Welcome to this week's episode of Beauty Babble. Today we're talking about how to pick an LED machine, or any machine really, when there are so many options. Our guest is our very own boss, Tara, the owner and operator of Beauty Cult Canada, a beauty supplier out of Edmonton.  We finally got you, 

Tara.

How are you?  I'm good

If you're wondering why we're laughing amongst ourselves because the word boss is not used in our place of work. She is our team leader., so I we wanted to bring you on because I have witnessed myself over many, many years, all the efforts that you take in researching and looking into devices and understanding everything about it. So we thought because LEDs is one that can be anywhere from like 80 to thousands and thousands of dollars.

Can you share with us a little bit of, what to look for or how should someone go about choosing? an LED and what makes it right for them?  

Yeah, well, with now all the online platforms, they are everywhere for every price. And  I think from a professional angle,  if you want to have something that your customers can use to support their treatments at home, you're going to want to have something that you're not going to find on those and that are going to be highly effective. 

Because otherwise, why  do it, I guess?  So, the first things to look for, I think, is how bright they are,  how close to the skin the lights are going to be, and,,  there's a couple other things, like whether they have diodes or whether they have SD cards. So the SD cards are little square, they look kind of like microchips,  and you'd think by looking at them when they're off that they wouldn't produce light, but they actually have a longer Longevity, I guess.

Then the diodes and it's hard to tell if your diodes are failing because they just start to dim. They don't actually burn out.  And are you referring to 

the professional aspect when you're when you're including this in services, what to look for? When 

we first, when we first got in, started researching and getting into it, we had bought a very expensive machine that came with  lights out of Italy,  and it came with multiple masks, a helmet for hair growth, and body pads.

And they had those little SD cards in them, and I, we paid a lot of money for it. And then when I started researching all these handheld devices that were online, I thought, well, why did, why would somebody spend so much money on one of those  devices like we did, when there's so many available that are smaller?

But diodes. So you're going to get probably about 10, 000 hours. out of those little diode lights, hopefully, and out of the bigger machines that you've invested a lot more money in that have the SD cards. And I think with competition they'd probably come down now, but you're looking at more like a hundred thousand hours of  Oh, that's a very big difference, eh?

Yeah, so so yeah, there's, yeah, your quality, you're going to want to look, like, at.  

And the spacing too, right? Isn't it the spacing out between 

lights as well? So the more light, the better, the better it is.  And then when we, so then,  You know, because you think you're under lights every day, now everyone's going to LED lights, so you're thinking, well, like, what is it actually going to do for you?

But it's, it's NASA technology, so they  were trying to grow plant life in space, in darkness, and they realized that, how much they could speed up the growth of the plant. So then, in tune, it got brought into this aesthetic or the skincare industry, and they realized, oh, they can speed up your Cell rejuvenation, your, your turn, your cell turnover and that and so that's kind of how it's evolved and it's gotten more and more popular and I think with the competition, it's got less expensive a lot of  times, but they really like just for myself, they, I really find that it does help with healing,  does help with calming the skin, the blue light helps with  it's at that superficial about 430  And it's helping with, as a bacteria side, kind of, for acne.

The yellow light helps with or green helps with pigmentation,  detoxification, kind of lymphatic drainage. And then your red light is your most popular. That one's at about 830 nanometers.  And it's going to help with your fine lines and overall wellness. I kind of tell clients that it turns back the clock on your cells.

So it gets, it kind of speeds it up. So they start acting like they did at a younger age.  And then the,  the one that's really good that we've just got in and that's It's an inexpensive device. It has infrared and that one, I mean, you could probably, some gyms have it where you can sit in the infrared sauna and you don't actually see that light.

It's invisible to the naked eye, but  it will help with your deeper wrinkles and more pain management because it's over a thousand nanometers. So  

it does help with also. Oh, sorry, go ahead.  It's a thing that it also helped not just everyone thinks that the anti wrinkle or the helping the fine lines, but it actually worked deeper into the tissue, including the muscle and the fascia and everything.

