There are basically two forms of body hair removal: Depilation and epilation.
Depilation is the removal of the body hair above the surface of the skin. The most common forms of depilation treatments are shaving and depilatory solutions or hair removal creams.
Shaving is done either wet with manual razors or dry with many different types of electric shavers including the increasingly popular personal shavers.
Depilatory solutions use harsh chemicals that are applied to the skin in order to dissolve the hair above the skin.
Epilation is the removal of the entire body hair down to and including the root under the skin. The most common types of epilatory treatments include waxing, sugaring, lasers, threading, electrolysis, and the most widely used form, which is plucking.
Plucking can be done individually by hand with a pair of tweezers or with plucking devices know as epilators that pull out or pluck many hairs at one time.
Epilation types of body hair removal last much longer then depilatory types of treatments since the entire hair shaft is removed down to the root.
Epilatory treatments can last as long as three to four weeks and for electrolysis, it can often be a permanent solution since the electric current usually permanently destroys the follicle of the hair.
Whereas with depilatory treatments, the hair begins growing back immediately so hair removal can be required on a daily basis depending on how important it is for the area to be clean-shaven.
Depilation type treatments are generally the less painful forms of body hair removal since the hair is just removed above the skin and the lower hair shaft and root are not affected. Of course, there can be some pain involved with these treatments as well especially when using a hair removal cream if you have rather sensitive skin.
With shaving there is the possibility of nicks, cuts, ingrown hairs and just plain old skin irritations from the razor scraping across the skin.
With depilatory solutions such as hair removal creams there can be skin irritations from the harsh chemicals used to destroy the hair.
And for some people with sensitive skin, either of these body hair removal methods can be too harsh for even less sensitive areas like legs, backs and armpits much less for more sensitive areas such as the face, top of the head, chest and pubic regions of the body.
Epilatory treatments are the more painful of the two types of hair removal methods with electrolysis being the most painful. Each individual hair will receive an electric current down into the shaft in order to kill the follicle, root and all. There is also the possibility of receiving an electric shock from the treatments.
Electrolysis is also an extremely time intensive treatment since the treatments will need to be conducted over many lengthy sessions taking a year or more to completely remove even a small area of body hair. It is not recommended for large areas of body hair and is quite expensive.
The other epilatory types of treatments including plucking, waxing, threading, and epilator devices all pull the body hair out by the root. Epilators, threading and waxing are quite painful as they pull out large quantities of hair at one time where as plucking removes one hair at a time.
Plucking is the most widely used epilation type treatment for small areas such as eyebrows on both males and females and for women on their upper lip, cheeks and chin areas as well.
Both depilatory and eplatory treatments for body hair removal have pros and cons. You should check out each type of treatment carefully and decide for yourself which type is most effective for the type of body hair you are looking to remove.
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