Face hair removal with epilator?

[glaze]

Hi,

I have thick, dark (black), and coarse beard. So beard shadow is always there no matter what. It's unconcealable. I can't afford electrolysis now and the closest place where I could get laser beard removal is in an another state. I got frustrated and tried pulling some beard off with a tweezer. It was painful, but I got out around 20 or so hair out (20 of millions, of course). I was wondering if it's safe to epilate beard and upper lip area area? Electrolysis and laser are going to be painful anyway, if this temporarily gets the job done with results close to laser, then I'm thinking I'll try this as an alternative to shaving (which doesn't make my skin smooth anyway).

Just want a second opinion on it before I invest in an epilator.

[Hikari]

at least for me, tweezers are far less painful than my epilator. Oh, the epilator is quicker, but basically it is just a rotating tweezer, and it can yank the hair off my legs without too much, but i would need to have like some serious pain medication to use it on my face.

of course YMMV, but it is hard to imagine it being even close to bearable. 

[Randi]

The thing about using one on the face is it is so easy to seperate the layers of skin and wind up with blood just underneath the surface or causing deeper injury to these tissues. I have tried it and have done well for a bit but there was always a bit of tissue damage that took days to clear up-so I stopped that attempt and went back to the 'drudgery' of plucking them one by one when I get the time. If you read my post from the other day you will see that it took me over two hours to clear my upper and lower lip area. I have to say that it doesn't hurt as much to pluck them as it once did-perhaps I am getting used to the amount of pain but I will never again try my epilator there-no way!

If you stretch the skin when pulling it hurts much less than if you don't. And try to be careful not to grab a hunk of skin when placing your tweezer on the hair shaft-that hurts too especially under the nose or beneath the eyebrows. Hope this helps.

Randi

[AbraCadabra]

Using an epilator on the "initial" beard hair is neigh impossible. The pain and possible damage just too great. AND I DID TRY! Gosh!

Now, after more the 100 hours of electrolysis, preceded by 6 - 8 laser session IT IS ABSOLTELY POSSIBLE to epilate!

Why? Because a lot, or most re-growth roots are less thick than the original beard roots. Also laser and electrolysis seem to deaden some of those root nerves.

Lastly, in this scenario one STILL needs the tweezers as the epilator takes out none of those "left over" thicker re-growth roots. Maybe if grown out 3 – 4 mm but that be VERY visible in deed.

This unfortunately does not confirm your hopeful question, it is speaking from my experience.

Axelle

[Julie Marie]

Epilator on the face?  OUCH!!!

Facial hair is usually denser and more deeply rooted.  Even tweezing can cause irritation bumps.  But pulling it out in big chunks?  I think your skin would come with it.

So far laser and electrolysis are the only procedures that work and laser isn't permanent.  It's the bane of MTFs.

[Lisbeth]

I've used my epilator on my face. It works for me and is not too painful. But I've got six years of HRT behind me, so the coarseness of my face hair has changed. The biggest problem I had with it, is the hair has to be long enough for the epilator to grab. I don't want to go that long with a hairy face.

[AbraCadabra]

As Lisbeth says, even with close to white hair like I have it's horrid to grow it  3 - 4mm long, eh.

So I have now 1x week electrolysis, followed by 4 days epilate and tweezer plugging, followed by 3 days of growth so the beautician can get once more easily at the tough stuff.

This will like to go on, and on, and on....

Nothing one can do, the bane of MtFs as Julie said already,
Axelle

[adoradeny]

Yes, an facial epilator is recommended to use. The other methods of removing hair can damage your skin, and permanent hair removal technique is too expensive. Of course, if you can afford it, go for it! You have many alternative from where to choose, but I recommend you Braun Silk-Epil 7 7681 Wet Dry Epilator and use the facial cap for this area.

[LizMarie]

On another website a few years ago someone showed pictures after trying to epilate their face. It was a bloody mess. Fortunately it healed with no visible scarring but male facial hairs are not like body hairs nor like female facial hairs. In fact, male facial hairs are so different, they alter the skin of the face, making it thicker, in order to support the heavier hair follicle.

