From gorilla to baby's bottom
May 04 '04
The Bottom Line There are six major ways of turning your Bottom Line in a Baby's Bottom.
There’s hair and then there’s HAIR. The first kind is the desirable stuff, the kind that grows thick and manageable - we hope - on our heads, or on our faces if we’re men with beards.
All the rest of it is usually undesirable, for the most part. Most women want hair only on their heads, brows, and lashes; some don’t even want it in their nether regions, and I’ve never met one who actually wanted hair under her arms or on her legs or face. For men, some want more body hair on their chests, arms and legs, but I’ve never met a man who wanted back hair. No one wants to look like a gorilla.
The amount, location, and texture of hair on your body is purely genetic, and a function of your ethnicity and parentage. (Notice that I didn’t include color in that, because while original color certainly is genetic, it’s easily changed.)
If you are Asian of Mongol heritage, you probably have thick, straight, black hair (you are the only people on Earth with truly black hair) on your head and not much elsewhere.
If you’re Asian of Malay heritage, like the people of the Indian subcontinent and their neighbors, you probably have thick, somewhat wavy, almost-black hair, and may have a lot of it on your face and body as well as your head.
If you’re of African descent, you probably have curly dark brown hair.
If you’re Mediterranean, Arab, or Persian, your hair may be similar to your Malay friends: thick, wavy, dark, and lots of it.
All bets are off if you’re Caucasian. Your hair may be anywhere from blonde to dark brown, with a detour into the reds, and thick or thin, curly or straight, coarse or fine.
To complicate matters even more, the hair on your head may differ from that on your body in color and texture.
It’s enough to make you pull your hair out.
So you look at yourself and think, “I really don’t want all that hair on my legs, and those sideburns and that unibrow have got to go.” But how?
What is the best means of removing unwanted hair? How can you get that "smooth as a baby's bottom" look?
There are six main methods. I’ll discuss each one and present the pros and cons of each. But first, it’s helpful to know how hair grows.
Hair grows in several stages. For our purposes, there are three main ones. In the first stage, the follicle is dormant in the dermal layer. In the second stage, the hair has begun to grow but is still embedded in the skin; nothing shows above the surface. In the third stage, the shaft has broken through the epidermis and shows.
OK, so how to remove it? In no special order, here are the options.
SHAVING
Means: Shaving is accomplished by means of either a manual razor encased in a plastic handle, or an electric shaver. (If you’re feeling flush, you can go to a barber for an old-fashioned hot-lather straight-edge shave, too. Manual razors come in varying qualities and prices and are used with cream or foam, or if you’re a woman, with soap in the shower on your legs. A manual razor will give you a clean cut at the surface of the skin, leaving a uniformly blunt tip. Electric razors, regardless of cost or quality, will chew off the hair at the surface, leaving an uneven tip.
Best used on: Shaving is the traditional means of removing hair that is growing above the surface of the skin. And it’s very effective on coarse, thick hair. So men usually use it on their faces, and women still favor it for their legs and underarms. Don’t use it around the eyes, though.
Pros: A close shave with a good manual shaver will give you a very smooth finish. You can do it for yourself, at home. You can cover large areas fairly fast. It’s inexpensive.
Cons: It’s easy to cut yourself with a shaver, even a good one. The smooth finish will last only until the hair regrows above the surface of the skin, usually a matter of hours. Hair that has been shaved has a blunt tip, as opposed to the natural fine, pointed tip of unshaved hair, which causes people to believe that their hair has grown back coarser and thicker. It hasn’t, but it can look that way. Shaving removes ALL the hair, including the "peach-fuzz" vellus, which can lend an unnatural look to the skin.
DEPILATORIES
Means: A depilatory is a chemical that dissolves the hair at the surface of the skin. You use it by smoothing the depilatory cream over the area to be treated, waiting a few minutes, and rinsing it off while rubbing gently with a washcloth.
Best used on: Depilatories can be used everywhere except around the eyes. Women often use them on their upper lips and legs.
Pros: Depilatories can be used in the privacy of the home. They are relatively inexpensive. They provide a smooth finish because the hair has been dissolved at the skin surface. They work relatively fast, in a matter of minutes, depending on the texture of the hair being removed.
Cons: Any chemical strong enough to dissolve hair can be very irritating to the skin as well. Redness and irritation may persist for a day or two. Depilatories smell strong, because the smell of the caustic chemicals is masked by perfumes. The creams can be messy. Regrowth can be as fast as with shaving, because depilatories don’t affect the hair that’s growing under the skin surface, or the shaft of the dissolved hair.
WAXING
Means: When you get waxed, the operator smooths a coat of hot wax over the area being treated. Then she either presses a strip of cloth into the wax, or grabs the end of it, and pulls it off the skin in the direction opposite that in which the hair grows. The action is hard and fast and pulls the hair out by the roots.
Best used on: Waxing works well on big and small areas. Lots of women get their legs and bodies waxed, some do their upper lips or other parts of their faces, and men who want to be smooth also get waxed. It’s a popular means of achieving a smooth, long-lasting finish. When you wax, you’re pulling out all the hair that is above the surface of the skin, so you’ll remain smooth until the growing hair in the second stage mentioned above breaks through the surface. Depending on a variety of factors, that could be weeks.
