Anyone tried Boots 'Smooth Skin' home IPL hair reduction system yet?

userdefinable

I'm also trying to work out which is more powerful out of Viss and Smooth Skin.

On the highest setting Smooth Skin is 10 j/cm2 (the treatment head is 3cm2 so is the machine actually outputting 30 jules of power?)
Viss is listed as 23jules (no mention of cm2, but the head size is 6cm2, so is it really less than 4 j/cm2?)

So is Smooth Skin more powerful than Viss? Initially I saw the higher number on Viss and assumed that one was. I don't really know how to compare, it's not clear. Can anyone shed any light on this?

From what I gather, professional IPL machines for hair removal are normally set at about 10 - 16 j/cm2 depending on skin type. Can anyone confirm?

Update: I took my original "Smooth Skin" unit back to the shop and returned it as it was faulty. I didn't exchange as the shop didn't have another. I've just re-purchased online as it's still £50 off and voucher code PNPJ35 (found on UKHD) takes 10% off (until 17th Oct 2010), so it ends up under £250. Fingers crossed this one works.

Fussychick

Further to people thinking that a lot of reviews aren't genuine, I also think that Boots are being a bit underhand with the reviews on their website, I always thought that reviews were automatically listed in chronological order, but after seeing no sign of my review on the Boots website I started on the last page which was 27 and found my review on page 20! I only submitted the review last Wednesday.

I'm sure that people assume the same as me and after reading pages of positive reviews go out and buy the product, after all would anyone read all 27 pages? I feel that Boots have deliberately tucked all the not so glowing reviews at the end in the hope that people won't read that far.

I did read every review on the Boots website and others before purchasing, but I feel that Boots are misleading people and should balance out the good with the bad as reviews are submitted.

Rant over and breathe.................LOL

All_eBayed_Out

userdefinable wrote: »

However, it won't flash if all the contacts aren't touching your skin.
.

I thought this was a safety feature of the machine?

RebekahR

All_eBayed_Out wrote: »

I thought this was a safety feature of the machine?

Correct afaik

pinksleepybear

Boots are having a special promotion today which gives you £12 worth of advantage card points for every £50 you spend at Boots.com. So with this machine at £275, you get 6096 points.

I've decided to give it a try as I seem to be getting hairier as I get older!

pinksleepybear

pinksleepybear wrote: »

Boots are having a special promotion today which gives you £12 worth of advantage card points for every £50 you spend at Boots.com. So with this machine at £275, you get 6096 points.

I've decided to give it a try as I seem to be getting hairier as I get older!

D'oh, just completed my order and realised that I could have added £25 of toiletries to my order and got another £12 worth of points. Nevermind, it's all done now and I don't have the storage space for £25 worth of shampoo!

RebekahR

I need shooting. I've got fed up of using this been 3 weeks now. But i'm getting hairy again. I'm doomed ...

JoeyJo21

I finally gave in and bought one, ordered Sunday night and it came today (Tues), not bad The £10 of points for every £50 spent offer swung it for me.

Pretty easy to use, although the goo gets everywhere, so many tissues! I'm slightly more tanned than normal so I'm using it on Medium for now, which annoys me slightly because I want the best results as quickly as possible, but my sensible head is telling me not to get carried away with it and damage my skin.

I used Dark on my upper lip for same reason, this has to be the trickiest area to treat though, how do you get all four pins to stay touching in the centre of your lip in narrow part. Or do you do two shots either side of the centre instead?

I think I may have blinded myself though because I kept forgetting to look away all the time. Need to remember this in the future because I'm sure my sights a bit blurry now (although it may be all the studying I've done today too hehe). The machine noise supprised me, it's pretty loud. I'd been hoping to do treatments without the family knowing, they'd go mad if they knew what I'd spent, but think I'll have to wait until they're out of the house.

Pain wise it wasn't too bad, it was pretty random whether it hurt a little more or not, I'd be doing my bikini line fine, then the next shot would suddenly hurt a bit more despite it not being nearer sensitive areas, then the next one was ok. I'm not used to anything but shaving so pain for beautys sake is a new one for me. Is the fair setting a lot more painful than medium?

I need to buy some white eyeliner at the weekend because the white card just got soggy with gel today. I'm unsure about the nipple area too because it shows you how to treat it with card etc but what if some of the hairs are boarderline and on the darker side? Do you do them, or pencil around them? :S

RebekahR

I do them myself! just try and get most of the way witrh the card. I make a O shaped card to fit my whole nipple area. And bring it in a bit if I need expose a bit more.If that makes any sense at all.

alloff

My wife and I bought smooth skin specifically to acquire a "Hollywood".

It takes time and you have to be persistent to achieve success. We have had a total of 30 treatments and we are now really delighted. What little hair is still growing seems to be growing more slowly. Before using the laser regrowth was quick, becoming itchy within 24 hours. A top up shave is still required to be really smooth every 3 to 4 days but there is so little hair growing that it only takes 2 or 3 minutes. It's difficult to be precise but we would estimate that there has been a 95% reduction in hair.

The pain level has been tolerable - we did, however, reduce the skin setting.

The amount of time required is the biggest issue - as it is only a relatively small piece of equipment it does take 15 minutes each time. I guess this is where I come in - 15 minutes of my time is a very small price to pay for such a wonderful end result!:)

We haven't managed to use the machine every week - if we had done we believe that the results would have been even better. We must try harder!

So, for the purpose for which it was bought, we have been very pleased with the machine. However, I can well understand the time difficulties of trying to laser a larger area - this is precisely why for legs arms and armpits we paid for commercial laser treatment, which has also been very successful.

For those doubters among you, you will need frequent and regular treatments.