Skin being peeled off!!! HELP!!!

Hair Removal Methods Rotary epilators
#1

Hiya,

I’m a fairly hairy guy and have been trying out an epilator (Braun Silk-Epil) to see if it will help with the deforestation.

On a couple of occasions, I have used it on my forearms and it has taken bits of skin off. Sometimes it leaves little parallel tracks that later scab and leave dark scars that linger a while where the tweezers went.

I put on some antibacterial solution and rub in some vitamin E but does anyone have any advice on how to avoid this problem?

It seems to be mainly where the tweezers are passing over skin close to bone or tendon. I know the skin in this area is very sensitive, particularly on the inner wrists where I have had particular trouble.

Also, any men got advice for reducing pain felt when doing hairs on stomach/abs? It’s lethal!

Thanks!

Bill

#2

Sounds like you’re pushing the epilator down on your skin, and this is not necessary. The tweezers should only be grabbing the hairs, so little contact needs to be made with the skin.

Also, make sure the skin where you are epilating is pulled taut. If there are folds of skin, it is likely that you will be pinched.

Another suggestion… if you are going after longer hairs, it may be easier to first trim the hairs before epilating.

Hope this helps!

#3

Hi,

Thanks very much for your quick response. Yes, I think I was pushing down a bit (probably a reaction to the pain!). I will work on the taut skin thing, although it can be difficult on forearms as my hand can’t reach - I will try wedging my arm between my legs and using that to pull the skin.

Is there any good advice for dealing with any bits of skin being pulled off? I have used antibaterial spray and savlon. These seem to help. Wondered if anyone else here had experience.

Thanks.

#4

Hi,
Although I am a chic, I have helped my boyfriend experiment with my silk epil. He never did get used to the lethal (good word!) pain for the stomach area…and eventually switched back to shaving. In addition to pulling the skin, make sure you are looking at the hair before attacking…to ensure you are tweezing in the right direction.
I’ve used the silk-epil on my arms/legs for several years and although it takes forever…it doesnt get that aggravating prickly feel when it grows back, which is a huge bonus. I still get redness/bumps afterwards, it sometimes doesnt go away for 6 hours. I find that doing it before bed is good…since it should be healed by the next morning. Also waiting longer to do it again (ie: long hairs) generally makes the redness/bumps last longer because of the extensive irritation so trim beforehand if they are really long. Use alcohol on your skin before & after to help prevent ingrown hairs, etc.

Happy trails…or not!
-thinair

#5

Thanks for that.

So if the hair on the arm is pointing, say, up towards the wrist, would I move the epilator down towards my elbow?

Should I also be holding it with the switch towards me?

Thanks

#6

I’ve been there! Fortunally I already owned Emjoy Gold Caress at that time. I just bought that claim that Braun picks shorter hair (0.5mm). Man, was I wrong! It was a waste of money for me because though it may have that advertised feature but it comes for a price! Emjoy is much faster, in fact it’s the fastest I’ve tried. EMJOI AP-99 Optima is even faster with it’s Dual-Opposed Tweezer System(sure of that though not tried one). Emjoy are vastly superior! Still, when I decided to upgrade I did not go for Optima but bought Panasonic instead. Panasonic just very slightly slower then emjoy (still light years ahead of Braun) but it’s tweezer has smoller diameter which in my opinion results in fewver broken hairs when you move counter hair grow direction which is the best way to get shortest and flat-lying ones. And it does better job then Broun did fo shortest ones. Also it does not bite. No comparation to even Emjoy in that how gentle this one is. Also it’s very quiet. More expensive one has even smaller discs diameter and also it’s dual like optima.(though not opposed rotation & little noisier. You can take a look at J&R.com:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=4097653

Still the cheaper one is my favorite so far because of low noise level. If you dont care about noise - get higher model. It’s still quieter then Braun & Emjoy and battery life rocks! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> [color:“blue”] [/color]

#7

Hiya,

I’m a fairly hairy guy and have been trying out an epilator (Braun Silk-Epil) to see if it will help with the deforestation.

On a couple of occasions, I have used it on my forearms and it has taken bits of skin off. Sometimes it leaves little parallel tracks that later scab and leave dark scars that linger a while where the tweezers went.

It seems to be mainly where the tweezers are passing over skin close to bone or tendon. I know the skin in this area is very sensitive, particularly on the inner wrists where I have had particular trouble.

Also, any men got advice for reducing pain felt when doing hairs on stomach/abs? It’s lethal!

Thanks!

Bill

I’m also a fairly hairy guy that’s been shaving my body hair off for about 2 years now. I got tired of having stubble within 24 hours, so I findly broke down and did some epilator research and bought me a Braun Silk Epil 5270 back in November.

Anyway, I know what you mean about this phenomenon. I started to do the area just behind my armpit on the outside of that tendon there. I thought it was grabbing long hairs, when it fact it was doing what you said you had happen. Luckily it didn’t break the skin, but it left a huge patch of blood red steaks where the tweezers were grabbing. I didn’t realize this until I looked in the mirror and I was agasp at what had happened. I just applied anti-biotic cream and it eventually healed up after about a week.

I don’t seem to have the problem around the wrists as you do. And my wrists are fairly boney since my spinal injury which caused quite a bit of muscle distrophy in my arms.

Stretching your skin isn’t that necessary when you get right down to it. In fact, I found that loose skin, ie. relaxed muscle is easier to epilate that skin that is tight around bone. Why? I’m not sure…maybe it just has to do with that epilator drum can sink into the flesh a bit easier rather than bouncing along a bone.

As far as doing your belly? Hmmm…again, I don’t have that big of a problem there either. If anything, it’s doing it around my chest that hurts the most. But then again, that’s the only place on my body where I still have full sensation.

However, I’m not saying that I don’t feel the hairs getting pulled everywhere else…I do, but not in the normal sense.

The trick to epilating is that once you’re clear of hair the first time, coming back to it later when the hair starts to regrow is a synch. As the general rule of thumb here is that the denser the hair the more it’s gonna hurt as the epilator is obviously pulling more hair at once. But when you’re only going after the stray regrowths, it’s like nothing more than feeling a minor prick.