I've often read online that using an epilator reduces hair over time because it damages the hair follicle causing hair to grow back thinner and some to not grow back at all.

However, my electrologist told me that the exact opposite occurs. Because epilating damages the follicle it causes blood flow to increase to the area, making hair grow back thicker and some inactive hair follicles to become active.

Which is correct?

It depends.

Sometimes hairs will become larger in diameter with mechanical epilation....sometimes hair will disappear with mechanical epilation. The factors are hormonal influence/enzyme in the area that results in hormones turning on hair follicles or not. It's all a crap shoot. Know that electrolysis will destroy the follicles hair growing ability. The only crap shoot there is selecting a good electrologist!

I used rotary epilators for a while. Actually, anyone can go back on my posts and dig the posts up if they wanted. Anyway, I found that rotary epilators did not make my hair get gradually thinner. Not at all. In fact, it made fine hairs grow back a bit coarser.
What I found, was that hairs that were whispy, tapered, and had natural curve to them, when rotary epilated, would grow back straighter, darker, and no longer had the natural contour whispiness. They were like "Frankenhairs" , they grew out very unnatural looking. The direction and shape of the hair no longer matched the contour of the skin. I hated the look. And this is first hand experience I'm talking from.


Now, you didn't say whether you , yourself, was thinking of using a rotary epilator. If you are, DON'T. They are terrible. They are more accurately "ingrown hair machines", I got tons of ingrowns from using them, and I followed all the precautions and aftercare. It still didn't help. If you're going to do anything similar to that, instead, learn to wax. For some reason, it's much better at effectively pulling out the hairs uniformly and gently.

Rotary epilators will give you "oatmeal" skin . It's this lumpy appearance that results from all the harsh breakage and trauma the skin undergoes with rotary epilation. I can always spot someone who rotary epilates, even to this day.

Anyway, hope it answered your question, and then some.

My hair grows back to it's full force if I give it enough time. Not thinner or thicker. It's mostly back in about a week and completely back in a couple of months. I'm a guy and I use it only on my arms/legs. I had to give up on chest/stomach because I was getting too many ingrown hairs there. My hair is already unnaturally coarse/thick even for a guy though.

My mother who at one point used epilators mentioned to me that her hair forever grew back thinner, but I have a hard time believing it.

I've used an epilator on and off for probably the past five years or so (usually just during the summer on my legs). I've got to say that I think it may well have led to some thinner areas of hair on my legs. The hair generally grows quite thickly there, but I have noticed certain patches where there now seems to be far less hair, some small almost bare areas in fact (and they don't seem to be where there would just naturally be less hair growing).

I know it's impossible for me to say that it's definitely the epilating that caused it, but I'm happy about it anyway!