Ok so I just had a consultation today at Ideal Image in Dallas. I am interested in hair removal on my back, shoulders and upper arms. I was originally quoted $5,800 for this procedure package but I was able to get them down to $4,800 and I’m shooting to get them down even farther. According to my understanding this includes Ideal Image’s “Lifetime Guarantee” which includes a year of free touch-ups, and then $40 touch-ups after that (I’m skeptical about that). I am going to verify this is in writing. Is this $4,800 a good deal for back, shoulders and upper arms?
I must say I was impressed with the facilities. Very new, clean, modern. The staff seemed very knowledgeable but tried too hard to sell me. I felt a bit like I was at a car dealership. I wasn’t about to drop that kind of money without checking out other options. Speaking of the cost, they did offer a 18 month same as cash financing plan which is pretty nice.
I definitely got the feeling that they were good at what they do. They have over 60 locations nationwide with 5 in the Dallas area. I’m still scared though of spending that kind of cash and fearful of my experience becoming a horror story.
this place is known for high prices though they do have good lasers. however, in the past, people here have posted that they use very conservative settings at times. that might have changed, i don’t know.
i would do more research and sample more clinics. there are many in dallas. what you should be looking for is type of laser and experience of the actual person treating you. when it’s a large chain like this one, it may be hard to get the same person every time too, so ask.
how many treatments does that price include? spaced how far apart? it’s pretty high i must say. plus, i wouldn’t prepay for a package and try one treatment first at any place you choose and see if it does anything at all.
what type of skin and hair do you have on these areas. shoulders and upper arms are hard to treat.
I have light skin with black hair so I figured I was a pretty ideal candidate. The worst of the hair is on my back.
According to my understanding, the price includes 5-9 initial treatments (8 weeks apart i believe), a year of free touchups, and then discounted prices for touchups there after.
Good idea, I should look into getting an initial treatment before purchasing the entire package. The one thing that sold me was the cost of touchups in the future as some of the hair will most definitely grow back or new hair will grow with age/hormones.
As far as the settings go, I’m not sure. Perhaps it varies from location to location since they are independently owned. I will check out some other locations, any suggestions? I don’t really know of any others.
I’m a client at the Garland location and the package deal is as follows:
5 Treatments 10 weeks apart, followed by 4 treatments 12 weeks apart. After that you can get touch ups for life at a price of $1 per pulse, with a minimum of $40 and a maximum of 10% of your package price.
I went with Ideal Image because all of the Laser Techs were nurses and I felt safer having someone with some medical training doing the procedure. I have had 3 treatments so far and I’m very happy with the results.
My power levels were 14J, 16J and then 18J. The next one will be at 20J. I highly recommend Ideal Image.
I’m a competitor to Ideal Image, so of course I wouldn’t highly recommend them. But I am curious as to why you feel it is safer to have nurses doing the procedure? What is it about a nurse that makes them safer or better? Especially given that the ones who do the procedures haven’t been doing it that long and don’t have much experience, relatively speaking.
I use to only use nurses in the past but moved away from nurses for a variety of reasons. Just wanted to understand your reasons.
Also, did you check other places? And if so, what was it about them that you didn’t like as much as Ideal Image?
I contacted “Renaissance Laser”, “American Laser Centers”, “Smooth Solutions” (your company) and “Ideal Image” via email. “Smooth Solutions” wouldn’t answer my email questions, so didn’t pursue them any longer. (It is interesting that you are by far the most active vendor on this forum, but won’t use email directly with clients … the other vendors returned my emails within a few hours … I had already had consults with two of the others by the time you returned my first email.) “American Laser Centers” had a very bad rep here and after talking to someone who was very unhappy with them, I dropped them from consideration. This left “Renaissance Laser” and “Ideal Image”, after having consults with the two companies. I wasn’t as familiar with who had the best lasers at the time, but I did have more confidence in the laser techs at Ideal Image. As to why I think nurses are better, a nurses license at least tells me something about the person doing the work. I know that she has had medical training and in my opinion more likely to recognize problems if there are any.
In the end, Ideal Image matched the price that I was quoted by Renaissance and the fact that the laser techs were nurses clinched it. (Technically Ideal Image beat the price of Renaissance, since they were quoting 9 treatments instead of the 6 quoted by Renaissance.)
I just went a second consult at a dermatology center in Dallas. I was quoted $400 per 30 minutes of treatment for anywhere between 3-6 treatments with an Alexandrite laser. I was told that thereafter, prices would be significantly less as the treatment time would be less. This would come out $1200-2400 initially plus perhaps $100-200 touchups. I was recommended this center by my dermatologist. This price beats Ideal Image’s quote out of the water. The only thing is, how much is the “Lifetime membership” worth.
