I've been debating buying either the Dermalux or Beauty Skin acne lightbox for a while as I had a course of 3 N-Lite sessions a couple of years ago which gave me great skin for about 7 months but then the acne came back and as I can't afford more N-Lite I decided I'd try an acne box - so have done a bit of investigating and thought my info may be of use to anyone trying to decide between the two:

I emailed Dr Tony Chu, who did the original research at Hammersmith hospital using blue/red light in 2000, asking which box came the closest to the one they used and whether he thought the red light spectrum of the Beauty Skin box being 580nm-659nm would be adequate as in his studies it stated that the red light had peaked at 660nm, he replied:

"The unit we used was the one now marketed by Dermalux. Do not really think the slight difference in the red light will make any difference and I have had patients who have used the Beauty Skin box with good effect.

Good luck with treatment

Tony Chu"

I also emailed the people at Beauty Skin with a couple of queries:

Some sites state that the units come from Germany and that shipping costs in case of repair will not be borne by them so was a bit worried about the costs in case something goes wrong - they replied that they have an office in the UK in case of repairs

I mentioned that some users had noted on these healthboards a while back that the timers seemed slightly inaccurate and their boxes appeared to have a manufacture date of August 2004, how new were the ones they currently had in stock - they replied that their stocks from the manufacturers are less than 3 weeks old though they cannot give an exact date of manufacture as they are resellers but they have never had any returned with faulty timers and they have sold thousands of the units in the past 18 months

I asked what the effective radiating area of the Beauty Skin box is (the Dermalux is stated as 520sq cm on their website) - they replied that they do not have a figure for that but the strength of all light lessens as you get further away, you normally sit around arms length away

I asked what the cost of the starters was as the manual (available by PDF download on their website) stated that these should be replaced when replacing the tubes but were not for sale on their website - they replied that they are standard items that can be bought for less than a A1 in any high st store so they don't sell them on their website

I asked (before I'd heard back from Dr Chu who actually confirmed as above that the Dermalux - though at that time it was the 4 tube version - was the unit used in his research) how closely was the Beauty Skin box based on the unit used in the original research done by Dr Chu as quoted on their website - they said that the Beauty Skin is as close as you can get to the study produced at Hammersmith. They said they were not saying that this was the identical unit as used

in Hammersmith and that in fact they did not know what units were used in that

research. Maybe they did know but didn't want to tell me!

And finally (sorry, I asked, they said, this post is turning into Family Fortunes!) I questioned whether the red light spectrum on the Beauty Skin was adequate with a range of 580nm-659nm as the original research had stated a peak at 660nm - they replied that the wavelengths are not a 100% critical reading, the red light is emitted within a range and the area most research points to for healing is actually around the 630nm mark. They said this area is still being pioneered and no-one can tell you 100% that 660nm is the ideal, 620nm is no good etc.

So that's it, it does seem to be much of a muchness and though I actually prefer the look of the Beauty Skin ( yes I know it's stupid but I was imagining which would look better in my bedroom!) I think I'll probably go for the Dermalux as that was the original unit used in the study.

Sorry for the long post but thought it may be of use if anyone has had any of the queries above as I did when deciding which unit to get.

ps. to anyone with a Dermalux, just interested in what bulbs are used in the box - the research stated they used HF 885 Osram Sylvania, Brussels, Belgium 15W lamps. Are these the ones still used in the Dermalux unit?