Laser treatment for skin uses concentrated beams of light to repair, resurface, or rejuvenate skin by targeting specific structures beneath the surface. It treats everything from acne scars and wrinkles to spider veins, sun damage, and uneven pigmentation. The average cost is around $1,829 per session, though this varies widely depending on the type of laser and the size of the area treated.
How Laser Treatment Works
Every laser skin treatment relies on a principle called selective photothermolysis. In plain terms, the laser emits a specific wavelength of light that passes through surrounding tissue and is absorbed only by a particular target in the skin. That target, called a chromophore, might be the pigment melanin (in dark spots or hair follicles), hemoglobin in blood vessels (for redness or spider veins), or water in skin cells (for resurfacing).
When the target absorbs the light energy, it heats up and is destroyed, while the tissue around it stays intact. This works only if the pulse of light is delivered fast enough. If it’s too slow, heat spreads outward and damages surrounding skin instead of the intended target. Practitioners control three variables to make this happen precisely: the wavelength of light, the duration of each pulse, and the energy level (fluence) delivered to the skin.
Ablative vs. Non-Ablative Lasers
The broadest distinction in laser skin treatment is whether the laser removes skin tissue or leaves the surface intact.
Ablative lasers vaporize the top layer of skin. This forces the body to rebuild it from scratch, generating fresh collagen in the process. Because they physically remove tissue, ablative lasers produce the most dramatic results, often in a single session. They’re best suited for moderate wrinkles, deeper acne scars, and significant discoloration. The trade-off is recovery: most people need two weeks or more of downtime, and it’s common to experience swelling, oozing, and crusting during that period.
Non-ablative lasers heat the deeper layers of skin without breaking the surface. The heat stimulates new collagen production over time, improving texture and tone more gradually. You’ll typically need multiple sessions to see significant results, but recovery is minimal. Most people experience only mild redness or swelling and can return to normal routines the same day.
Common Types of Lasers
CO2 Lasers
CO2 lasers emit light at a wavelength of 10,600 nanometers, which is strongly absorbed by water in skin cells. They heat the superficial skin in a controlled way, destroying fragmented collagen and triggering the body to produce new collagen. This makes them effective for fine lines, wrinkles, acne scars, sunspots, and age spots. Fractional CO2 lasers create thousands of microscopic treatment zones rather than treating the entire surface, which speeds healing while still reaching into the deeper layers of skin. Recovery from CO2 laser resurfacing takes up to two weeks.
Erbium YAG Lasers
Erbium YAG lasers cause less thermal damage to surrounding tissue than CO2 lasers, which means faster healing and fewer side effects. They’re particularly well suited for severe atrophic (depressed) acne scars. Recovery is roughly one week. In studies comparing the two for acne scars, both produce meaningful improvement, but erbium lasers allow more controllable resurfacing and quicker skin regeneration afterward.
Pulsed Dye Lasers
Pulsed dye lasers target hemoglobin, the protein that gives blood its red color. They deliver intense but gentle bursts of light that heat and destroy damaged blood vessels while keeping surrounding skin safe. Your body then absorbs the destroyed vessels, and blood reroutes through healthier ones. These lasers treat rosacea, spider veins, port-wine stains, and other vascular conditions that cause visible redness.
What Lasers Treat
- Acne scars: Fractional CO2 and erbium YAG lasers stimulate collagen production to fill in depressed scars. Studies show more than 90% of patients report improvement after erbium YAG treatment for scarring.
- Fine lines and wrinkles: Ablative lasers resurface damaged skin and trigger new collagen, smoothing wrinkles around the eyes, mouth, and forehead.
- Sun damage and dark spots: Lasers that target melanin break up clusters of pigment so the body can clear them naturally.
- Redness and visible blood vessels: Pulsed dye lasers selectively destroy dilated blood vessels responsible for rosacea, broken capillaries, and spider veins.
- Burn scars: Fractional lasers improve the texture and appearance of burn scars, with high patient satisfaction rates in clinical trials.
- Tattoo removal: Tattoo ink acts as an exogenous chromophore. Lasers matched to the ink color break particles into fragments small enough for the body to flush away.
Safety for Darker Skin Tones
Melanin absorbs laser energy, which means darker skin tones face a higher risk of burns and post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (dark patches that form after the skin is injured). This doesn’t rule out laser treatment, but it does change the approach. Longer wavelength lasers are recommended because they bypass the melanin-rich outer layer more effectively. Lower energy settings, longer pulse durations, and lower treatment densities all reduce the risk of thermal injury to the surface.
Pre-treatment and post-treatment with skin-lightening creams can further reduce the chance of pigmentation changes. Cooling the skin before or after treatment, either through direct contact cooling or a cryogen spray, also helps protect the outer layer. People with very dark skin (Fitzpatrick type VI) may not be candidates for certain laser procedures at all, so a thorough evaluation beforehand is essential.
What Recovery Looks Like
Immediately after treatment, your skin will be red and feel like a sunburn. Redness, swelling, itching, and stinging typically last a few days. Depending on the intensity of the treatment, the skin may appear raw, ooze a yellow liquid, or blister.
Five to seven days after resurfacing, your skin will become dry and begin to peel. For the first two to three days, applying ice packs for 15 to 20 minutes several times a day helps manage swelling. During the first one to two weeks, you should avoid swimming pools, saunas, hot tubs, and shaving over the treated area. A crust may form and gradually fall away within one to two weeks.
New skin appears pink at first. It gradually lightens over two to three months, though residual redness in treated areas can take six months to a full year to fully fade. Erbium and fractional laser recovery tends to be about one week, while full CO2 resurfacing can take closer to two weeks. Non-ablative treatments, by contrast, involve little to no visible healing period.
Who Should Avoid Laser Treatment
Several conditions rule out laser skin treatment entirely. These include lupus and other autoimmune diseases, active skin cancer in the treatment area, pregnancy, bleeding disorders, and conditions like HIV or hepatitis that affect the immune system. People who form keloid or hypertrophic scars are also not candidates, since the laser-induced healing process could worsen scarring. Psoriasis or eczema in the treatment area is another contraindication.
Certain medications require a waiting period. If you’ve used retinoids, isotretinoin, St. John’s Wort, antibiotics, or cortisone, most practitioners require you to wait six months after stopping before starting laser treatment, because these increase the skin’s sensitivity to light and heat. Sun exposure from tanning beds or sunbathing requires a four-week waiting period, and you cannot tan during a treatment course. Active cold sores need to heal completely, and antiviral medication is typically started a few days before treatment and continued for a week afterward to prevent flare-ups.
Conditions like epilepsy, thyroid disease, heart disease, and medicated high blood pressure don’t automatically disqualify you, but they do require medical clearance. The same applies to anyone who has completed cancer treatment within the last 12 months.