I’ve been using red LED light for some time now and I love the glowing results I get from it. There is a lot of rejuvenating machines out there that use red LED light but I haven’t yet found one that works on a professional level in my price range – until recently. You can buy decent size LED panels on amazon but they all work with a continues light and therefor they are not as effective as the machines used in professional salons. All the high-end expensive phototherapy units use pulsating light that works on an entire different level than regular continues light machines. The effects are comparable to a laser therapy that penetrates your skin on a much deeper level. DIY red light panel

Here is a great research article explaining the difference between the effectiveness of a regular vs. pulsating light: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933784/

Before I get to the topic I want to say thank you to the person who came up with this DIY affordable idea of creating this pulsating red LED panel and was nice enough to share her secret with the world – Christine Byer, Master Esthetician and a beauty guru I have stumbled across while doing my research on phototherapy.

 

Benefits of red light

 

For the skin:

  • Significantly increases collagen density
  • Reduces wrinkles including crow’s feet, forehead wrinkles and laugh lines
  • Reduces cellulite
  • Creates a healthy glow in the treated area
  • Reduces dark under eyes circles
  • Reduces redness, flushing and broken capillaries
  • Shrinks pores
  • Repairs sun spots and speeds up sun burn healing
  • Speeds up the healing process of many skin conditions including acne, skin cuts and rosacea
  • Evens skin tone
  • Fades scars and stretch marks
  • Stimulates hair regrowth and prevents hair loss

 

For Health:

  • Reduces inflammation and pain
  • Speeds up healing of wounds, bruises and bone breaks
  • Eases symptoms of back and knee pain, arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome and more
  • Stimulates DNA/RNA synthesis
  • Increases energy levels by promoting release of ATP from cell’s mitochondria

 

DIY Rejuvenating LED panel

All you need for this project is two simple things:

As this 14 Watt LED panel was made for growing plants it has a built-in hook connected to four strings. It’s a pretty nice solution if you want to mount it to the celling or a tripod with a holding bracket. It has 225 Red LED lights (630 nm wavelength – exactly the same type of light used in the expensive red phototherapy lamps). It is 12.2″ x 1.25″ – large enough to cover a decent area of your body and small enough to fit in a drawer.

The cost of the entire unit comes up to $140 – not too bad if you compare it to a $4000 and more for the professional machines that use exactly the same type of light with built-in blinkers. Of course you can start with just using the light panel and buy the flasher later on. It will still have some benefits but it won’t be as effective (read the research article on the difference between pulsing vs. no-pulsing phototherapy). It’s like comparing a Ferrari to a school bus – both will take you to a destination but the first one will do that in a fraction of time. I’ve seen people trying to cut the price down by using regular outlet flashers ($20) that you use for Christmas lights etc. – unfortunately these won’t work because they cut the strength of the LED’s by half which makes the unit useless. A good thing about this flasher is that you can use it with other color panels as well for different purposes (blue light for acne,  amber for skin lightening, green for hyper-pigmentation etc.)

 

Related Articles:

         

References:

  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933784/
  • https://draxe.com/red-light-therapy/
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2gBEb7uZ0U
  • https://www.tindie.com/products/AtomSoft/14w-led-panel-flasher/
  • http://lighttherapyoptions.com/