I received my Tria 4X hair removal laser the other day. It has the look and feel of a quality instrument. I decided to cough up the $450 to buy it because of the difficulty I'm experiencing using an epilator.
First, the epilator works fine at pulling hairs out by the roots, but afterward, my skin swells up, forming red bumps that itch like crazy. The only relief I get is putting an ice pack on the epilated areas. The itching is particularly intense in the evening and while I'm trying to sleep. I figured it was just a matter of my skin getting used to this hair removal method, but it wasn't letting up.
I used the Tria 4x on a section of my right thigh yesterday, and epilated a section on the left. Last night the itchy occurred on the epilated leg, but not on the lasered leg. That's encouraging.
As to the pain from using the laser, it didn't bother me a bit, even at the highest fluence level (5). My wife, however, found it very painful at level 4. I think it scared her off. It depends on where on the body it's used and your individual tolerance for pain. Evidently, my pain threshold is rather high.
It's going to take months to evaluate the Tria's effectiveness in ridding my body of hair, and, of course, it's not permanent hair removal. Hair will eventually grow back, particularly if you're soaked in DHT. LOL!
It's time consuming to treat an area because you have to pulse the laser 25 times to cover just 1 sq. in. of skin. It's quite easy to use, but I need to come up with a system to keep track of skin already treated. I couldn't tell that an area had been treated by, say, skin redness or anything, however when I treated an area twice it left what looks like sunburned skin.
The treatment seems to be working because, on the shaved areas that I treated, hairs are not spouting up like in the untreated adjacent shaved areas. Hair growth is halted by heating up of the hair shaft and killing of the papilla where hair growth originates. That burning of the hair shaft is where the 'stinging' sensation comes from. You can feel it under the skin, like a tiny needle going in.
A hair has to be in its growth phase (anagen) for the laser to be effective in killing the hair root, so laser treatments have to be repeated every two weeks for months to get rid of all the hair. Even then, hair will grow back, but it won't be as much.
As I learn more about home LHR (laser hair removal) process, I'll report back. So far, I'm hopeful about the ultimate goal of reducing my body hair. Time will tell.
Clara