So it helps to rejuvenate it. I guess you could say the left pain pain management. All of that. So it's, it's beyond just for some 

of the most interesting things that I found was the research on Parkinson's and it comes out of New Zealand and what it can help Parkinson's patients with their tremors  and you, you just wonder how, how it can, but like I said, I think it is kind of helping turn the clock back and it's an overall rejuvenation. 

Cellular level. Yeah. Yeah. And then helps with hair growth. So we have here, we have a helmet that you can wear to help with thinning hair. It's not, it's not a, like a one hit wonder. You have to be very consistent. The Parkinson's patients, the one in particular that I watched sat with the lights on his head.

And for 20 minutes, twice a day for like months, but by the time they started to really see like their fine motor skills improving.  So  yeah, but it's, yeah, it's, it is so interesting. I find our one device does both IPL and the lights and the lights. portion of it seems to be the most popular.  We recommend with the body pads that you could come in if you're having a surgery, come in for a few sessions and then come back again as you're healing just to help speed everything up. 

But yeah,  we do have one. So the one that I was saying we have with the infrared is a mask and we purposely brought it in because It's rubbery. It has a lot, a lot of lights in it. You can put it right onto the skin. So it's very, very close to the surface of the skin. And has four different lights.

Green blue, red, and infrared. And you could put it anywhere because it's so flimsy. You could put it on your head. You could put it on over a shoulder. So it's very versatile. And for a  For our professional customers,  we can, they can have retail it to their clients for around 300. So  in comparison to what's on the market, it's really good quality, very versatile, and very competitive price. 

You can get glasses that you just put on and they have the light so if your main concern is your eye area, then  that's great. I think you can get them pretty inexpensive. I had watched a blogger, and she was saying that she would set her alarm 20 minutes early, put on her mask or lights, and then go back to sleep for 20 minutes, and then And I thought, oh, that, that would be a perfect way to be really consistent.

And so that's when we brought in the masks. I thought, okay, that, that will make it easy for people to use and use it quite often. And she had said that she wondered if her, her main followers that followed her all the time had noticed. And some of them commented and said that they wondered what she was doing, so, we had, we knew from our more expensive machine that it, it does work really well, but the little handheld ones are  fairly inexpensive and very effective, so. 

Are there any red flags? 

I got one in a  You know those subscription box things? I had gotten one,  And it was like a little, it looked like it just had kind of like a round top, and I would just have to hold it onto the skin. I really, obviously I'm not super consistent, but I really didn't think it was as effective as The bigger mask one that I have.

So are there red flags? Like I know we talked about number of lights in the distance, but what's a don't go there?  

I think that any, like, it's,  if you're not going to be consistent with it, like,  it's probably going to be a waste of money. , and then the ones that are really little and don't have very many lights, you have to hold it in one spot for three minutes and then move it around another three minutes and keep it moving and some people just don't have time to do that.

But I mean, if you have a problem area that you're just focusing on, it might, that might be convenient for you. I don't, I don't really think there's  really a downside to them.  

I think probably.  I would be a downside is the convenience, as you just said, when you have a mask and you can put it on your client or your client at home, you can maybe relax or carry on with something, right?

When you have to hold it, including the professional during a treatment, you have to physically hold it. So until you maybe financially can go a little bit higher and invest later on when you put some money away and maybe make your own personal payment plan towards it.  It's just about timing and convenience, because, like you said, the lights are there and they work, but you need to hold it in one spot.

And like you said, maybe the home care side of that is targeting the areas, right? Like the hyperpigmentation,  the acne, the scarring from whatever may have happened the, the wrinkles, for example, and, or they, every day they target one new spot, like it's all about direction and how you'll help your clients understand the best way, but as a professional Doing the service, I would say the inconvenience side of it is that during the mask, it's probably your best,  or potentially during I don't know if steam is a good idea, but while your peel is on and you're holding it just above with the peel, something like that, but when you're sitting for 10 minutes while a mask is being I mean, we don't want to leave our room anyway, so maybe that's the, the spot and the timing that they could bring this into their professional services for their clients as well. 

