Autumn is the best time to start a series — and how to tell your client

It happens every year: the phone rings most in April and May. A client wants her brows or a tattoo gone “before summer”. We then start at the hardest moment: the skin is already catching sun, two or perhaps three sessions fit before the holiday, and after each one we have to ask her to avoid the sun for a month, exactly when she most wants to enjoy it. Autumn turns this around, and it is worth being able to say so plainly.

The numbers are on our side. UV radiation has been measured in Belsk, near Warsaw, since the 1970s; according to the 2004–2023 averages (Czerwińska and colleagues, 2025), from November to February skin receives about 4.5% of the year's erythemal UV dose, and from May to August almost 68%. A day in June brings on average nearly 30 times more UV than a day in December. Winter is not “a little safer” — it is an entirely different setting for healing skin.

Why does this matter for a series? The German S2k guideline “Laser therapy of the skin” (2022), in the chapter that also covers decorative tattoos, advises sun protection after treatment — clothing or SPF 50+ — and 4 weeks of avoiding UV, sunbeds included. It also states plainly that the risk of adverse effects rises with skin pigmentation, and that tanned or dark skin (from phototype IV) should be treated cautiously because of the risk of hypopigmentation. According to the same guideline, permanent make-up removal is carried out largely the same way as tattoo removal.

Aftercare protection works if the client can actually keep to it. A 2025 systematic review (Mar and colleagues) found that, of the methods examined, only sunscreen consistently prevented post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation after laser procedures. The studies involved Asian skin and procedures other than pigment removal, so this is not a ready-made figure for the clinic — but the direction is clear: in winter, keeping to the advice is simply easier for the client.

Now the calendar. At an 8-week interval, a series started at the beginning of November gives four sessions before June: November, early January, late February and April. The same series started on 1 April fits two sessions before July, both in the months with the highest UV dose. With permanent make-up this is often the difference between a finished series and one interrupted by summer: in a review of 76 eyeliner and eyebrow removals (Kream and colleagues, 2023), an average of 2.8 treatments was needed, ranging from 1 to 12. With tattoos, where the clinical review by Ho and Goh speaks of 7–10 treatments, an autumn start means a solid part of the series is done before the sun arrives.

Winter is not only a cloudy city. Mountain holidays and skiing mean plenty of sun, and snow reflects radiation on top of that. The guideline advises asking, before treatment, about a tendency to hyperpigmentation, about work outdoors and about holiday plans. Those three questions set the session date better than any calendar rule: a session just before a ski trip is the same problem as a session before a beach holiday.

How do you tell the client? Not as a promotion, and not by frightening her about the sun. Show her a sheet with the dates instead: “If we start in November, we will do four sessions by May, and after each one it will be easier for you to avoid the sun. If we start in April, we will manage two before summer and you will need to protect your skin for the rest of it.” She sees the difference herself, and we do not have to promise anything.

Finally, we record what we agreed: the planned dates, the interval, the sun advice, any known trips, and that the client accepted them. It is the same record we wrote about in week 4. If the client starts in spring anyway, that is fine too — the plan then assumes a summer break and strict protection from the outset, rather than a rush before the holiday.