These days, there are a variety of ways made available to us when it comes to removing unwanted body hairs. We’re not limited to razors anymore, we’re talking about shaving, waxing, tweezing, and zapping to name a few.

So what type of hair removal is best for you?

SHAVING: During World War II, shaving became quite popular due to the shortage of nylon stockings at the height of the “bare legs” trend. Shaving is considered to be the most convenient way of getting rid of unwanted body hair. It’s cheap and fast. Shaving is recommended on your legs and underarms. This method is usually pain- free when you use a sharp blade and a shaving cream, oil, or lotion. The effect usually lasts up to 3 days then stubble starts to appear on the shaved area.

WAXING: Waxing is another famous hair removal method. Waxing involves putting warm wax on a portion of the skin and letting it cool to make the hairs attach to the wax. The wax is then pulled off in the opposite direction that the hair is growing resulting to pulling out of hairs by their roots. This process can be done at home or in the salon depending on your preference.

The advantages of waxing are that it can be done quickly and it is affordable if you choose to do it at home. The effect can last up to two weeks or longer, making it one of the hair removal methods that have longer effects. The drawback is that for this method to be effective, your hair should be at least 1/4 inch long to ensure that they would have a firmer grip on the wax.

TWEEZING: Tweezing is the method that is highly recommended for the eyebrows. This method is usually done in- between waxing or threading to remove growing hairs. For this method to be effective, the hair should be long enough to be grasped by your tweezers so you better invest on reliable tweezers for best results.

THREADING: Threading is a famous method patronized by beauty experts and highly recommend for the brows. This method is usually done by an aesthetician who uses a double stranded thread made of cotton to twist and twirl around hairs then pull them out from the roots. This process usually takes 5 to 10 minutes to get done. The chin, eyebrows, and upper lip are considered to be the best sites for threading.

ELECTROLYSIS: Electrolysis focuses on zapping one hair at a time which guarantees that it is far more effective in removing unwanted body hair compared to lasers. Although it is more expensive, more painful, and takes longer to perform compared to laser treatments, most customers who undergo this procedure are quite satisfied with the results.

LASER: Laser treatment is not recommended for everyone. Lasers are only effective on people who have dark hair and light skin because lasers target the melanin on our skin which are mostly found on people with dark hair. Laser treatments aren’t as painful when compared to waxing but are more painful than tweezing and depilatory creams. After laser treatments, there is about 80% of reduction on hair growth. This treatment should be done under the supervision of an experienced technician to avoid any lasting side effects from occurring.

Women plagued with unsightly facial hair now have an option that will allow that to stop constantly hiding and treating their facial hair and leave them with smooth hairless skin.  In the past women have used bleach, they’ve waxed, tweezed, and shaved off these facial hairs.  All of these methods results in skin irritation which causes further hiding from the world.  Repeating these method can eventually lead to permanent scarring. Now women have the option of facial hair laser removal.

Men are also now realizing the benefits of laser hair removal treatments for themselves.  Shaving every morning can get tedious at best but using laser removal you will still portray that clean cut professional appearance without the daily ritual.   Related benefits include the end to razor bumps and cuts that all men experience.

The newest equipment is able to treat areas without growing out the hairs as in the past. The hair is removed below and above the surface so the shadow of a beard is also gone.

Before you consider pursuing treatment, you should talk to your health care professional to ask his opinion on whether he thinks you are a good candidate for laser hair removal.  He should also be able to give a personal recommendation to help your search of a reputable facility.

The average time for a session is 20 minutes and you may resume normal activity immediately.  The best candidates are clients with dark hair.  Blondes and gray hair are the most difficult to treat. Skin tone is not a factor with the newest lasers.  Medical spas with the latest technology should have one laser – the Yag – to target people with darker skin tone and a second laser that is designed specifically to work on lighter skinned people.

Laser hair removal is classified as a medical procedure and should be administered by a trained professional.

