Well done. Next project DIY IPL for those hair bears amongst us?
A fun related story about how even nominally professionals need adult oversight when working with high powered lasers.
And thought, Hey, that wasn't very smart! And Wow! I am (temporarily) blind.
It wasn't an eye-threat-level laser. Thankfully. Which is why one wears bandgap glasses when working with those: it's SO easy to mess up!
I'm kinda curious what was sum of the damage in the end.
There's a small burnt patch on my fovea, so if I look at something like a regular grid (e.g. a page with text) with the damaged eye, the grid becomes warped at the point of focus. And I found out about that only when I was doing a regular planned eye exam (I was wearing corrective glasses).
This type of damage is extremely common with lasers, and it can stay invisible and compound until the brain runs out of its ability to do fixes in post-processing.
I don't remember ever doing that without protective glasses, but evidently I did at some point.