IPL recovery depends on several things.

The recovery from an IPL treatment depends on the patient and on the aggressiveness of the treatment.

Some patients react to almost any stimulus with a blush or red response. These people can expect to be red - either mottled or diffused like a sunburn - for a few hours after a treatment. The red response goes away quickly and can be covered with makeup until it resolves.

Some patients have a lot of brown discoloration - like freckles - near the surface of the skin. It is very easy for the treatment to turn these surface brown spots dark like coffee grounds for a few days to a few weeks. They float to the surface and flake off. Gone. This is more likely to happen on the hands, arms and chest than on the face. All of this can be covered over with makeup until the recovery is over.

The recovery period or downtime is also dependent on the technique used. An aggressive treatment, one that delivers a lot of energy to the skin, may prolong the downtime but yield a faster good result. A more gentle approach can still get a good result, but it may take a longer time and more treatments.

To get a good result from IPL it is not necessary to have a recovery period of more than a few hours. The patient's physical characteristics, wishes, and tolerance for downtime must be considered when designing the treatment plan.