Got hair?

They say Indigenous peoples in Brazil pluck their body hair with their fingers. Mix their culture with Portuguese hairy DNA, and what you get is a contemporary hair madness.

I'm Brazilian. That means I wax since God knows when.

Thought Portuguese descendent, I don't have much body hair really, but I hate each one I have with a passion. I have dedicated many hours of my life trying to destroy the little bastards, but they always managed to comeback after 2-3 weeks.

I've tried everything. Warm wax, cold wax, depilatory creams, epilators of all kind. Warm wax is what worked better for me, but doing that on yourself is fairly dangerous. I got trapped more times than I would like to admit. Not to count the times when I was too busy to wax, then I would try depilatory creams, and end up full of ingrown hair. Ewww!



Last time I waxed at a beauty salon in Brazil, the waxing professional observed that I have so little body hair that if I'd try laser hair removal I would see results in no time. I can't spend time enough in Brazil to be able to have the whole treatment, and this treatment in Finland is absurdly expensive, so when I saw the first home laser/IPL hair removal devices I thought my prayers have been answered.

I started researching about this devices, and I couldn't be more confused. It's impossible to find a clear advice of which device is better. There are far too bought reviews, published and re-published to exhaustion on forums and blogs. Beware!


That's why I decided to write down everything I could find out about the devices available in the market
And why should you believe ME? Well, just like you, nobody is giving me anything for free, and I'm concerned about wasting hundreds of euros on a nice looking toy that just won't work. 


Let's go through parts:



Laser diode x Intense Pulsed Light (IPL)
They are not the same thing. IPL is not laser, it's just a strong light pulse. Both work the same way - they burn the hair follicle, and if you are lucky enough and you catch the hair on a growing phase, you manage to kill it for good.

Some say laser diode is more efficient, but I couldn't find any user review guarantying that. The brands themselves boots their devices, but researchers say there might be no difference.

The only thing that can be a differential is the fact that (if I understood correctly) IPL bulbs have a short lifetime. They are said to last from 750 pulses (Silk'n) to 40.000 (Rio IPL 8000 --- Really?!) , while laser diode doesn't need to be changed (Rio 60x --- I have a feeling Rio boosts itself a bit too much)





Is it permanent?
It might be too early to say. Some claim it is. Some say it's just temporary. Others say these treatments only reduce the hair amount. However, it still seems better than waxing, shaving or any other option available until now.



Does it hurt?
It seems that depends on the user's resistance to pain. Some say it hurts like "the flick of an elastic band", some don't feel anything. But they still say it hurts less than waxing.
Oh, and one weird thing: you'll have to shave before using the device to avoid the hair to burn and hurt your skin.



Skin type
This kind of treatment doesn't work on dark skin nor light hair. That's because the light uses the hair dark color to "travel" to the hair's follicle. When the hair is light blond or gray, it's unable to absorb the light. When the skin is dark (type 5 and 6) the concentrated mount of melanin tends to absorb more light than average, increasing the chance of burning, blistering and skin discoloration. 

How long does it take?
The treatment's endurance depends on two things: the window size, and the pause between the flashes. The bigger the window, the larger the area treated. The faster the pause, the faster you can move to the next spot.







Let's compare some of the most popular Intense pulsed light (IPL) and Diode Laser home devices:

Philips Lumea

Type: IPL

Price ~ 455 €

Window size: 3cm²

Lamp lifetime: 40.000 flashes (no lamp replacement)

Flash pause: 3-5s

Permanent? No

Can be used on face? No

Can be used by men? No

Gel required? No

Pros: Looks nice, doesn't it?

Cons: 
Philips Lumea is simply a "photo epilation". The light energy is not intended to be strong enough to disable the fair follicle completely.
The lamp can't be replaced, which means after 40.000 flashes you can through the whole thing away. OUCH!
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Remington i-Light

Type: IPL

Price ~320 €

Window size: 2cm²

Lamp lifetime: 1.500 flashes (comes with 3 spare lamps), ~ 26 €/lamp

Flash pause: 2s 

Permanent? No

Can be used on face? No

Can be used by men? Yes

Gel required? No

Pros: It has a multi flash mode which allows continuous movement and thus faster treatment sessions.

