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.

If you took the decision to undergo IPL hair removal you may have questions and concerns. It is okay to have doubts and to wonder what is the treatment like. This article explains what to do (and not to do) and what’s going to happen before the treatment, during it and after it.

Before:

Avoid exposure to heat, before and after the hair removal. Don’t expose to sunlight either, take saunas or hot baths from one day before to one day after the treatment. The hair removal will be better and spots on the skin will be avoided as well.

Do not use moisturizing creams or oil at least 12 hours before the IPL hair removal process. Although it is important to have hydrated skin to ease the hair removal, the day it will be performed  it’s better to use moisturizing cream after the session. As an alternative talcum powder can be used before the hair removal.

During:

Even though pain with IPL permanent hair removal is minimum and can be easily beared, ice can be applied for both pain andreddening (if they should occur), even if generally there are no problems. Do not apply ice directly on the skin, wrap it up with a cloth before. During the sessions, as the discomfort is very little and only the part of the body to treat is needed by the doctor, you can take advantage of it doing a facial cleansing or manicure.

After:

After removing the hair with IPL, post-depilatory calming cream can be used, there are perfumed or neutral ones. The first can irritate, so be sure before using it.

To obtain a calming effect apply camomile gel, aloe vera or witch hazel, even if it’s an after sun it’s great after an IPL hair removal session. If you want to delay the appearance of regrown hair, use a growth retardant cream, which also has moisturizing and calming agents.

Do exfoliations between sessions of IPL hair removal to avoid that the hair grow towards inside. Use a wash cloth or a cream for exfoliations to eliminate dead cells and regularly a hyper-moisturizing cream to facilitate the growth towards outside. A great home defoliant is bicarbonate.

A word of warning about anesthetic creams:

Recently experts have warned patients about the indiscriminate use of anesthetic creams during IPL laser hair removal sessions. These creams are used in medical treatments and need medical prescription. They’re drugs, generally including a local anesthetic (lidocaine, benzocaine, prilocaine etc.).

There some risks using these creams in IPL permanent hair removal sessions. First of all they could cause a conflict with other drugs (we would like to stress the importance of talking to a doctor and go to a medical center, not an aesthetic one), secondly your body could absorb the cream which may cause serious effects such as irregular heartbeat, respiratory problems, neurological symptoms (convulsions, coma) and even could cause death.

Getting rid of unwanted hair for women and, recently, men it’s a long story. Fortunately, the days of razor or wax are gone. Recent science studies, applied to medicine and aesthetics have developed new ways to remove hair. Two of the newest and most effective techniques nowadays are Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) and Laser. These two treatments provide permanent hair removal with almost no side effects. Both are good techniques, let’s see which one may suit better for you.

So, laser hair removal or IPL hair removal? There are many factors that determine the best treatment: the type of hair, which part we want to treat, the sex of the patient and the level of hormones are the main ones. Once all these factors are clear we can decide the correct treatment.

Laser hair removal uses light of just one color, that moves in a straight line permitting a higher level of precision than IPL. This precision is its main advantage, so the tissue around the follicle is not damaged. The disadvantage is that only certain types of hair and skin can be treated.

Intense Pulsed Light hair removal uses energy converts from light to destroy the follicle. The mechanism is simple: The hair absorb the light radiation, the darker the hair, the more radiation is absorbed, until destruction.

The IPL hair removal process is painless and the modern machines on the market make it possible for the light to burn the hair and not the skin around it.

Generally we can say the remove hair with IPL is more effective than laser hair removal mostly if the colour of the skin or hair are intolerant to laser hair removal.

The advantage is versatility, several types of skin and hair can be treated. The disadvantage is that must be performed by trained ans experienced medical personnel. Otherwise the heat generated by the light could easily irritate the skin. Remember that with IPL permanent hair removal you want to look for a medical center, not an aesthetic one.