What woman wouldn’t want permanent hair removal? Grand Rapids, Michigan is a clean city that works hard to keep unsightly trash and waste to a minimum. Sometimes keeping city streets clean might even seem like (or be) a full-time job – kind of like, for the rest of us, taking care of unwanted body or facial hair.
Temporary Solutions Don’t Work
Tweezing, shaving, waxing, creams, and lotions. Some of us have tried them all.
Tweezing means grabbing and pulling one hair out a time. Not only does this hurt and take a long time, but it can cause redness, and because it’s using a tweezer, you run the risk of infection if the tweezer isn’t clean. And the hair grows back much sooner than you would like.
Shaving
There are lots of variations on this theme. Some people prefer electric, other prefer manual razors. In shaving, you are not removing the hair follicle, just essentially trimming it down to the layer of the skin. This means you can risk ingrown hairs and the hair while it is growing back (which it will do very shortly) can feel coarser because you’ve trimmed off the soft end of the hair.
Waxing
A hot, sticky substance is poured on your skin, and then a paper backing is applied. When it is cooled, and hardened, a specially trained cosmetologist (think of them as a pain specialist) rips the paper, wax, and hair off of your face and body. And you get to pay for this. And the hair grows back. Yes, it’s painful, and it can leave redness and bumps, and you can get an infection.
Creams & Lotions
These come in a variety of over the counter and prescription options. The over the counter ones work by essentially dissolving the hairs (and, perhaps, the surrounding skin), and the prescription ones can slow (but not stop) the hair’s regrowth.
So What’s a Girl to Do?
Permanent hair removal solutions include electrolysis which uses electrical current to damage the individual hair follicles and laser/intense pulse light hair removal which destroys the hair follicle. While nothing can offer a 100% guarantee, these are the best solutions available today.
