Well, let me add my experience to date, which isn't all that much. I've got a fair amount of course hair on my chest, belly, thighs, and all the normal places (none on my back, thank god). I hate body hair, so I started epilating about 3 months ago. It hurt mightily the first time, but once a hair is yanked out of a follicle, it's easier to do it the next time and with much less pain.
My problem with epilating is that I have a tendency to develop ingrown hairs. An ingrown hair is a hair shaft that doesn't penetrate the top layer of dead skin cells. It gets trapped in the epidermis and causes irritation, redness, and even a small infected 'pimple'. They itch like hell, especially at bedtime for some reason.
To minimize ingrown hairs, I have to exfoliate my skin. That means removing the top most layer of dead skin cells. I have to scrub my skin vigorously with a bath scrubby or loofah bath sponge until my skin turns a pinkish red. Even at that I get several ingrown hairs. Maddening!
So, not being totally happy with epilating, and not wanting to shave daily to remove stubble, I decided to try laser hair removal (LHR). Many have found that LHR will reduce the amount of body and facial hair significantly over several months time. I can't use laser on my face because the hairs are gray. They must be brown or black and your skin must be on the fair side.
There are two ways to do LHR: 1) Commercial laser spa/clinic or 2) DIY home laser. Because of the high cost of option 1, I decided to try option 2 first.
After researching all the units sold for home use, I chose the Tria 4X. It uses diode laser technology instead of the IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) technology of most home units. IPL devices basically use a strong light pulse from a bulb to heat the hair shaft. The bulbs have to be replaced after several hundred pulses at about $20 a pop. The Tria 4X costs $449, which is supposed to give you 90,000 pulses before the unit is useless. There are no replaceable parts in the 4X. Sounds like an expensive way to go, but compared to laser clinic fees, it's a bargain if your willing and able to do the hair zapping procedure yourself.
I plan to treat one leg with the Tria, and continue using the epilator on the other leg for 6 months. I'll find out which method is most effective as measured by:
1) Amount of hair reduction in 6 months
2) Occurrence of ingrown hairs
3) Frequency of treatment (laser every two weeks with shaving in between).
4) Total time spent doing hair removal
5) Ease of use
6) Cost
LHR is very time consuming because the laser head is just 1/4" in diameter. After 3 to 6 treatments the amount of hair is reduced to mainly fine, colorless hairs. The level of pain drops off, too, as the hair follicle density is reduced.
Of course, I'll report on my results in time. Should be an interesting experiment.
Clara
