Collagen light therapy

While I was away in Denmark I ran into a tanning salon where they have the collagen light therapy/ infrared light therapy.

I’ve read about this a couple of times before, so I was instantly up for trying it.

It has a number of claims:

The light frequency claims to generally improve the circulation deep in the skin and improve skin cell renewal, which leads to prettier and firmer skin. It has claims of reducing wrinkles, reducing liver spots, reducing acne and reducing stretch marks.

To the cynic in me, this sound like one of those claims that makes me mentally finish it with “…And with this amazing product, your coffee will never be cold and you will never step in dog poo ever again!”

Yea.

It is said it has a proven effect on (winter) depression. Now that one I do actually believe.

Anyways.

Cynic side aside (Heh), I actually wanted to try this thing since first I heard of it.

This is something I could actually believe would benefit skin. I could just never believe that any cream, no matter how sci fi-fancy, could actually penetrate deep enough and “rearrange” skin enough to make a difference in its appearance.

Fade stretch marks and scars? Sure. But maybe just rubbing a normal, cheap cream on would do the same. Wouldn’t the stimulation of the circulation and some simple moisture help too? How would you know you wouldn’t get the same effect from a cheaper cream? You wouldn’t.

The scars on my lower legs have come a long way (A long, long way) but since they are still sensitive to just about anything and everything, I crossed my fingers the light therapy would help.

It came with a hefty price tag: Their special offer was 12 treatments in total for 995 kroner.

133 Euros and 184 USD.

Ouch.

They had a complicated system to determine how often you should go to begin with and how often you should go after for “maintenance”, but since I didn’t care about the anti age claims and all that, I just went for once a week.

It works almost like a normal tanning bed: You go in, you lie down and you wait until it switches off again. Only the “bed” is even less comfortable because it’s not ergonomical at all and the treatment time is 20 minutes instead of however long a tanning takes.

A bright pinkish light starts up and it seems to increase in strength through the treatment, but that might be an optical illusion.

20 minutes is a long time. The first time I was bored out of my mind. It didn’t help that I couldn’t figure out how to kill the damn radio either. Is there anything more obnoxious than radio hosts? DJ’s maybe?

Meh. I couldn’t see any difference after the first treatment, but I had not expected that either. 

The next couple of times I learned to relax in the infrared bed. The bright pink light and the warmth are very relaxing. Combined with the quiet hum of the air conditioning, it just made my mind blank out. In the end, I ended up falling asleep a lot.

When I had used up the first 12 treatments, I couldn’t spot a difference for sure. I didn’t look younger, my scars hadn’t faded noticeably and my freckles were still there.

I did however think my skin had a healthier glow.

And my skin was definitely crazy soft a full 24 hours after each treatment. Like, crazy soft: No cream had ever worked such magic, ever!

Hubby complimented it on me several times too (And we’re talking about a man who never notices anything like that)

So I ended up refilling my card twice with two special offers more. Definitely more money than I liked having on what is basically an unsecured credit card. Hmm!

Would I recommend it?

Yes. Even with the hefty price tag.

I do think it did do something to my skin. Maybe something I could have spotted if I did a before and after-shot. Maybe I did need to follow the complicated schedule. But I didn’t.

It definitely made my skin softer though. Noticeably.

I would go to an infrared light therapy treatment again if there were one in Lund. To my knowledge there isn’t…

Oh, and you know you’re a longhair when you end up having to turn that little “pillow” around to make room for your bun instead of resting the back of your head on it!