fair, sensitive skin and stomach hair

Hair Removal Methods Shaving/Trimming
#1

i chose the sad face icon because this is such a seemingly insignificant and superficial problem, but nevertheless, it still bugs me and i’ve been dealing with it for way too long.

i’m 22 (23 in a week! woo!) and i have stomach hair that i hate. when i was 13 and experimental with my razor, i shaved my legs all the way up to my chest. not that big of a deal, except that when my stomach hair grew back, some of it was much thicker (probably just hormones). and then i got very paranoid about it. so i did everything - i tried waxing (very difficult to pull my stomach skin taught enough for it to be effective), i tried electrolysis both professionally (ouch! and after a year of treatments, and lots of money, only a small little group of hairs about the size of a dime really seemed to stop growing back) and at-home (that one-touch system - so hard to use, so painful, and i scarred myself because i inserted the needle incorrectly or something), bleaching (dies the skin too, which looks strange, and doesn’t work on the coarser hairs), depilatories (had to repeat it often, tended to break hairs off and leave very uneven stubble)…

anyway, now i just pluck here and there (just around my belly button), and it’s not bad, but it still annoys me… because now, after all the different treatments, my stomach looks hairless in some parts, with patches of darker hair (but not too coarse) around the happy trail region, and little white scars, and ingrown hairs from plucking…

now my tummy is a walking advertisement for all the different hair removal methods!

what should i try that i haven’t, or is it best to just say f*** it at this point and accept my funky tummy hair patterns?

i have fair, freckled, sensitive skin and brown hair… if that helps at all. oh, and i’m a girl.

any help/advice/tips would be appreciated!

p.s. andrea, your kitties rock! (ailurophile, for those who do not know, means “one who loves cats”… yeah, i’m aspiring to be that old woman down the street with 11 cats one day… sounds like a good life to me)

#2

Electrolysis is the only proven permanent hair removal method. The skill of the practitioner is the factor that makes or breaks the effectiveness of your treatment. It is also true that having treatments on the proper schedule is as important as practitioner skill. Unfortunately many practitioners won’t tell a client how frequently they SHOULD come, they simply ask the client at the end of the treatment when they WISH to come back. At the start of treatment, one should have longer more frequent appointments, so that one gets to electrolysis as the only means of hair removal in the treated area as quickly as possible. Then one can simply remove all the hair every time one has an appointment. At this point, both the duration and frequency of appointments should decrease steadily.

Of course, as a woman, you may have to have touch ups every now and then, as many things can contribute to hair growth, and over the years, many different things may interact to add hairs to different parts of your body as time goes by. I knew one woman who had electrolysis done when she was 30. She had 20 hair free years, and then had to come to me for two 15 minute touch ups spread 6 months apart when she was 50 years old. It really works.

#3

You had the hair at 13? Did you check your hormones? I suggest you do soon.

#4

Ailurophile, I hope you had a great birthday, and sorry for the slow response.

We have similar skin and hair, it sounds like. I wax my “treasure trail” on my abdomen, or use an eipilator. only problem is that you have to moisturize and exfoliate a lot, or you get ingrowns, especially where your belt is tight against the skin. Yuck-o!

Laser’s not a good option for you is you want a permanent result. you are young, so the hairs you saw during electro may have been new ones coming in. There’s an age where doing electro is like raking leaves in the fall-- as soon as you get 'em all, more show up.

While hormones may be a factor, it’s far more likely to be hereditary. Still, if you have a lot of hair, more than others in your family, it might not be a bad idea to get your levels looked at.

I rescued my kitties from a crazy cat lady with at least 20 or so. Took 'em straight to the vet-- they had every critter known to man on 'em, but they cleaned up real nice!