With my dad being middle eastern, I have been cursed with a ton of body hair. It isn't so thick that it covers my body, but it is very visible and it grows everywhere. I even have a unibrow to boot. I want to do laser hair removal but with the amount of hair I have, the cost would likely be extremely more than anything I could afford anytime soon. Are there any other methods that would be cheaper but also effective? Also, would testosterone blockers prevent further growth? I thought about using products like Nair, but I heard they can damage your skin. Is this true. Any advice would be really helpful.

I've never heard of that. It does sound easy and cheap. Thank you.

I have wanted The Tria for awhile but wasn't sure if it worked. Very happy to know it does.

Hi,

Unfortunately the Tria is only of any use on light hair as far as I can tell. If you have thick hair growth, I wouldn't waste the money and the tears.

You might want to look at this thread

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,136864.msg1100746.html#msg1100746

As a summary.

quote: (modified)

For male pattern hair the general reports are a waste of time.

  hair growth is cyclical, the 6-9 week period is to hit the next growth cycle, yes it is frustrating, but upping to 2 weeks does nothing but damage your skin. Yes I know how horrible waiting and shedding is. Been there.

The power of the lasers used on me was 220kj/cm (from memory) I had full facial hair. It wasn't a bee sting. It also worked. I had 9 sessions I'm hair free, it took 18 months. But noticable loss after 4/6 sessions in that I no longer needed makeup at all to cover facial hair. I also had my chest and tummy done, together with Spiro I now have normal female hair distribution.

The big lasers cost $250,000 the Tria costs $200-500 depending on the country. The big lasers need trained people to use them, the Tria's are toys that anyone can use.  They are obviously equivalent!

I hate to say it but as in everything in life if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

A person with faint hair - go for it, but they also can get treated in normal beauty saloons with the little lasers they use. They don't work on people with 'hair' sadly.

Unquote

BTW
Spiro does have profound effect on hair growth (in many) the reason I was put on it was to change my hair growth pattern to female and it has been dramatically successful in that!!!! I think the recommendation is to go on spiro and then do laser. Of course laser only works on dark hair and light skin.

Cindy

Waxing worked for me,I was a bear til HRT did it's magic.Have your eyebrows plucked or threaded

In my opinion the magic combination is HRT + TRIA. I have approximately 80% hair reduction on my face already. I started a bit aggressively, doing recurring treatments every 3 days, but using lower power settings to avoid burns. The only burn I have had was when I tried 3rd power setting (the max I am using on my face now) on my cheek without numbing cream. What I did with my upper lips and chin was basically prior plucking to reduce density so the laser would hurt less. Then, as the plucked hair grew back I just applied TRIA again to specifically target them. Upper lip is the most complicated because it hurts most and hair is very stubborn there. Neck is complicated too, because skin is thin (pain ) and angles are unconveniet.
As far as legs etc are concerned, I use shaving + standard epilation, and the hair does regrow thinner and finer (thanks to HRT). Even cis-women have hair on their legs, it is just not as coarse and thick.

Home laser/IPL removal works. Somewhat. You'll never get the results a professional machine would, but for sure, if you do it right and you buy a decent machine, you should be able to reduce your body hair by a satisfactory margin, in time.

Also, professional laser can be cheaper than you think. The clinic close to my home charges 35 $ per 15 minutes. To give you an idea, 15 minutes is what it takes to do my face (now that there's less hair on there, after a few treatments - before it was a bit longer). Still not exactly cheap, but compared to the super expensive contract I was swindled into elsewhere... it sure is quite a bit better.

If that won't do, well, it's not permanent, but waxing yourself is easy, cheap and near-painless in most areas. Oh, also, eeehm... Sugaring... you can try, but I did and decided never to do it again. It's convenient in that if you make a mess (or just to clean yourself) it's water soluble, while wax requires oil (and on surfaces like a carpet, then you have the oil to deal with), which is a pain. But wax adheres infinitely more efficiently to hair, so the stronger ones won't just be broken off. And most importantly, contrary to sugaring preparations I've tried, wax does not go throught the strip and stick to your hand. Which is the biggest. Pain. Ever.