Hair removal at home

Everyone has body hair, although it’s not desirable on some parts of the body! Removing unwanted hair can be a costly and sometimes embarrassing experience, so why not do your own hair removal in the comfort and privacy of your own home? It can be much cheaper than having it done at a salon and you can avoid spending the rest of the day walking around in public with a bright red forehead when you have had your eyebrows plucked, or sticky with residue from a leg waxing treatment!

Waxing

Waxing is a great at-home technique which can easily give you a salon finish. It can be very easy, especially if you buy pre-waxed strips – you just warm the strips by rubbing them in your hands, apply it to the area you wish to remove the hair, and then pull it off. Veet’s Cold Wax Strips come with a special Easy Grip tab, designed to help you achieve smooth results in one swift move. Waxing can be a little painful, but you get good results as the hair is completely removed at the root. It is also easily disposed of by throwing the strips in the bin after use. Many women use this hair removal method in the bikini area, legs and their upper lip. If you are looking to recreate a true pampering experience, you might want to treat yourself to a warm waxing kit. Just like in a salon, this is done by heating the wax to a caramel-like consistency, which is then applied to the skin, and pulled away using special woven strips.

Shaving

This is a common quick fix for easy hair removal. But be warned, hair will often begin to grow back within a day or two as they only cut the hair off at the skin’s surface. After a day, you might be back to square one! Also, if you aren’t careful, shaving can leave you with cuts and nicks on your skin or even ingrown hair that appears as unsightly red bumps. These are especially common in the pubic region^[1]. It is a good idea to apply some type of moisturizer to the skin before shaving, to help the razor glide smoothly.

Plucking

Plucking is a very precise technique by which you remove one hair at a time by plucking them out with a pair of tweezers. It can be very time consuming but it is a great method for reshaping eyebrows or pulling out the odd few hairs that can appear on your face. It’s also great to use after some of the other methods, such as waxing or depilation. However, the hair shaft must be long enough to grasp with the tweezers.

Depilatory Creams

This is a great method for people with a low pain threshold. The cream is applied over the skin and works by dissolving the hairs to a jelly-like substance. It is then wiped off in as little as 10 minutes later. Regrowth of hair after depilatory creams takes less time and feels less coarse than after shaving^[2]. This is because shaving simply cuts the hair, leaving a jagged tip, whereas creams dissolve the hair to the skin’s surface, leaving a smoother finish and less obvious regrowth.^[3]