Cons: Zaps are not fully even, so you end up overlapping some areas and missing others. It feels quite weak and cheap.
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Boots Smooth Skin

Type: IPL

Price ~ 377 €

Window size: 3cm²

Lamp lifetime: 10.000 flashes (190 €/spare lamp)

Flash pause: 6s 

Permanent? Yes

Can be used on face? Yes

Can be used by men? Yes

Gel required? Yes (3,42 €)

Pros: Good reviews (Like this one: http://www.beautyscribbler.com/2009/12/boots-smooth-skin-ipl-hair-reduction.html)

Cons: The device is very expensive, the lamps are quite expensive (ok, they also last quite long), it requires a gel and as far as I know you can only get it from UK.
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Boots Smooth Skin iPulse PLUS

Type: IPL

Price ~ 455 €

Window size: 12mm X 25mm

Lamp lifetime: 20.000 flashes (no lamp replacement)

Flash pause: 3-6s 

Permanent? Yes

Can be used on face? Yes

Can be used by men? Yes

Gel required? Yes (3,42 €)

Pros: Good reviews 

Cons: The device is very expensive, it requires a gel that as far as I know you can only get it from UK and again, after 20.000 flashes it goes to the trash. OUCH! OUCH!

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Rio IPL 8000

Type: IPL

Price ~ 400 €

Window size: 14mm X 35mm

Lamp lifetime: 40.000 flashes (99€/ spare lamp) - Actually it will depend on what level you're suing it. 40.000 flashes if you're working with weaker levels, because if you work with levels 4 and 5, the lamp's lifetime is 10.000 flashes!

Flash pause: 5s 

Permanent? Yes

Can be used on face? Yes

Can be used by men? Yes

Gel required? No

Pros: Sounds good

Cons: Bad reviews. I don't know if it's the product that isn't good, of if it's the advertising. Somehow it seemed the few positive reviews were bought. Like the one from Katherine (KathEv), and the one from Paul B (-pb-). They are everywehere. The "enthusiastic users" are always telling how perfectly the machines work, they give links to websites that sell it, telling how fast they deliver, how sweet the sellers are... Hmmm... 

PS: Rio, if you're reading this and you'd like some proper review, I'm at your service!!!
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Rio Scanning x60

Type: Laser diode

Price ~ 500 €

Window size: 14mm X 21mm

Lamp lifetime: Forever?

Flash pause: a few (?)

Permanent? Yes

Can be used on face? Yes

Can be used by men? Yes

Gel required? No

Pros: Sounds good also. And if it's true what they say, laser diode should have faster results than IPL. 

Cons: Angry reviews. They too could be bought reviews (counterpropaganda) but somehow they are more convincing than the positive ones.
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Silk'n SensEpil

Type: IPL

Price ~ 294 €

Window size: 6 cm² 

Lamp lifetime: 750 flashes (41 €/ spare lamp)

Flash pause: 3,5s

Permanent? Yes

Can be used on face? Yes

Can be used by men? Yes

Gel required? No

Pros: It's the device with most reviews on Internet. And many positive reviews are clueless, which seems to me they are simple people writing from their hearts <3

The window is quite big. It's cheap... This could be a good one, if it wasn't for:

Cons: 750 flashes/ lamp makes it the shortest lifetime among all lamps!!!
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Silk'n Flash n'go or Flash & Go or Flash and Go

Type: IPL

Price ~ 230 €

Window size: 4 cm² 

Lamp lifetime: 1000 flashes (comes with 1 spare lamp, ~ 31 €/ spare lamp)

Flash pause: 3,5s

Permanent? Yes

Can be used on face? Yes

Can be used by men? Yes

Gel required? No

Pros: Seems to be as good as Silk'n SensEpil, but more anatomic and cheaper. The lamps last a tiny little bit longer. 

Cons: The window is smaller than Silk'n SensEpil. Each lamp only lasts 1000 flashes.

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Now, to be honest, there's not a clear best option. If Rio could prove that their devices do what they promise, theirs would be the best ones; but the costumers reviews made me quite skeptical.
I think I prefer Silk'n Flash and Go because of the good reviews on Silk'n and because of the price of the device, and the anatomic shape. I'm not happy about the lamp lifetime though. It's a tough decision...

Hey, Rio! Why don't you just send me one of your devices to test?! It would make everybody's life much easier!!!