As modern men, we're spoilt for choice nowadays on the different ways to deal with unwanted body, facial, and pubic hair.
Enjoy the article. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions, or drop into my Rockhampton studio for a chat. My details are on the bookings page.
Have a brilliant day,
Andrew Thompson
Hair removal options
| Clippering | Shaving | Creams |
| Waxing | Sugaring | Electrolysis |
| Laser | IPL |
Clippering
Clippering, also called trimming, is the easiest, fastest and least traumatic way to get rid of unwanted body hair.
Clippering can be done in the privacy of your own home, and doesn't require any particular skills.
It involves using a set of electric clippers, also referred to as hair trimmers.
The results don't last very long and the result won't be perfectly smooth, but clippering does hold its own special place in the list of hair removal methods, most notably in terms of convenience.
Shaving
Next is shaving. Again, it's an easy option with the added advantage that you will get a smooth result at least for the short term.
The results of shaving don't last terribly long, because you are only removing the hair at the surface of the skin.
Stubble quickly reappears and shaving becomes a daily affair, with cuts, bumps, itching, and shaving rash soon becoming a new fact of life.
Depilatory Creams & Sprays
As for depilatory creams, use them with caution. Depilatory creams (yes, sprays are the same thing in different packaging) have come under intense scrutiny during recent years.
Keratin, the substance which is targeted and dissolved by depilatory creams, is a vital substance in both hair and skin, and unfortunately the keratin in your skin can be damaged as well.
You also run the risk of absorbing chemicals into your blood, plus other more common symptoms such as pimples, folliculitis, cracking, crepey skin, and thickening of the epidermis.
For the same short term result, you're better off shaving.
Waxing
By a very big margin, the most common form of commercial hair removal is waxing. It removes the hair shaft and root, but unlike electrolysis, IPL and laser, waxing leaves the hair bulb intact.
New hair will usually regrow in 4-6 weeks but comes back finer after each treatment.
Sugaring
Bluntly, sugaring is pretentious twaddle. Back in the 2010s, someone decided to reinvent the wheel by bringing this old hair removal treatment from Ancient Persia to the modern day.
Sugaring is popular with women in particular, who feel the need to be different and tell all their friends about it, and are happy to pay extra for a treatment that takes twice as long.
Electrolysis
Electrolysis is an old but effective way of removing hair for the long term, as it destroys the bulb of each hair one at a time. The down side is that electrolysis is costly, quite painful, takes a very long time to perform, and requires many treatments.
All those negatives aside, electrolysis is regarded by most government and industry bodies as a 100% permanent method of hair removal.
Unfortunately, very few new therapists receive training in electrolysis as there are many big hurdles (in Australia at least) to become qualified nowadays. Due to those difficulties, it seems to be a dying art form and finding a reputable therapist can be difficult.
Laser
Several types of lasers are used for hair removal. Yag and Alexandrite are common examples. They differentiate from one another by frequency, with each type generally claiming to be the best and/or newest.
Nowadays, laser is mainly found at franchised laser chains in shopping centres. Treatments are usually cheap but somewhat painful without a numbing cream.
Results and consistency varies, which is reflected in laser chains typically offering blocks of ten treatments.
That low efficacy is partly due to the high staff turnover at discount laser clinics. Trainee placements are quite common in order for students - who often pay for the privilege of working - to complete their mandatory clinic hours in order to become qualified.
It's unfortunately the nature of the beast in some states of Australia, particularly Queensland. The low perception of laser is a principal reason I don't use laser equipment in my clinics any more.
IPL
IPL, or Intense Pulsed Light, works in a similar manner to laser, i.e., a bright flash of light targets melanin in the hair with a pulse of heat energy.
The principal difference is that where laser operates on a pre-set wavelength, IPL is variable. It can operate on many frequencies between 430 and 1200 nM. Filters can also be applied to enable the light to pass more effectively through different shades of skin.
With all the above said, many different types of IPL are on the market. These range from the hand-held IPL you can buy from razor and shaver shops, to high end medical grade equipment like the units we use at Man Thing.
IPL results are like anything else. You get what you pay for. I've used medical-grade IPL at all my clinics for over 20 years. It's safe and effective.
