Laser Unit treatment areas compared

Posted by admin on May 10, 2009

It must be remembered that permanent hair reduction is a time consuming process that involves treating the same area approximately six times before there is a significant reduction in hair growth. This is due to the hair growth cycle which is covered in another article. As such before investing between £250 and £675 on a home laser hair removal product such as the Rio x60, Tria or Silk’n you should also consider how much area can be treated during their lifetime. You wouldn’t want to be midway through treating your legs to find that you have to buy another hair removal unit to continue your treatment.As discussed in the previous article the area each device can treat with each laser pulse differs with each unit. Both the Rio x60 and the Tria treat a smaller area during each laser pulse and require each shot to be overlapped. The Silk’n can treat an area 2cm x 3cm in one shot without the need to overlap. So when comparing these three unit’s total treatment area it gets complicated as these additional considerations need to be included when working out a comparable figure.

The current Tria battery lasts for 250 shots per charge and there are a total of 250 charges during a Tria’s lifetime. This is a total of 62500 Shots before the item becomes obsolete. To calculate this in terms of total treatment area I have looked at the instruction manual guidelines which can be downloaded in PDF format here (pending link). According the instruction manual it is recommended that it would take approximately 50 shots per 3cm x 3cm area. There are a total of 250 pulses per charge, so you would be able to treat 5 blocks of this size before needing a recharge.

Five blocks of 3cm x 3cm is an area 3cm x 15cm, which is about the size of a small ruler, or a square area of approximately 6.7cm x 6.7cm. To calculate the total is slightly more complicated. For each charge, (250 pulses) the Tria can treat an area 6.7cm x 6.7cm. A Tria has 250 charges during its lifetime or 62500 shots. In total it can treat an area 6.7cm x (6.7cm x 250 charges). This is an area approximately 106cm x 106cm.

If you are serious about purchasing a Tria you need to consider whether this is a sufficient area to perform repeated treatments as recommend for permanent hair reduction.

The Rio x60 total treatment area figure is unknown as there is no information with the Rio 60 about needing to replace a bulb or battery. As it is mains connected and does not require any recharging, I would assume that its lifetime is endless and thus so is the area that it is able to treat. However one must weigh up the additional time each shot takes, for example on the highest setting a single shot can take up to 75 seconds compared to the extremely fast Tria and Silk’n.

Because the Silk’n requires no overlapping each shot covers an area 2cm x 3cm (2.44cm squared). If each bulb can administer 750 shots then the total area that can be treated is calculated by 2.44cm x (2.44cm x 750 shots) = 4,465.2cm which is about 67cm x 67cm. As you get two bulbs with each purchase you would get to treat two blocks of 67cm x 67cm. Once both the bulbs with your purchase have run out you can easily buy additional bulbs for around £45.00. As you have already purchased the product you would then be able to continue treatment in an extremely cost effective method.

In summary it seems that the Rio x60 is the most cost effective method, however using the Rio x60 takes a far greater length of time than its competitors. The Silk’n, despite treating a smaller total area during a single bulbs lifetime does come with two bulbs and the option to purchase additional bulbs whereas the Tria becomes obsolete once it has emitted 62500 shots.

I hope these comparisons have helped to give some clarity surrounding these three products. Future articles will detail the individual cost for each shot and how much it costs per device to treat identical areas.