[pierre1606]

I'd recommend  electric epilator Karmin 

[Kitty June]

oh wow, i have the braun epilator and I caught a little of my neck while doing my chest. OH MY GOD that is painful. I'll do the rest of my body, but I don't think I could do my face. Ever. I did pick up a silk n sense IPL thingy and while it didn't get rid of all my hair, it did get rid of a bit and the dark hair grows much slower. Bad part is I have way too much white hair. If I would have had the money I probably would have bought the tria but it was a compromise until I can get electrolosis

[Ms Grace]

I had my beard/mo waxed a few times (both back in the early 1990s and in 2013), and yeah it was painful as hell... but it meant someone else was inflicting the pain and it was over in about ten minutes with some proper skin care applied afterwards. The thing is, the beard and mo are always growing and at different stages of growth... within a few days of waxing there were other hairs vying to take the place of the dearly departed. When I started electrolysis (my beard is too light for laser) my electro strongly advised against and further waxing or tweezing since not only can it lead to ingrown hairs and infections it can also distort the follicle and make it very difficult to do electro (or laser) properly or completely.

[VeronicaLynn]

I tried this awhile back using my Brawn Silk Epil 9 with the facial cap and it really hurt, especially the upper lip. It wasn't as bad on the sides of my face or neck where it is pretty patchy on me.

The biggest problem though is that you have to let it grow out for 3-4 days for it to be long enough for the epilator to pick up, and then my face is all red the rest that day and the next, and for me at least, it starts to grow back in another 3-4 days, so I don't get a lot of days with a smooth face out of all of this. All of the hairs also don't grow back at the same rate so I end up having to epilate and then shave.

It was totally worth the pain just to see what I would look like without a dark beard shadow, as I have one no matter how close I shave.

I could possibly see doing this for the handful of white hairs I will be left with after laser though as they are less noticeable anyway.

[michellejh]

I personally love my  electric epilator Karmin 

[bzik]

So I read this post and found that there are different opinions.
I was thinking about applying some cream to make the skin numb, loose sensation, then pluck it out with one of the electric devices.

and maybe do it on a weekly basis, instead of shaving.
but from what I read at this site, there could be damage to the skin.

has someone actually used hair plucking and only plucking ?
unfortunately, when I shave I get these nasty zits, and they take about a week each time to mend, sometimes more.

any way, will be happy to get some experienced oversight.

thanks

[DawnOday]

Epilator? Only for masochists.  had one of those spring dealies. As I began ripping off my face, I realized this was not for me. You say you have dark hair so a home IPL machine should do the job unless your skin is dark.Hair dark yes. Skin dark, no. Make sure to use the lowest comfortable setting because setting it too high may damage the skin. For this Home machine runs between $250 to $500.

[Devlyn]

Modern epilators come with attachments and accessories for use on the face. I do recommend getting used to  tweezing before trying one.

Hugs, Devlyn

[josie76]

I tried an epilator, no way could I do it that way.

I am now trying a home IPL device. Shave close then apply some toothache gel. After the upper skin gets numbed hit it with the light. There are so many hairs on the face that it still hurts pretty badly. The whole hair under the skin gets heated so it's an intense hornet sting feeling. I've done my face twice with it at maximum power. The second week treatment was a bit less painful. Either some of the hairs were dead already or I just was expecting the pain better.

Results so far. Some of the face hair is looser when I pull with tweezers. These have a very blackened root on them so it appears it did the job on some of them. The last time I did it around my mouth everything got covered twice in that one session. This seemed more effective on those hairs. Now the issue is I have some grey hairs which seem to not be effected at all by the light. So there's still those to deal with. Also none of the hairs with blackened roots have yet to shed on their own. I'm not certain how long it takes for beard hair to work out on its own.

[LShipley]

Too much skin damage and pain for me to even consider it. Normally takes a day or 2 to heal for me and if it ever got infected on your face it would be really bad. No thank you

If you can epilate your face you can probably self electrolysis lol