I’ve got bad news for you: smooth legs, armpits and bikini area aren’t enough nowadays. More and more women remove hair from their arms too. What arm hair removal method do I recommend? Arm hair removal with cream (chemical depilatory), disposable razor, wax, sugar paste, epilator or laser? If you don’t know which method to choose, let me present you all the pluses and minuses of each.
Arm hair removal with cream (chemical depilatory)
Minuses: short-lived effects with a high risk of skin irritations due to ill-matched preparations.
Pluses: easy, painless, fast.
Chemical depilatories remove hair right at their roots, so in other words, they shave hair without blades. The whole procedure lasts just 3 minutes. The present-day chemical depilatories still produce chemical smell but it’s camouflaged by odoriferous substances. Additionally, such creams and balms feature soothing substances that relieve epidermis, and they are in particular: honey, aloe extract, avocado extract or jojoba oil.
Chemical depilatories have to be used according to the manufacturer’s recommendations, and this principle mainly applies to the amount of time devoted to letting the cosmetic be in contact with skin. The action of chemical depilatory depends on breaking the disulfide bonds in keratin on hair’s entire length, therefore leaving it on skin longer than necessary entail the risk of skin irritations. The cosmetic always goes with a special plastic spatula or a sponge.
Arm hair removal with disposable razor
Minuses: very short-lived effects with a high risk of irritations and small cuts, hair grow out harder and darker.
Pluses: fast and cheap.
Probably many of us reach for disposable razors to get rid of hair. Their main advantage is the low price and quickness of the procedure. Unfortunately, when it comes to hair removal, it’s better to resign from using disposable razors if you want to get rid of your arm hair. The blades cause irritations and break the skin, and what is strictly connected with this – inflammation and infection of hair follicles occur. Such blemishes look definitely worse than hairy arms, especially that after being treated with disposable razors, the hair grows out dark and thick.
Arm hair removal with wax
Minuses: painful and cause irritations.
Pluses: long-lasting effects, hair grows out thinner and weaker.
Wax hair removal is one of the best methods delivering the most durable effects. Wax strips enable us to remove unwanted hair fast and for long. For how long precisely? For approximately 2-3 weeks. After this time hair grows out long enough so the procedure has to be reapplied. The biggest disadvantage of using wax strips is the pain that accompany the treatment. Other minuses include skin irritations and allergic reactions. Most people are allergic to synthetic wax, therefore right after removing hair with the strips, spots and blemishes might appear. If you have just started your adventure with wax, I suggest you to use a beautician’s help because unskilfully ripped stripe can deprive you of small skin patches or cause blotches. Wax hair removal isn’t recommended for people having skin ailments and for those who are prone to broken capillaries.
Arm hair removal with sugar paste
Minuses: painful, the paste is hard to prepare at home, fairly expensive when undergone in a beauty parlour.
Pluses: long-lasting effects, doesn’t trigger allergic reactions.
Arm hair removal with sugar paste is almost the perfect method. The paste used to pull out the hair is made from natural substances, from sugar and lemon juice in particular. The final effect can be compared to wax hair removal, yet contrary to synthetic wax, paste causes neither skin irritations nor allergic reactions. Moreover, due to the sugar paste, hair is less resistant to be pulled out which reduces the risk of bruises and other adverse reactions of our skin.
The bad news is that sugar paste is rather difficult to be prepared at home. The recipes you can find on the Internet hardly ever work out. I’m sure that if you use this very hair removal technique, you will agree with me that it requires experience and skill. Additionally, removing hair with sugar paste is linked with scalding. For that reason, it’s better to get at least one, the first one, hair removal procedure done in a beauty parlour. The specialist will show you how to use sugar paste to remove hair from your arms safely and, maybe, will give you a recipe for preparing it at home.
Arm hair removal with epilator
Minuses: painful, encourage in-grown hair.
Pluses: long-lasting effects, cheap provided that you have your own epilator.
Using epilator is considered as a fairly cheap way of removing hair providing that you own the tool. Sadly, an epilator is rather noisy and the hair removal itself is painful because this tool pulls out hair together with its bulbs. It also sometimes happens that the skin irritations are reluctant to disappear fast. Additionally, using epilator is connected with the risk of in-grown hair and hair follicle inflammation. This is fairly troublesome because open wounds are easy to get infected. Of course, taking care of the irritated skin parts is toilsome.
Although this method of hair removal isn’t pleasant, the effects are long-lasting; the effect of smooth arms might last even up to 3 weeks. Additionally, if you keep pulling hair out due to epilator, you can expect your hair to grow out thinner and weaker. In order to soothe the pain, you can use an epilator that goes with cooling caps.
Arm hair removal with laser
Minuses: expensive, must be repeated at least once a year.
Pluses: long-lasting effects, hair grows out thinner and lighter, whit time hair stops growing completely.
Laser hair removal depends on releasing a beam of light that penetrates skin and destroys hair bulb. The full laser hair removal treatment consists of a few sessions (in most cases 4 sessions). The procedure has to be repeated once a year to eventually lead to complete loss of hair. For that very reason, this is the most expensive hair removal method.
Laser hair removal is rather painful, yet not everybody reports the pain to be strong. In order to prepare the body for the procedure, it’s advised to avoid sunbathing in 2 months before the procedure is scheduled. Moreover, your skin must be free from irritations, rash and cuts. Don’t shave your hair before the procedure because it has to grow long.
The most desirable type of hair here is dark, therefore blond-haired women don’t qualify for the procedure. The same case is with pregnant women as well as those who are chronically ill or who take some medications (antibiotics, antidepressants, retinoids and retinol ointments as well as herbs and medicines that reduce blood clotting).
Which arm hair removal techniques do you use? Which ones do you recommend? Do you even remove hair from your arms? Share your experience below!
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