Red Light Therapy Beds: Do They Tan You, and Are They Worth It?
A red light therapy bed is a lie-down bed or stand-up booth that lights your whole body with red, and often near-infrared, light for somewhere between 10 and 30 minutes. It will not tan you. A tan is the skin's response to ultraviolet light, and red and near-infrared light contain none. The catch is that some salons sell "red light tanning beds" that mix red tubes with UV tanning tubes, and those carry every risk of an ordinary sunbed. On the evidence side, one controlled trial of red tube beds found smoother skin and denser collagen after 30 sessions, and a placebo-controlled trial of an LED bed found less pain in fibromyalgia. Sessions cost roughly $25 to $200 each. A half-body panel at home lights one area at a time, but far more brightly, and it is there every day. This article covers what the beds are, what they do and do not do, what they cost, and how a panel compares.
What is a red light therapy bed?
A bed or booth fitted with red lamps or LEDs that light the whole body at once. They come in three kinds, and the difference matters.
| Type | Light | Tans you? | Where you find it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red tube bed or booth, often sold as a "collagen" bed | Red fluorescent or gas-discharge tubes, mostly around 610 to 650 nm | No | Tanning salons, gyms |
| LED bed | Red LEDs, usually around 660 nm, with near-infrared around 850 nm | No | Wellness studios, clinics, sports facilities |
| Hybrid "red light tanning bed" | Red tubes mixed with UV tanning tubes | Yes, from the UV | Tanning salons |
A common gym version is the stand-up red booth at Planet Fitness, which we cover in Planet Fitness Total Body Enhancement vs a red light panel at home. Before you book anything called a red light bed, ask one question: are there UV tubes in it?
Does red light therapy tan you?
No. Tanning is driven by ultraviolet light, and a controlled study found that 630 nm red light did not darken skin at all.
A review in Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences sets out what each part of sunlight does: UVB and UVA produce a tan, while infrared produces redness that is "probably a thermal effect", in other words warmth, not pigment. Review. A 2014 study tested visible light directly on volunteers with skin types III and IV: violet-blue light at 415 nm darkened the skin, with pigment lasting up to three months, but "the 630 nm did not induce hyperpigmentation". Study. A 2023 review of the lab and human work went further and found that 630 to 660 nm red light, if anything, damped down the skin's pigment-making machinery. Review.
So the pink glow some people see after a session is warmth and blood flow, and it soon fades. If you get a tan from a "red light" bed, it came from UV tubes in the same bed.
One related point: violet and blue light can darken medium and darker skin. Kivorla devices have a blue channel (460 nm on the mask, 480 nm on the panel). If you are prone to dark patches, leave the blue off and use red and near-infrared only; blue light therapy explains what the blue is for.
Are red light tanning beds safe?
A bed with red light only is low risk for most people. A hybrid bed with UV tubes is a sunbed, with a sunbed's risks.
The World Health Organization's cancer agency placed UV tanning devices in its highest category, Group 1, "carcinogenic to humans", in 2009. IARC. The American Academy of Dermatology says indoor tanning can more than double the risk of melanoma and that there is no such thing as a safe tanning bed. AAD. The NHS adds that sunbeds can be more dangerous than natural sunlight, and they are illegal for under-18s in the UK. NHS.
Adding red tubes does not change that. Speaking about hybrid beds, a dermatologist told Refinery29 they "carry all the same risks as traditional tanning beds", while red light without UV is generally considered safe. Refinery29. UV also breaks down collagen, so a bed that gives you both is working against itself.
What are the benefits of a red light therapy bed?
The clearest bed results so far are for skin and pain, with an early study on sleep. All of them are small.
| Study | Bed and schedule | What they found |
|---|---|---|
| Wunsch 2014, 136 volunteers, randomised with untreated controls | Red tube beds and booths, 611 to 650 nm, about 9 J/cm² per session, twice a week for 30 sessions | Better skin complexion and higher collagen density on ultrasound; doctors rating photos blind saw fewer wrinkles in 69% of the red group against 4% of controls |
| Navarro-Ledesma 2024, 42 women with fibromyalgia, triple-blind with a placebo bed | LED bed, 660 and 850 nm, 20 minutes three times a week for 4 weeks | Pain and quality of life better than placebo, and the pain difference still there at 6 months |
| Fitzmaurice 2023, 21 people with fibromyalgia, no control group | The same type of LED bed, 18 sessions | Fibromyalgia impact score fell from 79.7 to 55.3; pain from about 7 to about 4 out of 10 |
| Zhao 2012, 20 basketball players, light against no light | Whole-body 658 nm red, 30 minutes nightly for 14 days | Better sleep quality scores and higher melatonin in the blood |
Sources: Wunsch, Navarro-Ledesma, Fitzmaurice, Zhao. The skin trial is the one with the longest run, and it took 30 sessions over about four months to get its result. We found no bed trials on weight loss or detox. For sleep, see red light therapy for sleep, which covers why timing matters more than the device.
How long and how often should you use a red light bed?
