How do you make epilation less painful?
I'm doing this for the first time, took a hot shower before.
And it hurts LIKE HELL.
I have a Braun Silk epil 7. So yeah if you have any tips on how to make this hurt less do tell.
For me the first time was SO painful that i could only do small patches at a time but the second time was far less painful and now i barely feel it at all. Just take it slow and at your own pace
That's the fun part, you don't.
I beg to differ, I find it relaxing
Yeah I gave up on epilation, hurt a lot the first time, numbing cream didn't seem to help, hurt about as much the second and third time. Starting IPL soon
When you do it the first time your hair is still very thick and it will hurt more. The more you do it the less it will hurt because the regrowing hair won't be as thick (because they didn't have as much time to grow) and it won't hurt as much. Long story short: just keep doing it in regular intervals (2-3 weeks) and you will get used to it.
Where are you using it? I tried my face once and I couldn’t get it done. I honestly think going one at a time with tweezers would have been better. You can more carefully find the angle the specific follicle wants the hair to be pulled at.
Just on my legs. Still painful af.
Yeah, for that much surface area tweezers probably aren’t the way. Only other advice I have is to really make sure you are matching the direction of the rotation with the direction your follicles are oriented. I could maybe make a quick diagram if you want, but basically making sure the drum is spinning in the right direction relative to the grain of your hair. With all the wacky directions the hair on my face grows in I had to really fight to figure out how to best use the epilator.
If you have ligt coler skin, pulsating light is really better. I saw better results with it than epilation, both with a silk epil or wax. If you have darker skin, I found waxing far more comfortable than epilator. It's not less painful, but it's only one sharp flash of pain, where the epilator is like the same pain but long running. If you go with wax, use a water-sugar based one, it rinces off better, and the paper band allows to have a nice grip on the band
I have really light skin, I might give it a try then. Thanks for the tip.
dark hair and light skin here- ipl can be fairly expensive but it works incredibly. anecdotally, within three treatments it reduces my lower leg hair to zero where it's fairly thick. the only issue i have is the device i purchased was very entry level so it takes several hours to go over my whole body- that's why i've just upgraded to a ulike air 10- it'll be a little bit before i'm home to try it out but i'm very optimistic after watching a few reviews, some people say they can do a whole body treatment in under 30 minutes.
Pain is relative, usually on a scale of 1 (not that bad) to 10 (a little bit worse than you've personally experienced).
So if you get into a car crash or get struck by lightning, such things won't really bother you anymore.
Otherwise you could set things up to stimulate the same dermatome (patch of skin that has sensory nerves entering the spine at a specific point) in different ways I'd put your feet on sandpaper or flex your toes while doing your legs. Basically there's interference between the neurons because they're competing for extracellular ions. It's why you see people limping round in circles when they stub their toe and why heart attacks cause pain in the left arm. Also why people get worked up having their toes sucked.
idk, I tried it and cried and gave up immediately
I've tried it only once or twice and stopped immediately, went to laser instead. Still hurts like a mofo but it's more effective.
One tip for afterward: put aftersun or any cream that helps your skin hydrate etc., in the fridge before you epilate, then apply after epilating/lasering.
When lasering, getting a cold compress on the skin immediately after each individual laser helped a ton.
Laser hair removal has gotten much better in a short amount of time. Go somewhere with newer machines and it does not hurt at all. I'm getting it done right now. The only discomfort is the cold gel they use on you.
Hmm, def doesn't not hurt. I got 8 sessions done and it hurts like a mofo each time.
That said, each succeeding session on the same areas is less painful than the former.
I always do it underwater in the bathtub. Way better. And as the others have said: The first time is the worst, I did it biting a towel because it hurt so much. I don't do it as much now as I used to because HRT has significantly slowed hair growth on my legs.
I have a theory that a lot of the pain comes from when the epilator slips off the hair or breaks the hair instead of pulling it out completely at the root. My thinking is that if the epilator successfully pulls out the hair it only needs to tug on the follicle once so minimal pain, but if it keeps tugging on the follicle from mowing down the hair, or just slipping off before completely pulling it out, it'll keep stimulating the follicle so more pain. I find that when a patch is able to be fully and cleanly epilated with no cut hairs left behind it's pretty painless. But when it starts leaving stubbly cut hairs behind that's when it starts hurting a lot. All that being said, I'm not sure how to stop it from breaking hairs. As for slippage, maybe it'd help to make sure that you and the epilator are completely dry before epilating, if you haven't already done so. You could also try reducing the speed of the epilator.
I've had similar thoughts!
It does hurt less after the first/second times. At first I did my feet, lower legs. Then stopped. Knees are particularly bad. Thighs hurt too and I didn't get to the top of them yet! I really just wanted smooth legs if seen under a skirt.
I put a podcast on, recommend: philosophy tube (which is by an incredible trans woman) - gives you loads to think about to distract from the pain.
Never try epilating your hands would be my advice. Felt like fire ants. (I imagine)
After about 10 times it starts to hurt less, keep at it! (Or save up for laser hair removal)
10 times‽‽‽ 😭
Some areas take more times than others, at most it's ten times, with some it can be as low as three
It hurts less after you power through the beginning. Also with regular use you might get used to it more and more.
It gets better with every time you do it. I recently started epilating again after not doing it for months and I used cold wax strips the first time because epilating just a few hairs hurt too much, but with the cold wax strips it's possible to remove hairs from large areas at once. I epilate every two to three weeks and it is easy now
tbh I gave up on it but I found that if you do it consistently it hurts way less