Beauty Clinic: Facial hair removal
Q. I usually have the hair on my chin and upper lip waxed or threaded but obviously I can’t do that now and it’s beginning to be depressing. Can you give me some advice on the best method to use at home and the best products please?
A. Starting with the simplest depilatory creams, there’s a pretty wide range of tried and trusted options from brands including Nair and Veet, which have been around for decades, to relative newcomers such as Nad’s, an Australian brand that’s based on natural ingredients and environmental consciousness. Just to explain, if you are in the UK and want to buy the products we list online, we direct you to Superdrug.com but the useful video tutorials and advice sections are on Nad’s own site, Nads.com.
Nad’s Facial Hair Removal Cream/£4.99, which is suitable for all skin types, contains almond oil and calendula to ‘soften and soothe delicate facial areas’, they say, adding that it should dissolve hair in as little as four minutes. The box also contains a Moisture + Soothing Face Balm, which we like. Do watch the video online at the Nad’s website, nads.com. Buy here.
One step on you could try Nad’s Facial Wax Strips/£7.99, with beeswax, specially designed to stick to the curves of the face around the jawline, chin and upper lip. The pack of Strips includes Post Wax Calming Oil Wipes. Again, there’s a helpful video online at nads.com, which we suggest you watch first. Buy here.
There’s also a useful section on Sensitive Skin Hair Removal Tips at nads.com, here.
If you’re up for something a bit more hi tech, now’s the time to try out different versions, says our friend and colleague Alice Hart-Davis, respected beauty writer and founder of The Tweakments Guide (thetweakmentsguide.com).
Top of the range is Philips Lumea, an IPL (Intensed Pulse Light) device that promises to remove hair for up to six months without regrowth. This is designed for use from top to toe but you do need to use it multiple times (trials were done on 12 treatments) and it needs pigmented hair to work so won’t affect white or very blonde or grey hair. An investment at £475, although Philips is currently offering it for £325 here.
For a simple quick fix, Alice suggests the Hollywood Browzer, in multiple versions from £8.98. It’s sort of a modern, techy, much improved cousin of an old-fashioned razor (please don't shave facial hair ever), which delivers what the brand calls ‘dermaplaning benefits’. Essentially, you use it on clean dry skin to remove hair fuzz by scuffing and exfoliating, disrupting the follicles. ‘For some reason I don’t understand, it doesn't grow back stubbly,’ comments Alice, who has used it herself. Watch the tutorial here.
Thirdly, Alice says it’s worth considering Tweezy Facial Hair Remover tool/£10, an inexpensive little springy device that you bend in a hairpin shape and twist up and down and around the area you want to treat. It works on the same principle as threading and Tweezy claims the device is suitable for women (and men) of all ages and skin types to remove unwanted hair on upper/lower lip, cheeks, chin, jawline and neck. We enjoyed how another colleague (Annabel Rivkin writing in ES magazine) described Tweezy: ‘For that fine facial rug, those rogue moustachio strands and the witchetty chin stragglers, arm yourself with this slinky little beast.’
