Can IPL Turn Your Hair White? The Facts on Leukotrichia

Can IPL turn your hair white? You treated an area with intense pulsed light (IPL), and now a few hairs are coming through white. Worrying about that is reasonable. The medical literature does describe hair whitening after IPL, known as leukotrichia, but the evidence is limited and comes from professional treatment rather than at-home devices. This guide covers what leukotrichia means, what the research found and what to do if your hair colour changes

It has been reported. A 2002 clinical study of professional IPL hair removal documented leukotrichia in a group of patients, and a 2026 review of follicular depigmentation lists IPL among the procedures associated with it, citing that same study.

That is the limit of what the evidence supports. No one has established how often it happens across devices and treatment settings. A white hair that appears after a session does not prove the light caused it, because hair loses colour for many reasons. Findings from professional systems also cannot be read as the risk for an at-home device.

Leukotrichia is hair that has lost its melanin, the pigment that gives hair its colour, so it looks white. It can show up as single hairs or small patches, on the scalp, brows, beard or body.

The word describes what you can see, not why it happened. The 2026 review calls it a descriptive term rather than a diagnosis. Causes include inherited conditions, autoimmune and inflammatory conditions such as vitiligo and alopecia areata, certain medicines, and injury to the follicle from procedures including IPL and laser. Telling these apart takes a clinician, not a close look at the hair.

IPL light is absorbed by melanin and converted into heat, which is how it targets pigmented hair. Melanocytes, the follicle cells that make melanin, sit close to that heat.

The authors of the 2002 study proposed that this heat may impair the pigment-producing melanocytes without necessarily destroying the cells involved in hair growth. This remains a proposed explanation. The available evidence does not establish the mechanism in every reported case.

Radmanesh and colleagues, writing in Dermatologic Surgery in 2002, treated 821 patients for unwanted hair between February 2001 and February 2002. They used a professional non-coherent IPL system with a 650 nm filter, treating monthly with settings adjusted to skin type. Leukotrichia developed in 29 patients.

Thirteen of those 29 had no white or grey hairs before treatment. The other 16 had a few white hairs and reported that new ones appeared faster after the first or second session. Colour returned in nine patients. The other 20 had no improvement over the following two to six months.

Several limits apply:

• It tested one professional system, not a modern consumer device.

• Treatment settings and patients cannot be assumed to match home use.

• The report covers treated patients and offers no untreated comparison, so it cannot show how many would have developed white hairs anyway.

• 29 of 821 is not an incidence figure for IPL in general, and it cannot tell any individual their likelihood.

Leukotrichia after IPL is a documented possibility. Neither source gives a reliable risk figure for any specific at-home device, and the 29 in 821 should not be carried over to Ulike or any other consumer product. The available evidence does not establish how likely this outcome is with at-home IPL.

Whether hair colour returns depends on the underlying cause, and the available IPL evidence cannot predict the outcome for an individual. In the 2002 study, nine patients regained colour, while 20 had no improvement during the two-to-six-month follow-up. These results do not establish long-term outcomes. Nobody can promise that white hairs will darken, and nothing here shows that every case is permanent.