Hi!

I recently bought an Epilator (a Phillips Satinelle - can't rememember the exact one). I've used it on my underarms (it seems to work best here) and legs (not so good, but I figure that maybe I need to get a bit more used to it), and am planning to use it 'down there' (although, I decided to remove a the first lot of hair THERE using tweezers first).

Anyway, on my underarms, the pain has already faded and I find it much much better (for me, personally) than when I used to shave (you know, softer regrowth etc.) My leg experience wasn't brilliant - I missed a lot of hairs (probably carelessness), and regrowth came within less than a week (was not impressed) although it was softer. Down below, I manually plucked (heck! I was too scared to just dive in with those crazy rotating disc's). This worked really well (considering I remove it all), and maybe I should stick to this rather than using the epilator.

Anyway, all in all, I've found it better than shaving/depilatories/Nads.

So, I thought I'd do a little more reasearch on the subject, and found this site and message board (both brilliantly informative!).

However, there have been some things I have read on the boards that have kinda scared me, such as:

- Plucking can make regrowth thicker
- Hair removal from root can mess-up the follicle (or something similar to that)
[And some other things, I can't remember off the top of my head]

And I've also seen loadsa pics of models in mags who only appear to remove hair so far up their legs. Is this what's supposed to be done? I remove ALL leg hair and could people give me an idea of up to where many women do remove leg hair? Thanks!

And can you help me with the pros/cons of epilation (via rotary epilators)?

Thank you!

Vicky xxx

Hi Vicky-- It's possible to damage the follicle and have an effect on hair growth when you pluck. The rates are not well-established, but it's certainly a risk. You can also cause discoloration, especially if you have darker skin or expose the area to sun before and after treatment.

Models in magazines are probably not the best examples of what's typical in hair removal. While many women have fine enough hairs on their thighs to leave the hair there, many of us need to do the whole leg because there's lots of coarse hairs.