Laser hair removal is never guaranteed to be permanent and you should be aware of the realistic statistics. Treatments of the face usually require maintenance for complete removal. A realistic expectation is a 50-70 % reduction of facial hair after three sessions.  Healing time between sessions is 6 weeks so as not to irritate the skin.

Prices vary depending on many factors.  It is dependent on the area you live in and possibly the number of medical spas offering the service.  The more competition, the better the pricing.

An overall average across the country for facial laser removal is between $150 and $350 per session.  Your first appointment often includes an evaluation and price for your individual situation.

There is no shortage of hair removal methods that we have at our disposal when we go to the local pharmacy. Most methods that you can buy over the counter are just temporary fixes that will have you coming back in a few weeks or a month to buy some more. One of the most popular semi-permanent hair removal systems has only recently become available to use at home. That hair removing treatment is the laser hair removal system.

In 2008 the FDA finally approved the very first at home laser hair removal system. Since then a few more have come on the scene. All the products basically do the same job as their cousins in the bigger doctor’s offices or med spas. They all work by having a light zap the hair follicle causing enough damage to  make the hair fall out and even preventing future hair from growing in that area.

The at home laser treatments have the same restrictions and warnings as well. The treatment works best on people with light skin and dark hair; although people with dark skin or light hair can still use the product they will just not be as effective. The laser is dangerous to the eyes so taking precautions such as wearing shades or tanning booth goggles will help prevent damage.

One of the best reasons to have the at home kit rather than just going to the doctor is that the kit costs about as much as one treatment session. The at home version will have similar results and only cost you a fraction of what it would cost at the spa. That could equal about a thousand dollars. Besides saving money with the at home version you also save time that you would have otherwise lost waiting in a doctor’s office and having to take off from work.

It is no secret that people want smooth skin. We also hate those wild, unruly hairs that sprout up in the oddest places. Thankfully now with the advancements in hair removal we can enjoy the laser hair removal results in the comfort of our own home at a fraction of the laser hair removal prices at the laser centers.

Unsightly and awkward body hair can be a real nuisance; it can affect your personal life, your self esteem, and even your personal hygiene. Even if your body hair isn’t that big an inconvenience, just think of the time you’ll save as a woman in the bathroom not having to shave everywhere all the time. I bet its hours a week! Taking a look at some of the hair remover products on the market today may be a really great way to make your life just a little bit easier to handle in a crazy, time constricted world.

Great Reasons for Men to Consider Hair Remover
One of the biggest reasons for men to consider having hair removed is if he is altering how he lives his life because he is embarrassed by his body hair. For example, if a man wears a shirt at the beach on a hot day because he is ashamed of his body hair, that is a good reason to consider having it removed. If he is having a difficult time keeping trouble areas of his body clean, that is another really good reason for having the offending hair removed. The biggest reason for me though, is if a man is avoiding intimacy in his life because he doesn’t want to show his body to his partner. To me, that is an absolute must deal with issue, how can you enjoy life if your body hair is affecting that much of it?

Great Reasons for Women to Consider Hair Remover
Women typically don’t have the kind of sanitation issues that men can have with their body hair, but will obsess over it ten times as much none the less. Keeping your bikini line neat and clean can be a real bear, and the irritation which comes with shaving makes this one of the more popular places for hair removal for women. Being sick to death of shaving your legs, carving yourself up like a Christmas ham every time you climb into the shower is another great reason for having unwanted hair removed. Or maybe a lady just wants a little less hair under her nose, after all, we all have some, some of us have a little more than others, and as you get older it doesn’t exactly disappear. No woman wants to feel like she belongs under the big top, and hair remover is a great way to rid yourself of the problem.

If you are looking for a way to remove unwanted hair where it will never grow back you don’t have to look far. There are really only two types of permanent hair removal methods: Electrolysis and Laser/IPL Hair removal.

These methods are not perfect (no method is) but at least they offer a solution if you can afford the time and the money for them.

