Okay before you read:
Just be aware that the IPL hair removal systems don’t YET work well with light blonde hair/light red hair/very dark skin tones. I
didn’t want to get your hopes up!
Leg hair was seriously doing my head in. Shaving is a
novelty when you're 16 and something fun to look forward to when you’re
having your Sunday night bubblebath, and then afterwards you can slather on the
Dove gradual fake tan so your legs are as orangey and slippery as hot dogs.
This is what looks good, right?! Sorry young Jess, orange legs, white neck and
that orange dream matte mousse foundation doesn’t quite go together.
Thankfully, over the years I’m smoothed out the do’s and
don’ts. But for me, shaving has become a huge DON’T WANNA. It feels amazing for
000.67 seconds until it starts to grow back into itchy stubble, and then takes
just 4 days for me to evolve back into the gorilla that I am. My natural hair
state and laziness have led to countless situations in which people have seen
far more than I wanted them to. A boy at school couldn’t hide his horror on a
day I’d chosen socks and forgone the shaving (thinking, who would even notice?!
Answer = everyone). And then the time I
wore knee high socks to a party and cleverly only shaved the bit of leg that
was showing, wasn’t so clever when a guy guessed straight away – how did he
know?! (Also his reaction of CAN I SEE! isn’t the usual response to hairy
legs).
Shaving gets the smooth results, but after a few years of having to do
it daily-ish and dealing with the itchiness when it starts to grow back, I
looked to other methods.
Epilating was next, and I researched different models and
read hundreds of reviews, decided on one, accidentally bought two off Ebay, and
I could begin! Enter, THE WORST PAIN EVER. It was like tweezing out the hairs
one by one, but you had no choice but to go over big areas. You can practically
hear the hairs being wrenched out – NOPE. It’s not as painful for people with
thin, light hair but for me it was agony. Plus you had to deal with the droning
BUUUUUUUUZZZ sound, a sound that my uni flatmates mistakenly thought was a
vibrator when we all first moved in. Jesus, Jess is on it ALL times of the day!
(Only because I could only face epilating for a tiny amount at a time – so it
was an all day affair). Doing my pits (ahem, underarms) was another thing
altogether, I’d try and numb the area with ice cubes just to stop myself
weeping.
Eventually I thought it just wasn’t worth it, and my epilator was sent
to the depths of my drawers!
Depilatory cream just smelt like chemicals, made my legs
redden and you could still see the hair in the follicle quite clearly –
definitely not for me!
I toddled off to buy some Veet wax strips, and after a few
wax mishaps (tip: water makes the wax 10x sticker and harder to get off,
anything oily is perfect) we started to get along. It was incredibly painful,
but at least it was a quick deal-with-it-pain rather than the torture of the
slow epilator process. The only problems were that I tended to do one leg a
week (it was as much as I could bear) so I never really had that goddess smooth
leg thing going on. Plus the fact that you have to let it grow to about 1cm
before you can do a good wax. Several
times I explained to my boyfriend to trust the process and that I knew exactly
what I was doing and SOON, soon, I would be completely leg hair-free. But then
I realised that all your hair doesn’t grow at the same time and the hairs are
all at different stages of their growing cycle – get rid of one lot and the
next grow through! Not to mention the fact that it would take about 4 hours
because I’d put films on to ‘distract’ myself, then cue 4 hours later and I’m
engrossed in the 372th viewing of Pocahontas and waxing has been completely
forgotten and left for another day. Therefore, I kept reluctantly putting the painful effort in,
and never really reaping the rewards of silky smooth legs.
AND THEN, I began saving up for my overdraft and
for the first time in forever I found myself with a larger sum of money than
usual (what? Saving means it’s meant to be off limits?). I was skipping through Boots
one day, and an IPL hair remover caught my eye that was on sale. And so began a
weekend of thorough review reading/price comparing/backing out until finally I
took the plunge and spent a whopping £225 on a Philips SC2007/00 Lumea IPL Hair
Removal System. It was more than I’ve ever spent on mere beauty, but I thought
I go through so much PAIN and I’m not getting anywhere. This splurge will
actually free up some of my life and I’d pay that much to make hair removal not
a horrible chore that I put off for weeks on end. I’ve just had a look at the
product (I bought it from John Lewis) and it’s currently on sale for £329.99.
I’d say it’s well worth waiting till there’s a deal or even wait till after
Christmas to see if the price drops as much as £100 again.
Basically, you
shave the area, press the button, the area gets zapped by the light flash, and
the melanin in your hair and the hair root absorb the light pulses. You do have
to shave first or there can be a tingle of pain as more hair means more light absorption.
The light pulse makes the follicle go into a resting phase, which results in
the hair falling out and regrowth is inhibited. You do it every two weeks to
begin with, which means you zap all the hair when it’s in the right stage and
all the growth is paused…result! It can be used pretty much everywhere: legs,
bikini area, underarm, and for the face with the facial attachment.
I think the biggest thing to say here is IT’S NOT PERMANENT.
IPL is not the same as laser hair removal. The ideal with IPL is that after the
beginning stages, you have to go over your legs about every 4-6 weeks. What
made me prefer it over waxing is that it’s completely painless, it’s a lot more
fun, the hairs grow back lighter and 6 weeks is a HELLUVA lot longer than any
other amount of time I’ve achieved with other methods. It’s expensive to say
that it’s not permanent, but I think of it as an investment piece, and so far
it’s been worth it.
Unfortunately it doesn’t work with naturally light blonde,
red, gray hair or very dark skin types (due to the amount of melanin). I have
very pale skin and very dark hair, and this is the one time EVER that that
combination has actually worked out for me.
There’s really not that much difference between the various
models. I bought the 2007 model because it was on sale for less than a previous
older model, otherwise I would have been absolutely fine with buying an older
but much cheaper version. Differences
between the 2007 version and older models are:
·
Whether it’s cordless or not (not too important
if it means saving loads of money!)
·
Whether it has a facial attachment
·
They all pretty much come with the same amount
of flashes (250,000)
I read all the Amazon reviews, the John Lewis reviews and
Boots reviews. Luckily there were loads to get through (anything worse than an
expensive item with just 5 reviews?!) and they really did sell it to me. The
high majority were positive saying that they saw a reduction after the
beginning stages and the product was worth the price. Definitely have a read!
That’s right, there’s a handy app that you can put your
individual options in, reminds you of when you need to start IPL’ing, and has
loads more information.
I actually really wanted to show you pictures of my different hairy stages, but then I learnt that hair REALLY doesn't photograph well. I'd be looking at my legs in their natural jungle state but on camera they'd be all Jennifer Lopez-y. Thanks camera, I know you've got my back with your airbrushing usually but not right now!
After first use: Hairs are
growing back after I first shaved and used my IPL. Can't see any change yet!
Either it’s not been long enough for the hairs to fall out or it's just too
gosh darn soon.
After second use: Hair is growing back after the second shave and
treatment, I can see patches where it isn't growing back. More hair than
no-hair patches though!
After third use: I’ve been a wee bit naughty and forgotten a few
weeks, but that’s fine, because I’ll just have to keep on going till I’ve
caught all hairs in their growing phase! I’ve accidentally let the hair grow
back to quite a long length (about 1cm, please don’t imagine I mean long enough
to plait it) and because it’s longer the no hair patches are REALLY obvious. So
yay, it’s working!
And that’s
it! I’ll be back to let you know how it’s going after a few more treatments and
I may upload a vlog to show you my probably shoddy technique!
