In my ( the author, Dr. Tavakoli) earlier days when I was new in the field of lasers and aesthetics, I was confused by the many names and brands of lasers.

What many lasers  do these days, is about the same that other laser manufacturers do. An in depth knowledge of laser physics, and efficacy of each equipment is needed to pick the right technology and brand for a given treatment.

I, as many other people, was confused by the name “Fraxel”, thinking it was the only type of laser that does the given treatment. I WAS WRONG!

I quickly learned that the “Fraxel” company had named their company in a way to catch the attention based on the way their lasers did a certain aesthetic treatment, namely “fractional”.

Today, there are MANY domestic and foreign manufacturers of lasers and aesthetic devices that not only rival Fraxel lasers, but in some cases exceed the quality and the achieved results.

Fractional laser treatments (what Fraxel also does) are based on the principle that in older days, a laser would be used to vaporize the entire top layer of the skin ( full-field ablative laser treatment) to induce healing and skin rejuvenation. It became known that this method caused a long social down time, bleeding, oozing, infection and often times pigment changes of the skin ( which could be permanent). As a result, this method has been abandoned except for the most severe cases that need such treatment.

The newer approach to this problem became the current standard: Fractional laser treatments. In this method, microscopic laser holes ( instead of a “blanket vaporization”) are automatically created by the laser machine and its computer. The intensity and density of this treatment is tuned to your treatment area and specific needs. This way, the treatment is effective, with only a few days of social down time, and avoidance of the many undesired complications of earlier methods. With this method, things like eye rejuvenation ( Bright Lift, aka Madonna Lift) have become feasible with great results.

As a result, many laser manufacturers have made their own machines. There is still a considerable amount of controversy over what specific wavelength in a given fractional laser works the best. ” The Jury is still out on this”, but for practical purposes and due to its great results, we prefer either our fractional CO2 laser ( Cortex) or Erbium-YAG.