The skin and pain trials used 12 to 25 minutes a session, two or three times a week, for one to four months. Follow the bed's own timer and the studio's limits.
The skin trial ran 12 to 25 minutes depending on the unit, twice a week. The fibromyalgia trials ran 20 minutes three times a week. Count sessions rather than weeks: 30 sessions is where the skin trial measured its result. One finding from the 2023 fibromyalgia study is worth knowing before you buy a package. Only half the participants managed to keep to three visits a week, and ten of them needed seven to nine weeks to fit in 18 sessions. Getting to a bed is often the hard part.
Wear the goggles the studio provides; the lamps are bright. If you take medication that warns about light sensitivity, ask your pharmacist first, since some of these drugs react to visible light as well as UV. DermNet.
How much does a red light therapy bed cost?
Usually $25 to $200 a session in the US, depending on the studio and the bed. Buying one is commercial-equipment money.
Brown University Health puts sessions at $25 to $200 and notes insurance rarely covers them. Brown Health. One writer paid $150 for 30 minutes in an LED bed at a longevity clinic. Yahoo Life. At twice a week, the 30 sessions of the skin trial come to somewhere between $750 and $6,000. Full-body beds for sale are built for studios, and a high-end chamber has been reported at around $160,000. Mashable. In the UK, one council leisure centre group charges £15 for a 15-minute session in a red light bed, and less for members. One Leisure. Ask for the per-session price and the bed's wavelengths before you book.
Red light bed or a panel at home?
A bed covers the whole body with a modest amount of light. A half-body panel covers one area at a time with much more light, and you can use it on your own schedule.
| Red light bed | Kivorla 9-Spectrum panel | |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | Whole body at once, front or front and back | One area per session, about 25 by 9 inches |
| Light | Red tubes, or red and near-infrared LEDs | Nine wavelengths from 480 to 1060 nm, each dimmable from 1 to 100% |
| How bright | About 6 to 28 mW/cm² in the trials above | At least 156.7 mW/cm² at 6 inches in total (red at least 15, near-infrared at least 120) |
| Session | Set by the studio, often 12 to 30 minutes | 1 to 30 minutes; stops after 5 if you do not set a time |
| Cost | Per session, every time | Once |
A worked example. The red tube beds in the 2014 skin trial gave about 9 J/cm² of red light per session. The panel's red channels alone, at their minimum rated output at 6 inches, deliver that in about ten minutes, with near-infrared on top. More light is not automatically better, though: in light therapy the dose has a sweet spot, which is why the panel has a timer and the manual sets limits. What the panel cannot do is light your whole body in one go. For that you treat areas in turn.
How do you get full-body red light at home?
Treat one area at a time, front then back, keeping within the manual's limits. You do not have to do everything; pick the areas you care about.
- Hang or stand the panel so the area you want is level with it. It hangs on a door or wall with the supplied hardware; how to set up a red light panel at home covers heights for each area.
- Choose the distance. About 6 inches for a joint or a small area, about 12 inches to spread the light across a broad area such as the back or thighs.
- Run 10 to 15 minutes per area. Turn round for the other side. The manual asks for at least 6 hours between 30-minute sessions.
- Goggles on whenever you face the panel. They come in the box.
- Bare skin. Clothing blocks light, as it does in a bed.
If you find you want more of your body lit at once, panels can be linked and run together. Half-body or full-body panel sets out when that is worth it.
What should you check before booking a red light bed near you?
Whether it has UV tubes, what wavelengths it uses, and what you are paying per session.
- UV or not. If the bed tans, it has UV. Walk away if what you want is red light.
- Wavelengths. Red only, or red with near-infrared. Near-infrared reaches deeper than red; 660 nm vs 850 nm explains the difference.
- Eye protection offered with every session.
- Price for a course, not one visit, since results in the trials came after many sessions.
- Your medicines and health. Kivorla's own precautions list pregnancy, epilepsy, a thyroid condition or thyroid medication, light-sensitising medication and broken skin; ask the studio about theirs. See is red light therapy safe.
Kivorla at home
A half-body panel for the body and a cordless mask for the face, both with red and near-infrared light and a timer that ends the session.
The 9-Spectrum Red Light Therapy Panel is a 240 W half-body panel with nine wavelengths, each dimmed on its own, so you can run red and near-infrared with the blue turned down to 1%. The timer runs from 1 to 30 minutes, the surface stays at or below 40°C, and goggles are included. The panel is not suitable for skin types V and VI. For the face only, the cordless 4-Wavelength Red Light Therapy Mask runs 665 nm red with 850 and 1064 nm near-infrared in its first mode.
Read the precautions before ordering, since returns are accepted within 30 days, less a 10% restocking fee if the device is unopened with its seals intact, or 20% if it is opened but undamaged and complete. Standard shipping to the US, UK and Germany is free.
Kivorla devices are general wellness devices, not medical devices, and do not tan the skin. If you have a skin condition or take medication that makes you sensitive to light, speak to a doctor before using any light device.