is not enough for a full body treatment. We recommend you to use it corded while treating large body areas such as legs and/or arms. You can use it cordless on smaller or harder to reach areas like the face, armpit or the bikini area.
You must also follow the guidelines on tanning and sun exposure to avoid side effects. Philips advise you to:
- Avoid the sun for 2 weeks before a treatment
- Avoid the sun / tanning for 48 hours after your treatment.
- Use a sunscreen of SPF 30+ on your treated skin for 2 weeks after your treatments, or cover up when in the sun.
- Don’t use self-tanning creams or gels as this darkens your skin
Getting started
Learn more about how to prepare for your sessions including shaving vs waxing, alternatives to shaving your face and how to get a comfortable set up. Here’s a quick summary on how to use the Prestige, and there’s loads more detail in the following sections.
When finished, press and hold the power button for 2 seconds to switch it off.
IPL Lamp Lifetime
There’s no need to worry about running out of flashes.
Using a standardised formula, we’ve calculated the lamp lifetime of flashes for all the devices we test. And the Prestige is one of the best.
With the 250,000 flashes and 4.1 cm² body attachment you can cover a humongous 1,025,000 cm² of body area. We calculate that’s 200+ full body treatments (full legs, bikini line, underarms and face) or over 15 years of monthly top-up treatments. That’s more than enough because the more top-ups you do, the less frequently you need them. So, eventually you can go months and months between top-ups.
It’s superb value and an excellent choice for treating your full body. You could share it and still get decades of use.
N.B. 15+ years of use is based on the bulb life only and doesn’t take into consideration general usage, battery care and wear and tear that effect how long the machine keeps working. Philips advertise a lamp lifetime of 20 years.
* Info taken from wearebodybeautiful.com
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