You saying that makes me think like, before you buy a machine, think of how you're going to incorporate it into your treatments. Maybe again, budget is a thing. Maybe you don't have, you would just do on the hands while they're masking, then you would need something smaller and then you would move up.

So maybe outlining how you're going to use it and then finding a machine that's going to fit how you want to use it and the budget that you have to use 

it. And then 

some of them have multi use so we have one that's a five in one so it has  some galvanic  ultrasonic  vibrating and things and so there's.

ones that are going to help with product penetration too, not just the lights that are doing it. So there are multi use ones. The only downsides to them would be  if you're epileptic or because it could, the, the lights and some of them, the flashing lights could bring on a seizure. So they're the only ones that aren't candidates.

And they, well, the ones, most of the ones we have are very bright. So some people find them uncomfortable unless you really, like, cover their eyes really well. And even the, this those tanning UV goggles don't, don't cover that well. There's usually light seeps in on the edge, so  you really have to cover.

And then the blue light isn't good for your eyes, so you're not going to want to Have your eyes open. You're going to want to cover the eyes if you're using the blue light.  

And that goes to the professional and  the 

client. The home user, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Some people watch TV and put on their masks. 

And the red light is okay. The blue light is not okay.  So, you 

know  Not that we want to take much more of your time, but it's kind of led me into something else that I know we focus on LEDs, but I think you the way you touched on this about even choosing equipment, whether it's handheld devices or whatever it may be.

There's, you know, how would you guide them into choosing? There's a lot of people starting out, or they're now, you know, financially able to add into and diversify their services and that. What are some tips you would give them on, on how to choose equipment in general? I don't know if that's too general of a question.

Or you have an answer for that? Well, how would you recommend or guide them 

through it? I think, I think you have to be wary of, are you going to get your money back, kind of thing. Like, what's it going to take for you to kind of make it worth your while. Like I said, with that little mask that we, that we have that has the four colors in it,  we're not, you're not adding time to your service because you can put it right over top of a mask, well, well, like a traditional mask while they're masking.

So you can incorporate it into the facial, but because you're giving them more technology, then you can also have it as an upsell. So time is money. So if you don't have to add to your time of your treatment, but you can add to the  price of your treatment that's going to help pay off that device a little faster and then  trying to get ones with lots of lights that go close to the skin so that they're effective because your clients might be using something that's less effective at home and they're not really seeing as much of the benefit from it as You'll see in the treatment room, like if they've flared up, if you've done like a mini peel or something on them and their skin's got quite flushed, you can put the blue or the red light right light on them, and it will  calm the skin down quicker than it normally would with just a traditional mask, so you can show them right in the treatment room.

Of how, how quickly, and I remember when I first was reading it was saying that  it's like your products are on steroids,  like it should help them penetrate deep, deeper, quicker, and so your serums, your masks, your, your concentrated products that are  meant to do something, whether it be calm or rejuvenate or whatever it is, the mask is going to increase, well the lights in general are going to increase the effects of that. 

So  yeah, and so, and, but the same is if you have a handheld device and they are masking, you can move the device around instead of having the mask on, but yeah, I would just, so many times I hear from accounts that they've invested a whole bunch of money in equipment and they are still struggling to try to figure out how to get it paid off to make it worth their while.

So,  with these, it's, they're fairly inexpensive way to really up your, what you're already doing for your clients, and then if you can  find something that's inexpensive enough to sell to your clients, then it's going to maintain the results that you've,  That you've done for them in the treatment room. 

Interesting, yeah. 

I like how you, you brought in the fact that, like, maybe think about how you would incorporate this into your services. And, you know, really talking about when you're going to do it. Like you said, this can be done during a mask.  And they're there anyways during the mask. Why not add this to the service?

Or, instead of an upsell,  Maybe this is part of your facial, and you have to, of course, raise your price because now you're incorporating in a device of whatever it is you choose, and like you said, it doesn't change the time of your service, it's just adding on to it, so, yeah. 

