Is your body hair removal beauty ritual beginning to feel like an inconvenience more and more everyday? Many hair removal techniques such as waxing, plucking and shaving become cumbersome on a weekly basis and even more on a daily basis. Your hair removal technique is a vital part of maintaining a hairless appearance! The motivations behind our body hair removal habits are aimed to make us feel more confident and aligned with how we see ourselves.
Body Hair Removal For Men & Women
Many men and women desire to remove unwanted hair for a multitude of reasons, which most commonly include:
- Hygiene
- Personal appearance
- Social norms
Facial Hair Removal
Women look for ways to manage excess hair around the eyebrows, upper lip and chin, and sometimes sideburns. While some men grow a unibrow, which is excess hair extending between the eyebrows making it appear to be one long eyebrow. Men also even sometimes grow more hair than they would prefer to have on the cheeks. Thankfully, there are several ways facial hair can be removed. The most performed facial hair removal methods are: tweezing and lasering.
Laser Hair Treatments: The Best Permanent Hair Removal Solution
The fact of the matter is that human hair grows all over body, with the exception of the palms of the hands and soles of feet – making for a lot of unwanted body hair and a desire for the best permanent hair removal method. Modern ideas of hair removal only date back to the 1920’s. Hair removal trends appear to be shifting as trust and awareness of aesthetic lasers increase and experts invest time, money, and training into advanced laser technology to ensure the safety of laser hair treatments.
It’s perfectly normal for both men and women to have body hair they want to remove from places they prefer it to not grow. The problem of course, is that hair removal doesn’t just cost us our money, but also our precious time. Hair doesn’t just grow back as we remove it, but it grows in even more places as we age. Women tend to find facial hair growing that they did not experience in their youth, while men grow hair pretty much everywhere else they would prefer it not to over time.
Removing body hair is especially important when planning to spend more time outside in warmer weather. We all could certainly do without wasting the time to constantly shave and wax off each single exposed hair during the summer season. So, if you are like most hairy humans and like to look your best – especially in a bikini – and love to have smooth skin without a trace of your hair removal symptoms still lingering, it might be time to consider updating your hair removal method. So which is the worst and which hair removal method is the best?
7 of the Worst & Best Hair Removal Techniques
Find out if your hair removal preference could use an update, because there really is no point to temporarily remove unwanted body hair if it is doing major damage to the body in the process. The most common side effects of removing unwanted body hair is skin irritation and redness, such as razor burn, but how fair is is to trade your hairy legs for red polka dotted legs? There has to be a better way!
It is time to find out, once and for all, which hair removal technique is in align with your personal aesthetic goals because when it comes to hair removal – you’ve got options!
Here they are, ranked from worst to best!
7. Tweezing or Plucking
This is such a common hair removal technique used to shape the eyebrows or remove single body hairs. It definitely allows for more control while shaping the eyebrows and gives you a fuller more natural brow look. Plucking hairs can hurt, especially if there are a lot of hairs being removed. This single plucking method is not exactly ideal for removing large areas of body hair such as legs and nearly impossible for complete bikini hair removal – but read on, we have a simple solution for that!
6. Shaving
This method goes hand in hand with ingrown hairs and razor burn. While it is by far the most supremely easy hair removal method to do yourself, you can shave everything off and within a matter of days, hours, minutes – all the hair you removed will have completely started to grow back in! No one can stand to go from super soft to super stubbly just like that. Shaving can cause big and small skin cuts and shaving can sometimes lead to dreaded ingrown hairs. The one benefit that shaving has is that the razor itself has a moderate exfoliating effect.
Leaving the skin feeling a bit more silky as the dead skin cells are removed from the surface as you shave. Often seen as the ‘most convenient’ hair removal method.
Shaving requires water and a really good lather for it to actually work out how you want it to.
Shaving and tweezing are the most common hair removal practices that both men and women typically rely on at some point in their life to keep their unwanted body hair at bay. It is also a hair removal method that is extremely well known for leaving the skin bumpy, stubbly or worse – scarred!
