Permanent Hair Removal - Is It Achievable?
It would be wonderful if it was possible to have complete control over the hair that naturally grows on our bodies. Unfortunately we don't and so for most of us there is a constant battle with unwanted hair growth.
If you're lucky you have fair hair and slow growth. If you're unlucky you have dark, thick hair that grows rapidly. Of course hair removal is a personal thing. Some women are quite happy to have hair on their arms and feel no need to do anything about it. Others, especially those with darker hair, may find themselves feeling embarrassed if they don't remove the hair from their arms. Strangely few women are prepared to walk round with hairy legs whatever colour those hairs may be.
Removing hair takes time. If your hair growth is quick then you'll have the frustrating task of trying to keep the stubble at bay. Razors, waxing, creams, etc, there seems to be a whole host of ways to remove that hair but often you can see and feel that regrowth within a few days or even a few hours if you are unfortunate enough.
What people want is a way to remove the hair and for it not to come back. An easy, permanent solution to the problem is what is needed. As yet this isn't possible despite some claims. Really the best anyone can achieve at the moment is long term hair reduction. After treatment via laser, electrolysis or intense pulsed light method individual hairs may never grow back, or may grow back after several months or even years, or grow back within a few weeks. With laser hair removal up to 90% of hair will never regrow again but that still leaves at least 10% that will. Any regrowth will probably be weaker than it originally was and so be slower growing.
One thing to realise is that the colour of the hair and your skin can also play a huge factor in whether or not these methods will work on you. Laser and IPL works best on people who have dark hair and fair skin.
Electrolysis is undoubtedly the most effective method overall but each hair follicle has to be treated individually, sometimes more than once and you need to rely on the person doing it to treat every single hair to achieve a good rate of hair removal. Because of this it is very time consuming but can work very well on small areas such as the face. Laser hair removal doesn't achieve quite the same level of permanent hair reduction but it is a lot quicker to carry out.
The intense pulsed light (IPL) method isn't so powerful and it's more a case of hair reduction than permanent removal however it can be done at home and greatly reduces the amount of shaving you need to do. All methods take time and need to be done over several weeks and months for the effects to be seen and will probably need top up treatments. And, it has to be said, that none of them are cheap.
Maybe one day someone will come up with a solution to the hair growth problem that will allow permanent hair removal for all colours of body hair and skin colour.