And because they aren't everywhere, like, anybody can just order one off of Amazon or whatever it may be,  so you just, you gotta think that if you're, if you're gonna add it to it, they, you know, you kind of want them to see. 

get the benefit of it right off the get go. So,  I think that's with everything. Sometimes in our market, things get overly saturated. Now you can buy little handheld,  um, microdermabrasion things. You can buy little handheld Laser hair.  Yeah, and all the things that they can do at home. So you have to think about how  it's going to be worth your while you're not trying to compete with those platforms.

And because the market is so saturated.  These huge investments for something that then they can buy at home, right? So  yeah, it has to be,  yeah. 

I think too, like you said, is the knowledge behind understanding your device and what it's doing and how different it is from the ones that maybe are being sold.

Online, typically the strength or the length or the whatever equipment that is, isn't going to be the same as a professional level. That's one thing. But like you said, it's a great add on a support on a retail aspect to your clients, but now they can maintain what you've been doing, whether it's an acne treatment, hyperpigmentation, scarring.

You know, after waxing for healing, like, there's so many factors with it that, that help, that can help your clients at home, and just making them understand that, but there's a time frame you need to be committed to, to do it, and then why not retail them at home. The device, because you know what, probably they're gonna be asking you, Hey, I bought this thing on Amazon, tell me more about it.

But you don't, you didn't sell it to them, so how are you gonna tell 'em what that device is? You don't know what that is. We  getting them something you know about. And then it's just like a product. No different than selling them a mask, you know? The product and how it should work and prescribing how to use it, you would do the same aspect of that device that you're selling to them as well, giving them the time management to it and a plan, a game plan, I guess you could say. 

And when you're using the devices and you can see the  benefit of it, it's  easier to relate that to a client than,  you know, so if you're  selling the device that you're using.  You're going to already know what the benefit is  if they're coming to you and asking you, Well, I saw this on wherever. What's it going to do for me?

Well, you don't really, you can't really, you know,  Yes, the lights are going to be good for you, but are they going to be effective enough? There's some that you can just screw in a light bulb and stand in front of it.  Like, I don't know when it's not that close to the skin, is it gonna, how much benefit is, it's not gonna hurt you, but how much benefit is it gonna actually do when 

it's, right. 

Yeah, I saw one the other day with some advertising this tower  and you lie down.  I was like, but you're like 10 feet away from it. Like, what is it doing? You know what I mean? Like, I think there's that side of it. Whereas you, the professional, the people that are listening is that really look at those things.

Like  observation I made, right? Like, wait a second. Wouldn't you have to be like up close to that when you understand the devices you have and how they're supposed to work.  Are they going to do the same aspect of wherever they're getting 

it from? There's a bed that you can buy. It's very expensive. And you lay it, you literally lay right on the lights. 

Yeah, I saw that too. Or there's some that are like at the, I think some of the tanning salons are kind of catching on that they need to pivot a little bit. It's  illegal in a lot of countries now. Tanning beds or rooms or whatever. So they've brought in some red light therapy. But again, it's, you're in closed quarters, it's much closer to you, I think you're going to see a lot more benefit from that than, you know, having a red light in the room with, in the same room as you, I just don't know  as much. 

But like I said, I don't think it's going to hurt you, it's still overall  good help.  

Well, on that note, I know that I've personally witnessed you help many, many people. Customers, clients,  , with this information and I think that's one of the aspects that you do a little bit differently with Beauty Cult.

You really do research your devices and that, and if you don't know about it, you say I'll get back to you, because it's almost like it intrigues you and you want to know more. 

I love that thing, I'm very interested in  what  all the things.  I didn't think I would be when I got into this industry, but I'm fascinated by ingredients.

I'm fascinated by all the clock turning back things that you can do.  

That'll be another episode. See, we're going to get her again on here.  Awesome.  Well, thanks, Tara, so much for joining us today. We will add the information on this episode if you want to contact Tara at any time. I know that she's a source of mass  information, so feel free to utilize that.

I do all the time. Thanks for joining us today. 

Thank you. 

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