Shaving is among the quickest hair removal techniques to do yourself and can be considered to be one of the cheapest. This is because of low prices of razors and shaving creams available at literally every drugstore, although, not all razors or shaving creams are cheap. It may seem inexpensive for a one-time shave, but the cost adds up over a lifetime of removing body hair with razors and shaving creams. So before you buy another razor, be sure that your preferred hair removal technique is nice to your skin.
5. Hair Removal Cream (depilatory cream)
Fairly simple and essentially painless DIY hair removal method that dissolves hair in minutes with the use of a liquid/cream that is designed to break down hair to be scraped away and then washed away – very similar to shaving with no risk of actual bloodshed.
The smell of these products often mimic the smell of ‘wet dog’ mixed with ‘gasoline’ – no joke!
It creates fewer ingrown hairs than shaving, but while these creams do target and dissolve hair follicles at skin level, you risk chemical burns due to the creams being extremely alkaline.
A newer skin cream called Vaniqa can cause a burning sensation on the skin as well as cause acne. Know your skin, do you have sensitive skin? Maybe it is best to stay away from hair removal creams. But, if you do choose to try this, remove completely and do not ever leave on longer than directed because you risk developing a ‘slow burning’ effect – ouch!
Another popular type of hair removal cream is called Eflornithine hydrochloride cream. This cream can be very useful for women trying to maintain little chin hairs or thick facial hair, but it is a very expensive product. However, it is FDA approved and is an alternative hair removal product that can help fairly quickly.
Hair removal creams eradicate hair to just beneath the surface of the skin, so expect regrowth within 2-3 days. The silky results are achieved quickly, yet the the effects are not as long-lasting as other hair removal methods.
4. Electrolysis & IPL Hair Removal Devices (epilation)
The main difference between these two is that IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) and electrolysis have different effects on different hair types. Electrolysis targets each individual follicle with an electrical charge and is effective at immediately destroying it. IPL uses intense light to damage the hair follicle. Epilation works by simultaneously plucking multiple hairs at once with mechanically operated tweezers.
This seemingly simple hair removal method has pretty much been replaced by lasers.
And since this is such a challenging method to perform on yourself it is probably just best to let a professional laser technician use a more advanced laser device. Do be aware of the risks involved in not following the instructions, which include infection, hyperpigmentation and scarring.
Electrolysis has no permanent side effects but is described as “really, really painful” – even more so than lasering or waxing. In some people electrolysis can cause thick scars, called keloids.
For IPL, intense pulsed light, treatments, an average of 8–10 treatments are required to remove most visible hair. Although IPL treatments will permanently reduce the total number of body hairs, they will not result in a permanent removal of all hair. This distinction is only relevant in the USA because of FDA wording.
Lasers are faster and more effectual than the do-it-yourself versions of hair removal devices. So consider scheduling an appointment to have a trained professional use a more precise and advanced laser that is safe for your hair removal needs and most effective on your skin and hair type.
Dermatologists notice that typically, when people are at home they tend to be more aggressive with themselves simply because they think that maybe they can get a faster, better result without actually realizing the serious potential consequences in the wrong hands.
3. Threading
Instead of waxing, tweezing or shaving there is the option of having the little annoying hairs on the face or eyebrows removed by threading. While this is one of the techniques that is least likely to damage the skin – considered more gentle than plucking – it is not a realistic approach to getting rid of unwanted body hair.
It would be such insane pain to get your legs threaded, it’s only feasible for use on small areas of the skin.
2. Hot Waxing Or Sugaring
Waxi1.ng and sugaring are thorough ways to remove unwanted body hair.
While the waxed hair is not expected to grow back for a couple of weeks, hot waxing is a famously painful process – not to mention it itches like heck when the hair grows back.
The best part is that these techniques snatch the hair at the root in an area all in one go but it’s not permanent.
Sugaring paste generally does not require heat, and it is a lot less painful than regular waxing because it only adheres to the hair, not to the skin. It also removes hair in the direction of growth which makes the hair removal process substantially less painful than using hot wax.
