Epilators for hair removal basically use a tweezing, or “grasp and pull,” electric rotation method to remove unwanted hair. Any method of hair removal has negative aspects, and with epilating, the downside is pain. Waxing and tweezing are other methods of epilating. Tweezing can be effective above the lip line or for small, concentrated areas, while waxing removes an area of hair quickly and painfully by taking the hair out by the follicles. With epilating, hair takes longer to grow back and may be finer than the original. By comparison, shaving the hair must be done more often, is usually much less painful, and results in somewhat coarser and thicker hair.
Considerations
Individual responses vary widely as to the most effective and desirable method of hair removal. Some who try the available commercial epilators claim that fine hairs, especially on the legs, come out with great difficulty or not at all. With usage, patience and practice, most users say they can better tolerate the hair pulling process because of the length of time before the hair grows back, and also because re-grown hair tends to be finer and less obvious; others simply go back to shaving rather than try to deal with an epilator.
Features
A comparison of shaving and epilating hair shows that shaved hair grows back several days quicker than epilated or tweezed hair. Thus, the time span between epilations is much greater than that between shavings. At the same time, the time it takes to shave is possibly one-tenth that of thorough epilating. Getting every single hair can be a trying experience with an electric epilator, so the person performing the epilation must have great patience, perseverance and a fairly high pain threshold.
History
Electric epilators were invented in the 1980s; the first well known epilator was called the "Epilady." The idea of a rotating, pincer-like tweezer that removed hair and follicle together caught on quickly. Spinning tweezers evolved into spinning discs, which lessened the pain and improved the thoroughness of the hair removal. Epilady has remained the "queen" of the epilators, and different models have been designed for each body part where hair removal is desired.
Considerations
Since the relative thickness of hair adds to the ability of the instrument to remove it, consideration should be given to hair thickness in deciding whether or not to buy an epilator. Very fine hair, especially leg hair, has been a continuous problem for epilators; in short, there seem to be key places on the body where shaving simply outperforms an epilator. The other consideration has to do with skin sensitivity; where skin is especially sensitive, as in the underarm, shaving may be a better option.
Conclusion
Comparisons of shaving versus electric epilating tend to be subjective depending on the time frame, importance and individual priorities of the user. Those in a hurry who don’t want to mess with a long, somewhat painful process will probably stick to shaving unwanted hair; those who want the hair gone for long periods of time (and don’t mind paying the price in terms of time and irritation) will choose epilating.
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