Introduction
Permanent hair reduction by means of IPLS (Intense Pulsed Light Sources) has been an established clinical practice for about two years, and hair removal by means of various pulsed lasers has been established for over three years.

This retrospective case study was carried out to indicate whether IPLS boosted with fluorescence is an effective method of permanent hair reduction.

The treatments were carried out during 1998 and 1999 at the MBC CENTER in Oslo, Norway, by Anders Larsson, MD, assisted by Ellen Rysand, Certified Nurse in Plastic Surgery. Both have over ten years of experience of LASER treatment in dermatology and over one years experience with the Plasmalite ® 600+.

Plasmalite ® 600+ utilises polymer strips incorporating many different dyes which combine to completely absorb all the light at the wavelengths between 400-600 nm (blue/green/yellow/orange) which bend (scatter) in the tissue, and which are highly absorbed in the epidermis creating an unwelcome temperature rise. These shorter wavelengths (blue - orange) represent the majority of the light emitted from the flashlamp and are converted by the dyes into red light of between 600-900 nm.

These dyes absorb the photons which become excited with different vibrational and spinning states. As nature strives for stability these fall back and in so doing a new photon of light is emitted. Long wavelengths have less energy than short ones and as the transition from stable state to excited state and back costs some energy, the new emitted photon has a longer wavelength. In this case the longer wavelengths are between 600-900nm. As all the light between 400-600nm converts to 600-900nm the efficiency of the system is increased by a factor of three. This effect is known as fluorescence. The dyes are contained in a highly sophisticated low molecular weight doped co-polymer matrix designed to absorb infra red light from 900nm and up. This infra red light (IR) creates the temperature rise felt as pain and occasionally manifesting as a burn and is filtered out by the matrix.