Note that waxing is especially rough on the skin in the area around the eyes. This sensitive area doesn’t have oil glands. Waxing removes the top layer of skin every time this beauty ritual is performed. When it comes to the delicate eyebrow area this can cause major skin damage.
Waxing actually accelerates the hair growth within the first 3-6 months, which in turn increases the need to wax more often and this alone could lead to hyperpigmentation.
Waxing should be tested on a small area to see if there is a adverse reaction. Wax should only be used on skin types without a history of reacting to it. Using hot wax to remove body hair can easily burn your skin and chemicals that dissolve hair most often smell bad and are known to cause allergic skin reactions on sensitive skin.
#1 Best Permanent Hair Removal Solution: Try Laser Hair Removal
1. Laser Hair Removal
Newer hair removal methods, such as laser hair treatments, are major advancements in laser technology making it now possible to safely remove hair from all skin tones and hair types. Older lasers were not as equipped to easily recognize and remove hair from darker skin tones and not very effective on very light hair. Aesthetic lasers have evolved to be capable of being very precise while targeting hair follicles on any individual’s skin tone and hair type.
One potential downfall, is that if you want to have bikini-worthy legs by Memorial Day, you are going need to begin laser hair removal treatments during the peak of tights-and-boots weather.
Since hair removal becomes more costly and time-consuming for everyone as we age, it may be time to consider a longer-term solution. Modern laser hair removal is permanent hair reduction. Which means, there is no guarantee that you will be hair-free forever, but at least you won’t have to do any daily maintenance after you complete your customized treatment plan. It is not completely painless, however there are cooling products that are applied to numb the area being treated.
It works like this: the laser pulses highly concentrated light and this ‘energy’ is emitted from the laser into the hair follicles. The hair is destroyed when the light is absorbed by the pigment in the follicles. The damage to the hair follicles delays or inhibits future hair growth in that area.
90 percent of good candidates for laser hair removal report permanent hair loss after an average of three to six sessions. Laser hair removal treatments are most commonly performed on these body parts; bikini line & Brazilian area, underarms, and the face – more specifically the chin and neck.
Plan for this to be a process because it takes approximately six treatments to accommodate growth cycles of the hair. Also, in between treatments you’ll need to only be exclusively shaving with a razor – no waxing – for those six months to ten months. Laser hair removal can bring some discomfort, but after your first visit you’ll be relieved that you get used to the process and also there is less hair to zap!
Start Laser Hair Removal Treatments: Schedule A Free Consultation!
Dark hair and fair skin are the perfect combination to get the most effective results. However, your trained laser expert will be able to match the best laser to use for your specific hair and skin type.
Not sure if you should get laser hair removal on your legs? Many clients focus on smaller areas of hair – underarm, upper lip and bikini line – to try the treatments first then move onto larger areas. Reactions vary, but some redness, or little red bumps may occur after treatments. The most common side effect is small ‘goosebump-like’ pinkish tiny dots that fade away quickly and are a good sign that the hair was destroyed.
Eliminate Ingrown Hairs With Laser Hair Removal
Is your hair removal technique leaving you sick of ingrown hairs and little red bumps while constantly trying to keep up with stubbly legs? Each type of hair removal targets the hair differently. Laser hair removal stands out to be the most effective at eliminating the entire hair follicle. It can even be performed on ingrown hairs!
Long-Term Hair Removal Solution: Get Laser Hair Removal 
Each hair removal technique targets the hair at a different point. One thing these 7 hair removal techniques all have in common is they are designed to get rid of unwanted body hair! Laser hair removal is the most effective and the most practical hair removal choice to use as a satisfying long-term hair removal solution.
Which technique do you prefer, hair removal at home done by yourself or by a trained professional in a laser center? Doing it yourself in your home will potentially save time, yet you will need to do it more often to begin with. Having hair removal treatments performed in a laser center relies on the know-how of a trained laser professional and can lead to faster results. In either case, results will be similar – a considerable reduction in unwanted body hair.