Girls, what hair removal methods do you take advantage of?

If you were to ask me, I would say that it depends. For a very, very long time I hesitated between various solutions. I wasn’t completely sure which one would appear to be the best for me. Of course, in most cases I used to reach for a traditional razor because I always had one stored in a bathroom shelf. Removing my hair thanks to an epilator took me much time and, after a while, I became fed up with this ingrown hair. Wax was fairly expensive because I wasn’t able to use it myself, I had to visit a beauty parlour every time I wanted to remove my hair due to wax. Indeed, I experimented with many methods. Each of them has plenty of pluses as well as minuses.

Razor wins this battle for smooth legs to many women who are similar to me. The ones, who are exhausted with constant and frequent hair removal and worrying whether hair has managed to grow out, or not yet. The solution is closer than you think and I’m here to show you the answer to your hair removal problem!

A few weeks ago I came across an article concerning laser hair removal. I was greatly impressed with one thing: this is one such method that enables us to get rid of unwanted hair completely and FOR EVER. It’s a real marvel, isn’t it? And what would you say if I told you that there are home IPL epilators which have just become available fairly recently? This device fulfils my dream of smooth legs with no irritations, without ingrown hair, without the necessity of removing hair regularly, without any problem!

LASER HAIR REMOVAL

HOW DOES IPL EPILATOR WORK?

Laser hair removal procedure differs from other methods because its results can be described as long-lasting, even life-long. This is possible due to, so-called, selective photothermolysis. What does laser hair removal depends on? Behind this very term there is a simple procedure hidden during which hair follicles become deactivated due to laser impulses. Emitted by the device a beam of light is absorbed by melanin, a pigment located in a hair bulb, and transformed into thermal energy (therefore, you feel warmth while this procedure is being carried out). Thanks to this, we destroy hair bulbs and structures responsible for baby hair growth. As a consequence, hair stops growing out.

It may sound grimly. Destruction of hair bulbs might be associated with something painful. Is IPL laser hair removal harmful? No, it’s not as long as the power of laser is adjusted to the sensitivity level of our skin. All we may experience is slight discomfort and delicate stinging sensation, but this is the sign that laser is doing what it is supposed to do. What’s truly amazing, the light emitted by laser destroys only particular cells located in a follicle without injuring the rest of our skin. This is what selective photothermolysis is all about. Moreover, in order to work efficiently, IPL epilator needs melanin which, in most cases, is cumulated in great quantities in dark hair. In other words, the more of black pigment hair features, the better the results are. For that very reason, the effects of laser hair removal won’t be as stunning when targeting fair hair as when aiming dark hair. Whoop, whoop brown-haired women, hehe!

Until recently laser hair removal was available either at beauty parlour’s or aesthetic medicine clinics only. It took really long to develop a device which would emit laser in such a way not to pose danger to health; a device that could be used at home. Luckily, they succeed! Today, home devices for laser hair removal procedure are easy-accessible. We can buy them in almost any shop selling household appliances and the way such devices should be used is child’s play. Unfortunately, prices of IPL epilators aren’t low enough, at least at present, to make them suit every pocket. However, when compared to the cost of several sessions that have to be carried out at a beautician’s, when you would like to remove hair from a few body parts, purchasing IPL epilator seems to be an economic solution.

IPL epilator is a truly interesting device. The present-day’s tools for laser hair removal go in handy shapes and various sizes; more and more frequently they resemble regular electric epilators. Furthermore, home laser hair removal procedure always occupies rather a considerable amount of time, yet there is one, massive advantage connected with the method. Namely, once you carry out five sessions, you don’t need to do it any longer. How long does the procedure last? A single laser hair removal session of selected body part (e.g. entire legs) may occupy up to 2 hours. Of course, this varies accordingly to our skills and precision. It’s crucial to deliver a beam of laser to each hair follicle, therefore, the head of this device has to be put to each square centimetre of body. If we omit some skin parts, it may happen that hair will grow in particular areas whereas the other skin parts remain perfectly smooth. Surely, the effect of such ‘hairy’ chessboard created on our body isn’t what we were planning to obtain.

The procedure of laser hair removal carried out at home needs to be prepared properly. You can’t just take the device into your hands, direct the beam of light to your skin and wait for the effects to come. Before that, you should make sure that your skin isn’t irritated and this stands for resigning from solarium, sunbathing, application of cosmetics featuring retinol and pulling hair out (e.g. regular epilator, wax). On a day proceeding the use of IPL epilator, you should do two things:

• use a regular disposable razor to shave the hair you want to remove for good;
• apply delicate mechanical body scrub (e.g. sugar scrub).

What’s the purpose of doing that? Dead epidermis cells have to be removed and the hair has to be shaved so as to let the beam of light access hair bulbs easily. As mentioned above, IPL epilator targets hair follicles and bulbs therefore it is so crucial to make skin completely clean. As it is not hard to guess, you shouldn’t cover the skin with oils nor creams before the procedure. I suggest you to leave all conditioning cosmetics for later. Especially because it’s highly possible for skin to become irritated after the treatment. Hence, you need to moisturise it intensively afterwards.

There is yet another issue worth mentioning before you decide to get the device. You shouldn’t expect to obtain the looked-for effects after using IPL epilator only once; there is a series of procedures required. Namely, you can assume that your body will be freed from hair after carrying out 5-6 sessions. Each session has to be repeated every few weeks regularly. Indeed, you have to be patient, yet it’s worth this because after more or less 6 months, hair isn’t supposed to regrow ever again. It’s crucial to realize that laser emitted by the device affects only hair being at its anagen phase, so, in other words, the hair that is at its growth phase. In most cases, 70% of our entire body is covered with ‘active’ hair at a time, therefore this is how much hair can be removed during the first session. All hair follicles can become deactivated once entire series of treatments is undergone.

Before using IPL epilator for the first time, I suggest you to read the leaflet the device goes with. If you have any second thoughts whether to expose your skin to laser or not, it’s advised to consult a physician to discuss the issue with them.