For years, an at-home beauty device meant a hair dryer or maybe an electric toothbrush. Today, they have never been more omnipresent or more advanced, with heavily marketed products that range from $500 LED masks that promise to reduce fine lines, pigmentation and redness to laser wands that permanently (or so they claim) remove unwanted body hair.
The appeal, in part, is the idea of being able to bring home medical-grade self-care without stepping into a dermatologist’s or plastic surgeon’s office. (At the med-spa chain Ever/Body, for example, laser hair removal costs as much as $300 per session; the company advises six to 10 treatments plus annual maintenance.)
Consumers have taken notice. In November, a report by the Beauty Tech Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers estimated at-home beauty devices to be growing at four times the rate of the overall skin-care category, and predicted that sales will reach $92.55 billion by 2028.
In the age of social media, do-it-yourself devices offer another kind of visual currency as well: They tend to be flashy and expensive and in selfies make you look kind of cool or scary, like a minor superhero or a sci-fi movie character.
Despite their initial sticker shock, the appeal of these tools stems in part from the relative bargains they seem to offer, when it comes to the latest tech innovations in personal care. A red light hat from HigherDOSE is $449 and a laser starter kit from LYMA is $2,695. Along with those price tags come promises: The hat from HigherDOSE pledges on its website to “revitalize your scalp and support healthy hair growth with the power of 650nm red light.” LYMA’s flashlight-shaped wand “addresses everything from body scars, cellulite and spider veins to acne, sagging skin and rosacea.”
Everyday beauty enthusiasts seem more willing than ever to invest in those ideas. “The rise of cosmetic facial surgery and the widespread use of filters and editing tools like Facetune have redefined beauty standards,” said Lily Twelftree of Barefaced, an Australian beauty analysis company with a popular TikTok account. “This cultural shift has raised consumer expectations, with people willing to pay premium prices for beauty products that deliver elevated results. Beauty products are now expected to replicate the results of a needle or a knife, and consumers are willing to pay top dollar to get those results at home.”
It’s no longer enough to conceal a pimple with makeup; consumers, said Twelftree, “now want the ability to laser it off entirely.” For $19.50, l.a.b.’s Acne Light Therapy Patch claims to do just that.
The kinds of treatments that are marketed via these devices do have real roots in science. Red light therapy, or photobiomodulation (PBM), was discovered by Hungarian physician Endre Mester in 1967 at the Semmelweis Medical University in Budapest, Hungary, when he noticed that laser light helped promote hair growth and wound healing in rats. Since then, it has become a treatment for skin concerns including inflammation, scars and wrinkles.
The efficacy of doing those treatments at home, however, is only beginning to be evaluated. In October 2024, in a study published in JAMA Dermatology, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that patients can improve their psoriasis just as well at home with phototherapy devices that are designed to be easy to self administer.
But that was specifically for psoriasis, with a limited pool of 783 patients. Popular at-home skin-care devices tend to be less vetted, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Joel Gelfand, a professor of dermatology and epidemiology at the Perelman School.
“If they aren’t studied in a randomized control trial, it makes me skeptical,” he said. “Was a study done by the manufacturer in a situation to benefit financially, or was it large with hundreds of patients? Because it’s a very murky area, most people would be best off speaking to a dermatologist and seeing if a light modality would have some effect on their skin.”
Dr. Evan Rieder, a dual board-certified physician in dermatology and psychiatry who practices in New York City, said that many devices marketed for at-home use are Food and Drug Administration cleared, which is different from being FDA approved. “‘Approved’ means a device or a medicine has gone through rigorous clinical trials compared to a placebo, and the results are not just due to chance and have been replicated in other studies as well,” he said. FDA 510(k) Clearance is often what you’re seeing at home, which indicates solely that the device has been evaluated by the FDA and is not dangerous for nonprofessional use.
Rieder declined to name specific devices, but said that many of them have photos on their websites of before and after results that are “grossly misleading,” with inconsistent lighting and shadows that make the results even harder to see. The outcome one can expect is subtle at best, he said, for those who have “good skin or minor concerns.”
It may be wiser, he went on, to approach at-home care as a tool to support or supplement in-office treatments. For the cost of an at-home laser device, a patient could — depending on where they live and the doctor they visit — get two or three fractionated laser treatments: “That’s a major improvement with real brightening — decreased photo damage, decreasing the burden of pre-cancers and maintained with just sunscreen and moisturizer at home.”
To reach consumers, manufacturers tend to rely heavily on the collaboration or approval of two distinct groups. “Skinfluencer” doctors with good credentials and high-profile clientele, such as Dr. Lindsey Zubritsky (@dermguru) and Dr. Jenny Liu (@derm.talk), make videos on Instagram on the impacts of differences in wavelength, power density and energy density in certain devices to help consumers choose wisely. And then there are the more traditional social media influencers, who often speak frankly and informally of their own personal experiences with these tools — like Jenn Lexi (@jennlexi_), an aesthetician student whose recent post comparing popular LED masks has more than 56,000 likes on TikTok.
Wherever it comes from, the message seems to be penetrating — even at the most rarefied price points. “The LYMA laser is absolutely one of our top products,” said Jessica Matlin, the beauty director of the retail site Moda Operandi and a co-host of the beauty podcast Fat Mascara. “It is certainly an investment. But it’s sleek, it’s not horrible to look at, it doesn’t hurt and your upper lip is not curling up in pain.”
She added: “You can use it while watching TV.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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