LED Masks and PureLift GLOW, What Each One Actually Delivers

Two figures, and why brands usually give you one

Light therapy has two numbers that matter.

Irradiance is how hard the light arrives, measured in milliwatts per square centimetre, and dose is how much light lands over the whole session, measured in joules per square centimetre.

Dose is irradiance multiplied by time, so a device at 30 mW/cm² running for ten minutes delivers about 18 J/cm².

Almost every brand in this category publishes wavelengths and LED counts, because both sound impressive and neither tells you how much light reaches your skin.

Omnilux publishes roughly 30 mW/cm² for the Contour Face at $395, alongside 633 nm and 830 nm and 132 LEDs, which puts it among the more transparent names in the category.

CurrentBody publishes six wavelengths and 750 LED bulbs for the Series 2 mask at $569.99, with no irradiance figure, no dose figure, no clearance number and no country of manufacture on the product page.

Neither brand publishes the distance the figure was measured at, which matters, because light falls away quickly with distance and a mask that sits proud of the cheek is not delivering what a mask in contact delivers.

What PureLift GLOW publishes, including the part that does not flatter us

GLOW runs red light at 634 nm and blue light at 465 nm, and publishes 1.13 W/m² of irradiance with 678 J/m² delivered over a ten-minute session.

Converted into the units the mask brands use, 1.13 W/m² is 0.113 mW/cm² and 678 J/m² is 0.068 J/cm².

Set that next to a mask at roughly 30 mW/cm², and the mask is delivering far more light per square centimetre of skin, over far more of your face at once.

We could leave the conversion out and let the bigger-looking numbers do the work, since 678 reads heavier than 18, and the whole point of publishing a figure is that someone can check it.

So here is the honest position: if the only thing you want is the largest possible dose of red light across your whole face, buy a well-specified mask, not GLOW.

What we will claim, and will hold to, is that GLOW is the only device in this category publishing a delivered dose on its own product page, and the only one putting light into the same ten minutes as a muscle-contracting current.

That distinction matters, because Shark's CryoGlow does publish irradiance and dose, at 128 mW/cm2 total and up to 431 J/cm2, in its FDA filing under K242796, with none of it on the page where you buy the mask.

What light does, and what it does not do

Red light around 630 nm is absorbed in the skin and has been studied for fine lines and texture, with Lee and colleagues running a split-face trial worth reading before buying anything light-based (PMID 17566756).

Blue light around 465 nm is studied for acne-causing bacteria rather than for firmness, which is why GLOW carries it as a separate setting rather than blending it into one mode.

Light works at skin level, on cells, and none of it reaches the muscle underneath in a way that makes the muscle do anything.

The layer that holds your face up is muscle, and muscle changes when it is asked to work, which is a current-level question rather than a light-level one.

Kavanagh and colleagues measured an 18.6 percent increase in cheek muscle thickness in 108 women over twelve weeks of motor-level stimulation (10.1111/jocd.12007), and there is no equivalent measurement for any LED mask, because no mask is attempting that job.

Where the mask wins

Coverage is the mask's real advantage, since it treats the forehead, both cheeks, the nose and the chin at once while you do nothing.

Ten minutes of hands-free treatment is an easier habit to keep than ten minutes of holding a probe, and the treatment you actually do beats the one you skip.

If your concern is texture, tone and early fine lines, and sagging is not yet the issue, a mask is a reasonable first device and a cheaper one.

Where GLOW wins

GLOW carries nine technologies on one dial: Infusion, iontophoresis, nanocurrent, microcurrent, EMS, PDM, PDM++, blue light at 465 nm and red light at 634 nm.

Levels 1 and 2 are nanocurrent and microcurrent, from level 3 the current crosses the motor threshold and the muscle contracts, and GLOW reaches 9 mA with the diamond-faceted probe and PDM++ underneath.

The light arrives in contact with the skin, on the exact area being worked, rather than across a gap, and it arrives during the same session rather than as a second appointment with yourself.

GLOW is cleared under FDA record K243587, made in Japan in an ISO 13485 facility, and works with any water-based serum rather than a branded gel.

At $999 it is the most expensive device we make, and it is the only one where light and muscle work sit in the same ten minutes.

Owning both

Buying both is not redundant, because they are doing different jobs, and the sequence matters.

Use GLOW first on clean skin with a water-based serum, three minutes per side and no longer, then the Infuse pass.

Put the mask on afterwards, on skin that has just had circulation brought to it, and let the mask do the whole-face light dose.

Ten minutes plus ten minutes, three to five times a week, is a realistic routine that most people can actually keep.

Which to buy

Buy an LED mask if texture and tone are the concern, if hands-free matters to you, and if you want the largest light dose for the money.

Buy PureLift GLOW if the lower face has started to drop, if you want the muscle layer worked as well as the skin, and if you want a published output figure and a clearance number you can look up.

Buy both if the budget allows, and run GLOW first.

This comparison sits inside our full map of the category, where we set out all 33 devices we track, what each one carries and what each brand publishes: Nine Technologies on One Dial, What the Rest of the Market Actually Carries.

Prices and competitor specifications verified on 17 September 2026 against each manufacturer's own product page.