About two years ago, Toby Salzman bought two hand-held gadgets that promised, if not the fountain of youth, at least a spigot: LightStim for Wrinkles ($299), which supposedly increases collagen and reduces lines by using red, amber and infrared light; and the Clarisonic Skin Cleansing System ($225), which claims to remove six times more dirt from your face than regular cleansing does.
“You think you’re not doing a good job unless you’re using those devices,” said Ms. Salzman, 57, the owner of a clothing company in Seattle.
She is one of thousands of people buying portable lasers and lights that promise to polish skin, eliminate blemishes, smooth wrinkles or diminish rosacea.
Michael Moretti, president of Medical Insight Inc., a media and market research company specializing in aesthetic medicine, said that retail sales of these home-use devices were expected to rise from an estimated $561.8 million in 2010 to nearly $900 million in 2015.
The contraptions are certainly tempting, with scientific-sounding attributes (“Ion Infusion technology!” in a WrinkleMD eye treatment) and official-looking Web sites. HairMax.com, for example, features two people in hazmat suits near the “clean room facility where the medical grade lasers are manufactured” [LOL].
These products tend to be cheaper and less time-consuming than a series of visits to the dermatologist. But do they work? Depends on whom you ask.
Dr. Roy G. Geronemus, director of the Laser and Skin Surgery Center of New York and a clinical professor of dermatology at New York University Medical Center, said: “There are a wide spectrum of O.T.C. devices including lasers, light sources, Intense Pulsed Light sources, radio frequency and sonic cleansing devices. Some of the devices are valuable, and others are worthless.”
Dr. Sandra Lee, a dermatologist in Upland, Calif., fears patients will develop what she calls laserexia. “If it says, don’t use more than once a day, but if you’re a teen and you use it more than once a day, are you then at risk for scarring?” Dr. Lee said. “I worry about misuse.”
Some machines (among them TRIA Skin Perfecting Blue Light; LightStim for Wrinkles; and Levia Personal Targeted Phototherapy, which helps with psoriasis, eczema and vitiligo) have been peer-reviewed by medical experts, but not all. And the Food and Drug Administration clears only medical devices, not beauty devices, a distinction not always obvious to consumers.
“It gets squishy when companies say ‘We’re not making medical claims; we’re making beauty claims,’ ” said Dr. Mathew M. Avram, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Dermatology Laser and Cosmetic Center in Boston. “What is a medical claim? It becomes a hard area to define.”
“If you make a claim that you can benefit someone’s appearance and you’re going to use a device to accomplish that,” he continued, “I think there needs to be the same level of scrutiny that a device used in a physician’s office would undergo.”
There have been some crackdowns on unwarranted claims. Last spring, the National Advertising Division of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (NAD) requested substantiation for promises made by VISS Beauty, for its Intense Pulsed Light Hair Removal Device. When the company refused to participate in a NAD review, the division referred the claims to the Federal Trade Commission and the F.D.A. And in September, the Federal Trade Commission shut down two smartphone apps, AcnePwner and AcneApp, for claiming that they could treat pimples with lights emitted from their display screens[LMAO].
Even with effective devices, “there may be unforeseen uses and unforeseen consequences that may arise,” said Dr. Avram, listing the possibility of scarring, soreness, redness and hyperpigmentation, not to mention product malfunctions.
There’s also the “slight potential” for squamous or basal skin cancers from the ultraviolet light sources, said Dr. Neil Sadick, a clinical professor of dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical College, though he said that at-home devices used less energy than the machines in doctors’ offices.
The biggest hurdle, doctors say, is patient compliance; it requires some fortitude to beam a laser on your legs for 20 minutes a day. Dr. Sean Benham, a hair-loss and hair-transplant specialist in Santa Monica, Calif., likes the HairMAX LaserComb, a light-based hair-restoration device that costs about $600. But he said he saw many patients who simply tired of the routine, which involves “combing” the hair with an electronic wand for about 10 minutes, three times a week.
“People drop out of using it,” Dr. Benham said. “It’s so complicated and demanding, most of my patients say it just sits by the TV.”
But diligence sometimes pays off. For seven years, Nan Kursh, 56, of Weston, Mass., has been grappling with psoriasis in the folds of her body, her genital area and her scalp. She had used injectables and creams, but they were largely ineffective. In September 2010, she saw Dr. Ethan Lerner, a Boston dermatologist and associate professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School, for a week for phototherapy, which uses ultraviolet light to treat skin conditions. Dr. Lerner gave Ms. Kursh Levia Personal Targeted Phototherapy, a “fiber-optic brush” he designed, for her to use at home. (It costs about $5,900, although insurance typically covers a percentage.) The results were astonishing, she said.
“One day it was there and I was feeling discouraged, and the next day it was gone,” said Ms. Kursh, a retired lawyer and jewelry entrepreneur. “I had no idea where it went.”‹
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