Pros: It grows back much more slowly than shaving. The regrowth appears finer and softer because the tips of the hairs are pointed instead of blunt. The surface is absolutely smooth. You aren’t scraping off the top layer of skin as you are when you shave. For some people, after years of waxing, some of the follicles just give up and the hair actually does thin. (Not my experience, but I’ve heard of it happening. I just dream about it, though.) You can use it on any part of the body, because it’s equally effective on coarse and fine hair.
Cons: Waxing is messy. You probably can’t do it on yourself but have to go to a salon. It can be expensive. It can be time-consuming. You may have redness, bumps, or irritation for a day or two after waxing. It removes all the hair, including the fine “peach-fuzz” that gives the skin a softer appearance.
TWEEZING
Means: When you tweeze your hair, you remove each hair separately by means of a metal tweezer, which grasps the hair before you pull.
Best used on: Because tweezing removes one hair at a time, it’s best used in small areas and on coarse hair. Most women who shape their eyebrows use tweezers.
Pros: You can do your weeding and pruning very carefully because you’re pulling one hair at a time. You’re pulling the hair out by the root, so that particular hair won’t grow back for a while. You can do your tweezing privately, for no cost beyond that of a good surgical tweezer.
Cons: Repeated tweezing can damage the follicle and cause future hairs to grow in a contorted way. That might be a problem if you decide to try electrolysis. Tweezing often raises small bumps at the site. People who dig in after ingrown hairs can infect the site.
ELECTROLYSIS
Means: An electrologist works with a very fine probe that is inserted into the shaft alongside the hair and down into the follicle. A small electric current is then applied, which kills the follicle. The dead hair is then removed with a tweezer. If the electrologist has hit the target, that follicle is dead and won’t regrow.
Best used on: Because electrolysis is slow and tedious, this method works best on small areas, such as the chin, upper lip, or eyebrows. It works best on coarse hair; very fine hair is too hard to treat individually.
Pros: Electrolysis is permanent. Once that follicle is dead, it’s dead for good.
Cons: This is a very slow and tedious method of hair removal, because each hair must be treated individually. It can take years to completely clear an area. It can only be done by a licensed electrologist. It’s expensive. It often appears that no progress is being made because the hair keeps coming back, but there can be hundreds of follicles in a square inch of skin, so each one that sprouts a hair (many never do) must be treated. There may be discomfort during the treatments. It doesn't work on vellus hair.
LASER HAIR REMOVAL
Means: LHR is a means of permanently removing hair by killing the follicle with any of a variety of types of lasers. It’s an excellent means of treating all textures of hair. The hair must be about 2 mm long for the treatment to be effective. The laser beam is directed at the hair shaft, which absorbs the energy and transmits it to the follicle. The treated hair will appear to be scorched and bleached. Treated hair will naturally shed in the days/weeks after treatment. The shedding hair will not have a bulb at the end, as normal hair does.
Before embarking on this course of treatment, be sure to check out several doctors and clinics. LHR must be done under some sort of medical supervision, and is often performed by specially trained registered nurses.
Best used on: Lasers work on both large and small areas, and because there are so many types of lasers, you’ll need to do some homework to determine what will work best for you. The efficacy of LHR depends on the hair texture and color, and the color of the underlying skin. It works best on dark hair growing out of light skin, because all the laser energy is absorbed by the hair shaft, rather than some affecting the skin. However, light hair or hair on dark skin can also be treated, although clearance tends to take longer.
Pros: Laser hair removal is permanent. It’s a good way to treat large areas that would take years to treat with electrolysis, the only other permanent hair removal method. It can be used on vellus hair as well as coarser hair.
Cons: LHR is quite expensive. Treatments are usually spaced anywhere from four to eight weeks apart, to give the treated hair time to shed and the new growth to grow long enough to be treated. During that time, you may shave, but may not use any other method of hair removal. The actually zapping of the light beam may be uncomfortable: anywhere from the sensation of a rubber band snapping against your skin to a sharp burning sensation. Light hair may take more treatments than darker hair. Because it’s permanent, you need to be absolutely sure you’ll never again want hair in the area you’re planning to treat.
THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS FOR YOU TO REMEMBER:
• Your racial and genetic inheritances determine the color, texture, location, and amount of hair on your body.
• Hair doesn’t grow back thicker or coarser after removal by non-permanent means. It just seems that way.
• The only permanent means of removing hair so it won’t grow back are electrolysis and laser hair removal.
• Permanent hair removal takes a long time and costs more than any of the temporary methods do. But once you’re done, you’re done.
OK, there it is. These are the six main ways of getting rid of the hair on your head or body. I didn’t mention the others because they tend not to work very well: fine sandpaper, home “electrolysis” kits, and so on.
There are many websites devoted to electrolysis and LHR, and if you're considering these methods, I recommend that you do some research. There are also some chat rooms where you can post your questions and read about other people's experiences. Here's a very good one with all sorts of information about hair: http://www.pg.com/science/haircare/hair_twh_4.htm
I hope this information is helpful to you. At one time or another, I’ve employed all six methods, so I know whereof I speak!
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