Saying that I went for 6 treatments, $2400. I could have 12-24 extra treatments before I could reach the price of Ideal Image. I’m still going to check out some others.
SlimJim, I would say verifying how long they’ve been in business to this point should help you figure out if you’ll be able to take advantage of any guarantees. I would also check out sslhr’s Smooth Solutions clinic to compare expertise and prices. I personally would prefer to have the option to get my unused treatments refunded if I decided that’s what I wanted, which is what they do.
Hi SlimJim,
Ideal Images prices are pretty high…and about the lifetime membership…even i was lied to by being told that apart from the 9 treatments there would be one year of free touch ups before the 40$ pricing kicks-in. I think this is not how it spells it out in the contract…I asked the lady twice if it is 1 yr after the entire sessions finish that I would have to pay $40…she said yes but and made me sign the contract…I did a mistake and signed it.
I spoke to the manager later and she gave a verbal yes but did not give me anythign in writing…I think they do try to oversell their average services…I have had 4 treatments so far…with ok results…but i am still pissed thaht i was lied to before signing the contract and they r not honouring it now.
I don’t know why no one responded to your email. Sorry to hear that. Did you leave a phone number to call back?
We did have a server die on Monday and we lost several days of data. Don’t know if that was the reason that no one checked back with you.
Sometimes I send emails to people but they don’t arrive at their end. Never know why they don’t get there. There are enough vagaries along the internet that I don’t personally consider email to be the best way to initially communicate with potential clients. I think in this particular profession most people want to talk to a real person. That’s how we use email. Potential clients can contact us by email, but I want my staff to call them back in person. Of course, sometimes we mess up. Which may be what happened here.
I wish you luck at Ideal Image. Check your consent form closely.
This all happened back in October. By the time I got the first email from Smooth Solutions, I had already had two consults and prices from Ideal Image and Renaissance Laser Center. I had asked if Smooth Solutions could be competitive with the prices that I got from those two companies. The response I got was: “At this time, we regret that we are unable to provide prices of our services via the internet or email.” It also said that they would be happy to discuss it with me if I came in for a 30 minute consult.
I didn’t want to take the time off from work for the consult, without knowing that they would at least be in the same ballpark as the other companies, so I decided to eliminate them as a candidate.
Based on what I have seen in these forums, it sounds like you run a great operation. If the tone of that email had been different, I probably would have had the consult with Smooth Solutions and maybe I would have choosen differently. (I did read my consent form closely by the way … are you implying anything here?)
Interesting, thanks for the feedback. We’ll have to think about what we write back to people. Unfortunately, my desire is not to explain our prices via email because it becomes difficult to explain the difference between how we price and our competitors price. I believe that if someone is thinking about paying thousands of dollars and putting their trust into someone to get them the results they want, they should be willing to at least come in for a free consultation to learn more. It is hard to explain much in an email. Somehow we aren’t conveying that information well enough.
For what it’s worth, we probably would not have matched their price. Unless Ideal Image has drastically changed their price structure in the last year, if you compare apples to apples we tend to be 30-40% less expensive and that is before any specials or discounts. For example, we currently have a special till the end of the month on men’s beards. At that special, nine treatments (which I think translates well to Ideal Image’s way of pricing packages) would cost about $1,000. Nine upper lips for a woman would be $257. This is of course assumes you buy a package, but we gladly return people money for unused treatments if they change their mind at any time or only need the normal 5-7 treatments . The point of all this for those of you reading this, you really need to check around and get consultations from many different places before deciding where to go. Many places gladly match another competitors prices because they know their prices are quite high and the price they are matching is still pretty high.
And as far as the consent form, unless it has changed in the last six months, there were a lot of clauses about not refunding money if you change your mind at any point for any reason and/or if you don’t follow their treatment schedule. Their consent form was several pages full of legalize in small type that pretty much limits any options you have down the line. Again, there is no reason for that approach. Our consent form is one page (two sides in big type) and has very little legalese.
I would like to see laser hair removal companies be more collaborative with their clients and get away from the selling time shares mentality.
I go to Ideal Image, and am happy with my treatments so far, but I do wish they started me at higher settings – I was very nervous about burning, so I let them keep the setting way too low.
As far as the contract - it is too long and they don’t explain it properly during the consultation. I was told that I could get my upper lip treated for touch-ups for $6, they didn’t say anything about the $40 minimum until I pointed to the contract.
The price is way too high, but you can get them down. Sign up for their e-mails and you can receive various promotions.
If I had it to do over again, I may have gone with another company, but I’m not sure. I want to have my legs done and I’m debating whether or not I should stick with Ideal Image - after all they haven’t burned me. =) – but they have overcharged and under-treated =(