How Lumecca IPL works: light, not a laser

Lumecca is the intense pulsed light applicator made by InMode. A laser is one wavelength; intense pulsed light is a flash of many wavelengths at once, filtered to a band, 515 to 1200 nm on the filter for skin types I and II and 580 to 1200 nm on the filter for types III and IV. Brown pigment in a sun spot and red haemoglobin in a vessel absorb that light and heat up. The pigment breaks into fragments the body clears, and the vessel closes. The skin around them absorbs less, and a cooled sapphire window held against it protects it. It is FDA-cleared in the US for benign pigmented lesions (harmless brown marks), including freckles, hyperpigmentation and melasma (patchy brown pigmentation). It is also cleared for benign vascular lesions (harmless red vessels), including the thread veins of the face, trunk and legs, rosacea and its redness, spider angiomas (a red dot with fine threads around it) and the mottled sun damage of the chest. Sessions are at Lumecca Clinic, 130 Harley Street, with the plan in writing at a free consultation.

What the light does to a spot and a vessel

• A sun spot or freckle absorbs the flash, heats, and over the next few days goes darker and crusts lightly, then flakes away within one to two weeks, leaving the skin underneath its own colour.
• A thread vein or the fixed redness of rosacea absorbs the flash in its blood, the vessel wall heats and seals, and the vessel fades over the following weeks as the body clears it.
• The skin between absorbs little on fair to olive skin, and the cooling keeps its surface comfortable; the darker the skin, the more it absorbs. That is why the filter and the energy are set to the skin type, and the darkest types are usually advised a different treatment. The dark skin page explains.

The manufacturer describes Lumecca as delivering more energy in the 500 to 600 nm band, the band pigment and blood absorb best, than ordinary IPL; that is its own description, and the studies below are the evidence.

What the studies measured

The Lumecca rosacea study, 20 patients in 2026, used three sessions 21 days apart and cut the clinician's redness score by about 60%, holding at three months. A review of 54 Lumecca patients' photographs from 27 clinics, collected by the manufacturer, found improved pigment and vessels with no significant side effect. For intense pulsed light as a class, a 2010 study of 24 women, with one side of the face treated and the other left as the comparison, took the doctors' score of sun damage from 3.02 to 1.22 after four sessions, and a 2005 study of 508 vessel sites reached an average clearance of 77.8%, with four sites recurring within about three years. The worth it page weighs each.

The session

Skin cleaned, eyes covered, a cool gel, and the window placed flash by flash across the area. Each flash is a snap like an elastic band on the skin, and most people have it without numbing cream in our practice. The face takes 20 to 30 minutes. The skin is pink and warm for a few hours, the spots darken over a few days, and nothing stops you going back to your day. Sunscreen every day of the course and four weeks out of the sun before and after each session, in our practice.

Who it suits, and who it does not

Adults with sun damage, freckles, age spots, uneven tone, rosacea redness or thread veins on fair to olive skin, types I to IV in the manufacturer's guidance, I to III and some IV in our practice. Not for a current tan, pregnancy or breastfeeding, or a history of skin cancer. Not for a light-sensitive condition such as lupus or epilepsy, medicines that make the skin sensitive to light, or isotretinoin (Roaccutane) in the last six months. Not for an active skin condition in the area, raised overgrown scars (keloids) or a tattoo in the treatment field; the clinician goes through the full list with you, and anything that has changed, grown or bled needs a dermatologist's assessment before any light is used. Lumecca treats colour, not structure: for lines and texture we provide Morpheus8 and Genius RF microneedling, and the clinician plans the right one.

Book a free consultation

Call Lumecca Clinic on 0207 043 8149 or use the form below. The clinician looks at the spots or the redness, grades your skin type, and gives you the course and its price in writing. The full Lumecca guide covers the rest.