Laser or IPL hair removal involves treating the hair with beams of high intensity light. This targets the color pigment in the hair and aims to damage the hair badly enough right down to the follicle so that it will not grow back. It has to make sure that the hair is treated with sufficient power while the surrounding skin is left undamaged however so it is a tricky process. And it means that laser hair removal is much less effective for those with light hair (such as blond, gray or red) or dark skin.

In electrolysis, each hair is treated with a current of electricity by inserting a probe near the base of the hair. The process has the same aim of damaging the hair follicle to such an extent that the hair does not grow back.

When comparing the two methods, laser hair removal is faster than electrolysis as several hairs can be treated at one time whereas with electrolysis each hair has to be treated individually. With electrolysis however you have a proven method of permanent hair removal and with laser hair removal just a proven method of hair reduction which can be significant if you want to be sure no hair will grow back.

The best thing is to use electrolysis for the smaller areas of the body such as the face and try laser hair removal for a larger area such as the legs to give the best combination of time required and effectiveness.

Natural beauty is a wonderful thing and there’s no doubt about it we would all like to look naturally attractive. But chances are that the people you admire as natural beauties spend more than the cost of small car getting that natural look every year.

When it comes to hair removal there is not much you can do that is natural apart from having the genes that mean you don’t grow unwanted hair in the first place and we know that not many of us grew up with those!

Or you could leave the hair to grow and just be as natural as you were born but there is not much beauty in hairy legs and a mustache on a girl.

You can shave the hair off your legs, of course, which is a chore but does not involve too much in the way of unnatural sounding processes or harsh chemicals like depilatories but you will have to repeat the process over and over and you will be cursing nature that gave you the hair in the first place.

You can use wonderful smelling wax which has been enriched with natural fragrance and smells wonderful but you will not feel too natural while you are yelping in pain and you will have to repeat the painful procedure every few weeks.

My favorite hair removal method which is the one used by the celebrity “natural beauties” is IPL laser hair removal. There is not much natural in zapping your hair with laser focused waves of light to destroy the hair follicles but after you have had a few sessions you will be able to go about with much reduced hair growth (if not hair free) as if that is the way you had been born. And after that you can tell yourself that you are naturally smooth even if you had to pay dearly for the privilege.

IPL hair removal is an effective treatment to remove unwanted hair. IPL stands for Intense Pulsed Light, since the treatment uses light energy converted into heat. The heat damages the cells in the hair follicles so the hair fells and can’t grow anymore from that follicle.

During the process the skin in not harmed, occasionally swelling or a little discomfort may occur. The treatment can be permanent or semi-permanent, depending on several factors: the hair, the skin, the doctor who performs it, the machine used to perform it and how often it is performed. IPL hair removal does not work with red, gray or white hair. In fact, the perfect candidate for IPL hair removal are white skinned people with dark hair.

IPL hair removal is often confused with laser hair removal or electrolysis hair removal, and although all of them use light to remove hair, there are some differences. Plain laser hair removal (generally called just “laser hair removal”) is known to cause more pain and damage to the skin, has a higher percentage of hair regrowth and its not effective on all skins and hair. Electrolysis, on the contrary, is very effective and at the moment is the only option that US FDA considers as permanent. The disadvantages of electrolysis are that it is very slow, because treats each hair separately, inserting a needle in the follicle and burning the hair with an electrical charge applied to the needle, and its cost, which is very high. IPL hair removal works good with many types of hair and skin (especially with the new machines), it’s permanent or at least semi-permanent (that means that 90% of the hair can be permanently removed) and can be applied on large areas of the body at the same time, making it cheaper in the long run, as you will need less sessions.

In the first session up to 30% of the hair can be removed permanently but best results show after six sessions. Sessions should take place every month or so, so that the hair that are not permanently removed can grow and be treated again. One session usually lasts form 15 to 30 minutes depending on the area to treat.

IPL hair removal is approved by FDA and became commercially available in the mid ’90s, after 20 years of experiments. Pregnant or breastfeeding women should not undergo IPL since the effects on the baby are not known.