Removing Facial Hair

How do you remove unwanted facial hair?

By Farthana

Answers:

Removing Facial Hair

When I can afford to I go to a beauty school and get my chin and eyebrows waxed. Beauty schools are less expensive than salons. For in between I have a "Finishing Touch" personal facial hair remover. They advertise them on TV, but I found mine at my local WalMart in the health and beauty aids department. (06/21/2010)

By Joan

Removing Facial Hair

My boyfriend's sister is a licensed cosmetologist with her own shop, and I learned from her to use Surgi Cream hair remover for face, it's an extra gentle formula and works great. I used to be able to buy at our local super Walmart, but they discontinued it, so I found that I can buy it at a local beauty supply shop, good luck. Btw, I've been using it for three years or more now. (06/21/2010)

By Marie

Removing Facial Hair

I use Vaniqua, a prescription product. It is expensive ($75.00 or so), but the small tube lasts about a year. It is the only thing, besides shaving, that works for me. (06/23/2010)

By Janet

Removing Facial Hair

Initially waxing or tweezing will stimulate the follicle and make you produce more hair. After a few rounds though, the follicle will become damaged and the amount of hair will be greatly reduced and even cease altogether. It is important to exfoliate to handle ingrown hairs if you are prone to them. Glycolic acid peels and toners are perfect for this as well as good to keep wrinkles and discoloration at bay. Shaving will result in ingrown hairs, thicker hair and skin damage in a lot of people. Also the 5 o'clock shadow is a problem with shaving, and razor burn or crusting typically seen near the corners of the mouth if your hair is coarse.

Laser treatment is not permanent and does not work well if the color of the hair is close to the color of the skin or if your hair is white, gray, or light brown. Light skin and dark hair do best, but brown skin and black thick follicles fare well too. Laser may work well initially, but the hair will return. Sometimes it can last as long as a year or more, sometimes not as long. Many treatments are required and it is expensive.

Electrolysis is the only permanent form of hair removal under FDA definition, but is expensive and can take a long time. It is glorified tweezing that destroys the follicle. But each follicle must be treated several times as more than one follicle can arise from the area and the needle must be inserted directly into the follicle to be effective. Laser can be effective, but eventually the hair follicle will regenerate itself. Depilatories are effective, but pose some of the same issues as shaving. The shadow might take a little longer to be evident since the depilatory or hair removal cream extends a little deeper into the skin layer.

Some people are very sensitive early or later and develop skin irritation with prolonged use, and also ingrown hair. Threading is again tweezing and will have the same results. The nice thing about threading is that it naturally exfoliates a tiny bit of skin and aids in the prevention of ingrown hair. This new device NO NO is still new and the jury is still out.

Vaniqua cream works, but is prescription and the hair will return when the cream is no longer used. There are non-prescription alternatives, but they too must be used daily or the hair will return. They are a good alternative for a small amount of chin hair or lip problems. Hope this overall review helps. Someday let us wish for a better solution to this common problem. Some women have a very serious hair growth problem, hirsutism or hypertrichosis and it is not to be dismissed so lightly. (06/25/2010)

By SAT

Removing Facial Hair

Excessive facial hair runs in my family. My mother, her three sisters, my sister, and I and one grand daughter, all have the problem. By the time I was in my 40's I probably could have easily grown a full beard!

I started waxing and using chemicals (until it finally made my lip swell). Then I went back to waxing only when I was a teenager. About eight years ago, I spent over one thousand dollars for Alaze (laser treatments). At the time they said it was permanent. It wasn't! Within a year my facial hair was worse than ever.

I have now been doing electrolysis for a year and it appears to be a permanent solution. The technician has been in business for years. She told me that because I had been waxing and tweezing for so many years each follicle now had several roots and it would take longer than had I never tweezed. So I would recommend that anyone shave only, until they can afford electrolysis. And it only makes sense that shaving does not disturb the root at all so it would not cause more roots as tweezing and waxing does.

After a year of going once a week for electrolysis, I am finally beginning to see results. I eventually changed to every two weeks and now just once a month. I still shave in between my electrolysis appointments, but the few that are left are not the coarse ones that were so obvious. I have light ash brown hair, but my eyebrows and eyelashes have always been black or a very dark brown, as is my facial hair. I also have to tweeze several black hairs around my breast nipples every week.

My electrologist charges $50 for for thirty minutes and $80 for one hour. She has a cream that is supposed to help deaden the skin for pain, but I chose not to use it at the first treatment as it would take ten to fifteen minutes before it would take full effect. I told her to try it without and was fine as I have a very high tolerance for pain. Although I really don''t consider it very painful at all.

A little bit more than tweezing. But I also have very oily skin with large pores. If I had fine skin with less visible pores, I think it might be more painful. She is also doing the stray hairs in my thick black or at least very dark eyebrows. That is more painful than my lip and chin area, but still tolerable for me to bear just to not have to tweeze every night and my eyebrows every night also!

My youngest grand daughter has the same problem and I offered to pay for six months of electrolysis for her, but she prefers waxing for now. Her older sister is blond with no facial hair problem!
My electrologist also told me that Alaze works great for legs, arms, and bikini, but not facial. Only electrolysis is a permanent solution at the current time for facial hair.
I also have to shave my arms, toes, and fingers! (06/25/2010)

By Kathryen

Removing Facial Hair

I use Sally Hansen facial hair removal cream. Hair grows back in about 4-6 weeks, but there is no "stubble", it grows back soft and is very effective. The trick is to put it on thick, don't leave on more than 6 minutes and then rinse softly with a very wet wash cloth and then hands. If you rub, your skin will burn. Instead of the accompanying cream they provide, I immediately apply Neosporin pain ointment (I do it before bed) and there is no burning. The next day I avoid any skin creams, usually just vitamin E oil for moisturizing and sun block. (07/16/2010)

By Nancy