At-home beauty devices are sold on a simple promise: buy once, stop paying the salon. This index tests that promise with arithmetic. It takes every device we have reviewed, prices it on one day, and divides by a fixed number of sessions, so you see the cost of an actual treatment, which the sticker price hides.
The headline: at-home IPL does not beat the salon in year one. Spread over twelve sessions, the four IPL devices priced here cost £28.33 to £51.05 a treatment. The NHS puts a course of salon laser at £40 to £400 for four to six sessions, which works out at £6.67 to £100 each. The cheapest device sits inside the salon range, not under it. What changes the sum is year two, when the device costs nothing more and the salon bills you again.
Prices and specs last checked by Look Into on 11 October 2026 · next check 6 December 2026 · how we picked
IPL hair removal devices
Priced on 11 October 2026. The Ulike Air 3 was listed as currently unavailable that day, so it has no price this edition. Year-one cost per session divides the price by twelve treatments; the three-year column assumes the device keeps working and you keep using it at the same rate, with nothing further to pay.
| Device | Per session, year 1 | Per session over 3 years | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ulike Air 3 | Not priced | Not priced | Amazon → |
| Philips Lumea 9900 Series | £28.33 | £9.44 | Amazon → |
| Braun Silk-expert Pro 5 | £28.75 | £9.58 | Amazon → |
| Ulike Air 10 | £30.83 | £10.28 | Amazon → |
| Braun Smart IPL Skin i-Expert | £51.05 | £17.02 | Amazon → |
Read the last two columns together. In year one nothing here is obviously cheaper than a mid-priced salon course. By year three every priced device on the list has fallen to £9.44 to £17.02 a session, below the salon's own midpoint. At-home IPL is a bet on still using the thing in three years.
LED face masks
Masks are a different economic shape because you use them far more often. This index's standard is three ten-minute sessions a week, or 156 in a year.
| Device | Per session, year 1 | Per session over 3 years | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revolution Pro Miracle | £0.29 | £0.10 | Amazon → |
| Nanoleaf Light Therapy | £0.61 | £0.20 | Amazon → |
| INIA Red Light | £0.64 | £0.21 | Amazon → |
| WAVLO Apollo SG | £1.26 | £0.42 | Amazon → |
| Shark CryoGlow | £1.92 | £0.64 | Amazon → |
Every mask here costs under £2 a session in its first year, and the cheapest is 29p. The frequency does the work: a £299.99 mask used three times a week (£1.92 a session) is better value per use than a £339.99 IPL device used monthly (£28.33). The dearest IPL device in this index costs roughly 177 times more per session in year one than the cheapest mask.
The catch nobody prints on the box
The NHS states plainly that the results of laser hair removal are not permanent. They last from weeks to months, and regular sessions are needed to achieve and maintain the effect. Every "permanent hair removal" claim in this category is running against that. It also means the honest way to price an IPL device is as an ongoing commitment, which is exactly what the three-year column above is doing.
The same caution applies to the numbers here in the other direction. A device only reaches its three-year cost per session if it lasts three years and you keep using it. Abandoned in a drawer after four treatments, a £612.55 device costs £153.14 a session.
Method
Prices are the buy-box price on amazon.co.uk read through Amazon's Creators API on 11 October 2026, read from each product page (the first edition used the Creators API on 30 August 2026), for the exact devices reviewed in our LED face mask and IPL guides. Two devices from those guides were excluded from the first edition because they had no price on capture day, and the Ulike Air 3 had no price on 11 October.
The session counts are our standard, not a manufacturer claim: twelve treatments a year for IPL and three ten-minute sessions a week for LED masks. They are held constant across every device so the comparison is like for like. Manufacturer schedules vary, and the treatment counts a brand quotes for its own device are not used here.
Salon figures are the NHS published range, not our survey. The NHS gives £40 to £400 for a course and says four to six sessions are typically recommended; the per-session figures in this index are that range divided by that session count.
