My first epilator purchase

Hey guys,

I just bought my first epilator, and I'd like to share my experience with it with y'all.

Source

FTC: I bought this product with my own money. I am not compensated, in any way whatsoever, for this and any subsequent posts I will write about this product.

What is an epilator?

Well, it is a hair removal mechanism, an alternative to tweezing, waxing, shaving, etc. An epilator is basically a machine that has a bunch of tiny tweezers. It whirls around, mechanistically removing your hair much faster than any individual tweezer.

Where can it be used? 

Well, it can be used on your underarms, your legs, your pubic area (if you wish), or even your eyebrows (if you wish to do so).

Why did I decide to get an epilator?

Well, first, to let you all know (tmi warning) I don't remove my leg hair. I'm of East Asian descent and barely have any leg hair. (My mom, in fact, doesn't have any leg hair at all, or armpit hair - lucky her!) I guess you can say that I was blessed with good genes, at least in this area. The only part I really tweeze is my underarm area. When I first started out, I would use those depilating creams (e.g. Nair, Veet). While those did work for awhile, they made me super itchy and sensitive. Plus, I would get a bunch of little red angry bumps that would last quite awhile.

So thus, I then transitioned to shaving. Shaving worked pretty well, at least temporarily. It didn't hurt at all, especially with a good razor and shaving cream. The problem was that the hair grew back very quickly and left dark spots on my underarms. This was especially true because my hair is inherently black/brown and thus it was pretty prominent.

Then, I went to tweezing. Tweezing worked pretty well, even with the $1 ELF tweezer I used for about 3-4 years. It pulled my hair out from the root, and made my hair grow back finer and finer. The problem, though, was that it took waayy too long, even to maintain, and after awhile it was really hard to tweeze out the extremely fine hairs. It grew to the point where I would break the hair while trying to tweeze it out. Not so cool.

I had heard of an epilator from my friend, Hannahfyed, in college. She stated that it "tickled" her legs when she used it. However, when I turned the epilator on, the sound of its "snapping jaws" (aka tweezer heads) scared the bejeebies out of me. I imagined a shark snapping its jaws and biting my poor flesh again and again. So thus I let go of the idea. At least then.

In the past couple of months, however, I've been having less and less free time to do personal grooming things like this. Also, after all of Gross Anatomy, I'm no longer scared of giant electric saws (think about cutting open the spinal vertebrae!), sharp scalpels, and the like. I also generally have a high pain tolerance (especially after all of that tweezing!) so I'm not as worried about that. So thus, I decided to try this.

After reading any reviews and watching countless YT tutorials on how to use it, I settled on one I found from Jen from frmheadtotoe. Her review talked about a particular model - the Emjoi Opti-Mini, that pulled the skin taut in both directions and worked very smoothly. So thus, I decided to go for it.

I was really fortunate that recently Drugstore.com is having a sale on Emjoi products. Although this product retails for about $55 on Amazon, with MSP $59.99 or even $110, I was able to find it on Drugstore.com for $44.99 - a $15 savings! Plus, with Ebates, I was able to receive 8% cash back on my purchase from Drugstore.com.

Thus, I decided to get it. Early Christmas gift?

I'll post an update when I receive it and definitely when I review it.

BTW, in case y'all are wondering - Ebates is a site where you can go through to get savings on selected stores (Sephora, Amazon, Drugstore.com, etc) and it'll give you cash back. I've placed my referral link below, in case y'all want to try it out. I know that it's a referral but I'd really appreciate it if you all would help a super poor med student save some $$ while you guys are saving $$ as well!!!

Ebates referral link: http://tiny.cc/ebatessavings

All righty, here's the link to the epilator I bought on Amazon ($55 with shipping included) and here's the one on Drugstore.com.

Lemme know what kinds of hair removal systems y'all use, and if you've used an epilator before! Plz gimme tips if you guys have any; I'd really appreciate it! =D

Byeee!