Review - Epilating

Hello All,

This isn't really a review as such, just more of a ramble about my experience (so far) with epilating.


If you're a follower of my blog you'll know the story but I'll quickly recap for any new readers...basically now that the summer is here I was sick of shaving my legs because I was having to shave everyday which was not good for my legs - red bumps, ingrowing hairs and the worst thing was i kept cutting myself (see older posts for funny story involving a sanitary towel cellotaped to my leg!!!) so then I started wondering about epilating - talked to friends, facebooked a few queries etc and then my lovely friend AK offered to lend me her epilator so that I could see what it was like and decide whether I wanted to commit by purchasing my own. SF then offered to give me hers because she found it too painful to use (ouch!!). So at the moment I'm using AK's epilator (pictured) and currently awaiting for SF's.


I'm not going to review the actual epilator I'm using at the moment (Philips Satin Ice in case you were wondering) because it's the only one I've used and I can't compare it to anything. It comes with an ice pack thing but AK didn't bring it round so I'm not using it/haven't used it.

So I have been epilating for 2 weeks, just about every day (maybe minus Sundays) and I love it!!! I shaved my legs on Xday and AK came round that same evening. Tried to epilate but there was no hair to pull out so just kinda ran the epilator up and down my legs. Quite a good idea actually because it helps you past the first stage of fear, cos boy when you switch the epilator on and the 'teeth' start spinning and the scary noise is deafening you it is the most daunting thing. It took me ages to actually work up enough courage to touch the epilator to my skin!! My heart was beating and my palms were sweating!

The next morning I tried again and this time it caught a few hairs and there was pain but it didn't hurt - same as plucking your eyebrows really. And basically it's been like that every morning. (Some people have suggested that I epilate at night to minimise redness but for me this would be pointless as in the morning hairs would be coming through and I'd have to epilate again anyway. What I've found out through my 'research is that people have different standards of what acceptable hairlessness is - a lot of people told me that I wouldn't have to epilate everyday but from my experience I can't imagine not doing everyday - I wear either skirts or dresses and never trousers so I guess the people who don't epilate everyday wear trousers more than I do, and plus if they've been epilating longer they're already seeing the long term effects).

Unfortunately, epilating (for me) has the same problems as shaving minus the blood bath. I've got the worst case of in-growing hairs ever and it looks bad, but I've been brave and bared my legs anyway (hey - i didn't max out my credit card at asos only to not wear the bloody dresses!!!)

I do exfoliate my legs every morning in the shower with those shower puff things but the hairs are just under a layer of skin. With this in mind my next step is to try to overcome this problem and you can see in the pic below my weapons of choice:

What I've been doing for the last few days, which is really pathetic, vain and time consuming is using my beloved tweezerman tweezers to pluck out the individual ingrowing hairs. However, this is becoming a bit dangerous as each day I become a bit less patient and less careful I end up stabbing myself. £20 tweezers can cut through the skin :(

So my next two weapons are the 'Silkimiz' which are basically sandpaper that you use on your legs - no idea how it's suppose to minimise hair growth but I thought it would be good for a more hardcore exfoliation - tested it out as soon as i get home, and i will give it another chance but at the moment my view is that it's useless. Very cheap though (99p for 3 mitts, so maybe 6 uses if i'm lucky).

The other thing is the bath brush thing - one side for massaging and the other for exfoliating. I haven't used this is the shower but i've been randomly brushing my leg and i don't think the brush hairs are course enough.....we'll see though, I'll keep you updated.

The other things pictured are shaving gel, not too sure why I included it in the photo but hey it was 2 for £3 :)

My conclusion on epilating? It's not perfect but it's good and it's eaaaaaaaasy. I was worried that it would be time consuming but because i've fitted it into my daily routine and i don't have a lot of hair to epilate I'm probably doing both legs in under 10mins as opposed to others who say it takes 30mins. One tip: if just epilating up your legs (like you would with a razor) is capturing hairs then try gentle small circular movements - usually works!!

Any questions or tips give me a shout in the comments below :)