As title really. Im a 20yr old bloke, and I mainly wanna get rid of the hair on my legs. Ive had suguaring done once by a pro, but that just hurt way to much for me to go back again so im looking for another solution. Since epilators do a smaller area Im hoping it wont hurt so much, although it’ll take longer to do.
So whats the general consensus?
well, i can only say that epilators hurt alot! no matter what area you do, it is painful…but the hair has to be the right length. make sure your leg hair is not too long.
personally i feel waxing such areas would be the best solution. if done by a professional at a salon the treatment is quick, minimal pain and hair free for about 3-4 weeks. i am not sure if sugaring is the same as a warm wax treatment.
Epilators hurt a lot more than pro waxing or sugaring, mostly because the process takes a lot longer. Some people don’t have problems with it (like me), but for others, removing hair by the root is like torture, and the thought of drawing it out is even worse! 
Self inflicted torture no less! That just about describes epilating oneself! However I think the results are worth the trouble 
[ May 23, 2004, 07:11 PM: Message edited by: Oblivion ]
Hm, painful? 
!!!
Me: Very hair dude - especially my stomach & chest. My back is hairy, but less so.
For arms & legs: I just use an electric hair clipper (not a shaver) once a month. Thankfully, the hair growth cycle is slow & the stubble doesn’t feel too bad at all. … Boy, if this were the only case with my stomach & chest. 
For stomach & chest: These hairs are deep & very thick - thicker than my leg hairs. With electric hair clippers, the stubble feels like sandpaper, even at about a 1/4". Worse, the growth cycle is about the same as my beard. So, for these areas I tried out a new rotary epilatory.
Initial attempts: Epilating my stomach was sooo painful that I could not remove more than a 1/2-1" thick horizontal strip across my stomach PER DAY! It got worse above the belly. After about 2 weeks, I decided to stop just below my pecks.
On the positive side, epliating the same area again becomes a bit more tolerable, probably because the regrowth comes out in spurts & is spread out. It may also be true that it simply get less painfull over a longer period of time of epilating, but I haven’t gotten there yet.
Also, on the positve side, the machine really does do what it’s advertised to do. (Other than the pain thing.)
All-in-all, I found the pain to be similar to self-waxing, though, the rotary epilator lets you remove a very tiny area at a time - that helps. What also helped was to epilate the hairs in the same direction of hair growth. (Mind you, this was NOT the direction suggested in the manual. For me, anyways, their suggestion was insanely painful!)
Freezing: Freezing the area before epilating wasn’t worth the trouble. (I laid a 2L fozen water bottle on my t-shirt for about 30 min.) After a very short time, you feel the pain again.
Showering: A hot shower, before epilating, seemed to lessen the pain by about 10-20%.
Conclusion: In the end, I stopped epilating because the in-grown hairs were abundant & terrible. My stomach looked like a war zone from my trying to dig them out. It took about 4 weeks for things to clear up completely. Mind you, I am no authority on exfoliating, but I did lufa often & cleaned the lufa after each use. As mentioned, the hairs are pretty deep on my belly, so that may have contributed to the in-growns.
Suggestion: Only do a small area for a period of about a month, maybe longer. Don’t enlarge the area any further until many of the hairs had a chance to grow back. That way, you can fully judge how manageable the ingrown hair problem really is.
Hope that helps.
[ June 10, 2004, 11:05 AM: Message edited by: CheaPet ]