by Artemis

Just about every woman has hair that she removes, or wishes she could remove. Well, I happen to be the queen of hair removal. I battled with excess hair my whole life and pretty much won, for now, until hormones shift and possibly bring some of it back. 

When I was thirteen, the girl sitting next to me in history blurted out in shock that I had hair on my face! I ignored her, because otherwise I may have punched her in the nose for being so rude! Well, that was when my battle began. First we bleached them, but as I had dark hairs, which I was told were called "faulty hairs" that were supposed to grown on my head; they bleached out to a weird yellow. It was not pretty.

My mother having battled it her whole life, took me for electrolysis instead. I will not put this lightly, as my sessions took an hour each week, and my face looked as if I had never done any treatments upon my return for the following session. I did that for years.  As you can imagine, while other women were achieving results, I was not. And since I was quite young, hormonal therapies were out of the question because of my age. Truthfully, sometime in my mid 20's I was officially diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which was the cause of the hypertrychosis.

After so many years of electrolysis and so many different people working on my face, I spent the next two years tweezing. I had become frustrated with the aggravation, my face having been scarred in certain spots from burning. I felt that if I had been in a time when no hair removal was available, I would have been the bearded lady in a sideshow! Of course, this is an exaggeration. It was not as bad as that, but it sure felt that way. And it was noticeable.  There were many days that I privately cried because of my embarrassment.

The hair on my body covered just about all other surfaces where no other girl I knew had hair. My back and my stomach included.  For those, as well as my legs, I had discovered waxing. Waxing my face, however, caused ingrown hairs and pimples to my skin.  There came a point that I could not deal with the pain of waxing my legs anymore, that I decided to use Veet depilatory cream, which did not smell as strong as Nair, and also did not irritate my skin. I still use this or I shave my legs instead when I choose to remove.

Aunt Maria, the other woman in my life who battled hair, had discovered laser hair removal. By this time I was in college.  The technology was still new to the public, and this spa offered a service where they spread a black carbon-like substance on your skin where you had the unwanted hair, and the laser would removed it along with the hair. The hair would very blonde, and shed within a week. We did this for a year, and I finally started to see change. Then we discovered a different laser at a dermatologist's office that was less expensive, and did not use the black gook. The unfortunate part was that both forms of laser hurt, not to mention how pricey they were. It was like someone was snapping a rubber band at my face! In order for these older lasers to work, they needed to see the hair above the skin.

The newer technologies, which I had discovered a couple of years back offered painless removal and real results.  They trimmed the hair that was above the skins surface and applied a cooling gel. On most areas, I felt nothing, and on very sensitive areas, a light pinch. So I am happy to say that my face, after all these years is virtually hair free!

The moral of the story is that you have to pick your poison, but there are so many options out there. And there are now at home laser devices, which I can't wait to try on my legs!