Changes
Second edition, 11 October 2026. Every price was re-read. IPL: Ulike Air 3 £179.96 to unavailable; Ulike Air 10 £269.98 to £369.99; Braun Silk-expert Pro 5 £344.99 to £344.98; Braun Smart IPL Skin i-Expert £544.99 to £612.55; Philips Lumea 9900 £599.97 to £339.99. LED: Revolution Pro Miracle £40.00 to £44.99; INIA £84.99 to £99.99; Nanoleaf £126.00 to £94.99; WAVLO Apollo SG £249.95 to £195.99; Shark CryoGlow £254.00 to £299.99. The cheapest IPL cost per session in year one rose from £15.00 to £28.33, mainly because the Ulike Air 3 went out of stock. The headline finding is unchanged: no device beats the salon range in year one.
The data
Free to reuse with credit.
Show the 2026 index as CSV
category,device,asin,price_gbp,cost_per_session_year1,cost_per_session_3yr,captured IPL hair removal,"Ulike Air 3",B0DTP4STZM,,,,2026-10-11 IPL hair removal,"Philips Lumea 9900 Series",B0DGXNP9ZH,339.99,28.33,9.44,2026-10-11 IPL hair removal,"Braun Silk-expert Pro 5",B0FZW3WWRR,344.98,28.75,9.58,2026-10-11 IPL hair removal,"Ulike Air 10",B0DV5C846F,369.99,30.83,10.28,2026-10-11 IPL hair removal,"Braun Smart IPL Skin i-Expert",B0FZW6XBWH,612.55,51.05,17.02,2026-10-11 LED face mask,"Revolution Pro Miracle",B0FN4CV6QW,44.99,0.29,0.10,2026-10-11 LED face mask,"Nanoleaf Light Therapy",B0DQSK8Y52,94.99,0.61,0.20,2026-10-11 LED face mask,"INIA Red Light",B0F18BBHCC,99.99,0.64,0.21,2026-10-11 LED face mask,"WAVLO Apollo SG",B0G64VLW7V,195.99,1.26,0.42,2026-10-11 LED face mask,"Shark CryoGlow",B0DFWZQ1TQ,299.99,1.92,0.64,2026-10-11
Questions people ask
Is at-home IPL cheaper than salon laser hair removal?
Not in the first year. Spread over 12 sessions, the devices in this index work out at £28.33 to £51.05 a session. The NHS puts a salon course at £40 to £400 for four to six sessions, which is £6.67 to £100 a session. The cheapest at-home device sits inside that range, above its bottom end. The saving arrives in year two, when the device costs nothing more to use and the salon charges again.
How much does an LED face mask cost per use?
Between 29p and £1.92 a session in the first year, using this index's standard of three ten-minute sessions a week. Masks are used far more often than IPL devices, so even a £299.99 mask lands under £2 a session.
Does laser or IPL hair removal last forever?
No. The NHS is explicit that the results of laser hair removal are not permanent: they last from weeks to months, and regular sessions are needed to keep them up. That applies to the maintenance schedule these devices are sold on, and it is the single biggest thing missing from most at-home device marketing.
Which is better value, an LED mask or an IPL device?
They are not substitutes, they do different jobs. On cost per use the gap is enormous: the dearest IPL device in this index costs about 177 times more per session in year one than the cheapest LED mask, because you use a mask roughly thirteen times as often.
Where to go next
For the reviews behind these prices: our LED face mask guide and our IPL device guide. For what a comparable saving looks like elsewhere in the house, see the UK Running Cost Index.
Other Look Into indexes
Each of these is built the same way: a fixed basket or a fixed set of claims, captured on a stated date, with the method published and the raw data on the page.
- UK Student Kit Index 2026, a fixed 20-item basket priced against the maintenance loan.
- UK Home Security Value Index 2026, hardware priced against how burglars actually get in.
- UK Bottle Insulation Claims Audit 2026, what five brands claim, and which test conditions they state.
Sources
Salon costs, session counts and the permanence caveat: NHS, Laser hair removal (read 30 August 2026; the NHS has since withdrawn the page, which returned "page not found" on 11 October 2026, so the salon range below has not been re-checked). Device prices: Amazon UK product pages, 11 October 2026 (first edition: Amazon Creators API, 30 August 2026). The Amazon links here are affiliate links and we may earn a commission; every figure in this index is arithmetic on the captured price, and the devices were chosen before their prices were seen.