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

londonsurrey

Has anyone tried using this on their face? I'm having difficulty using it on my forehead, as it's curved, with no extra flesh, so is really difficult to get all four contacts of the IPL head to be in contact with skin.

zapte

from reading this thread ive come to conclusion:
posters with 1-20 posts value this item as exelent
however posters with 100+ posts value this item below average.

is it only me or others find this strang also?

the reason im interested is this thing is im looking for device to get lasting smooth pubic area mainly. still confused wether this item will satisfy my needs..

PS. sorry for my english

asset2004

zapte wrote: »

from reading this thread ive come to conclusion:
posters with 1-20 posts value this item as exelent
however posters with 100+ posts value this item below average.

is it only me or others find this strang also?

yes, quite strange!! lol:rotfl:

teabythesea

I recently won one of these and I love it! x

jenniewb

zapte wrote: »

from reading this thread ive come to conclusion:
posters with 1-20 posts value this item as exelent
however posters with 100+ posts value this item below average.

is it only me or others find this strang also?

the reason im interested is this thing is im looking for device to get lasting smooth pubic area mainly. still confused wether this item will satisfy my needs..

PS. sorry for my english

did notice this too!:cool:

Aside from the one poster who had hundreds of posts....all of them raving about how much they liked the machine. (Poster stopped posting when questioned about this and links were made about them marketing rather then rating the machine...) Its since then I have taken newbies with face value- sorry newbies, its not your fault, but experiences like that cannot just be erased.

userdefinable

Ok an update...

I've had laser hair removal in the past (twice underarms, once 5yrs ago and once 10yrs ago, and pubic area once 10yrs ago) so I know what to expect. Hair grows in cycles about 8 weeks and that's how often you have it done at a salon/clinic. It takes around 4 to 8 professional treatments to get a high percentage (so nearly hair free) of permanent (or semi permanent that lasts you a good few years) hair removal. So that's 32 or 64 weeks to achieve this.

During the period up to about the third or fourth professional treatment it didn't look any better for me. The dead (burnt at follicle) hairs were darker than previous hair and took some weeks to work their way out (fall out). A few weeks after that the new cycle of hair would start to grow.

OK now on to my Boots smooth skin experience...
I'm a little confused, given my experience of professional hair removal, why it would say to do weekly treatments. I know it's lower power than salon/clinic machines so I guess maybe it takes more to "damage" the hair follicles. Anyway, I did four weekly treatments, then moved on to fortnightly ones, of which I have now done two. So I have been using the machine for 8 weeks so far (approx. one hair growth cycle). After I've done 8 fortnightly treatments I will just use it once every 4 weeks. Basically it's too time consuming to use more often! My legs (ankle to just above knee) take over an hour to do each one. The machine gets hot so I have to turn it off and wait 10 minutes twice during each leg treatment. In addition to legs, I am also using the machine on previously lasered (professionally) areas, even though I only have minimal regrowth (15% approx) from those treatments 5/10yrs ago. The machine doesn't really hurt, except when it's hot (the metal contacts get very hot so you have to wait for them to cool down). Certainly underarms and pubic area hurt a lot more than legs (which I barely feel at all). However, my legs do feel like they have mild sunburn for some hours after treatment.

People say that their hair grows slower after using smooth skin. This is true for me too, I shave my legs and my legs stay smooth for 24 hours + instead of 6 hours. This is most likely due to the fact the hairs are dead and just working their way out to fall out, rather than all "alive" and growing still at the same rate. My legs look a big rubbish though as the hairs (black dots as people have said) look darker/more noticeable than prior to treatment.

Note: I have pale skin and dark brown hair and use the machine on "fair" setting.

So basically one thing you should deduce from this (particularly if you have never had professional laser hair removal, so don't know what to expect) is that this isn't a quick fix, it will probably take the best part of a year to achieve the similar results to a salon/clinic (over the same period). You will probably also need to do more treatments (more often and/or for longer) than that as the laser is also slightly lower powered than professional ones.

Darkwoods

so is the Boots Smooth Skin best in the market or is there any better?

userdefinable

I've found it hard to work out the various strengths of machines, but I think the Boots one (ipulse) is highest power of 10j/cm2 (on fair and medium, it's less on dark setting).

I believe others on the market are less. Philips lumea is max 7j/cm2 (can anyone confirm?)

It depends what constitutes as "better", I think the Boots one is prone to overheating more (perhaps because it's higher powered so it gets hotter, or maybe the fan/cooling system is just worse)

londonsurrey

It's very interesting to hear from someone who has used this technology, at home and via salons over a period of years.

Do you have any idea why, after all these treatments, there are still hairs that insist on growing?

JoeyJo21

I thought I'd do an update on how I'm getting on. I agree with the previous posters though about newbies (like myself) and how it's difficult to tell if they're genuine or not nowadays but I'm just going to post anyway because this seems to be the biggest discussion on Boots Smooth Skin on the internet and I know I could have done with as many reviews as possible before I bought it.

So I've just done treatment 4 and I'm getting on really well with it. I do everything on medium because of my slightly tanned looking skintone (apart from my upper lip which I do on dark because I really really don't want to risk burning/scarring) and it seems to be working out really well overall.

There has been a MASSIVE reduction on my underarms, and what does grow back grows back really slowly. There's still a fair bit to go but I'm very impressed as this area used to grow sooo quickly and would start growing within 24 hours of shaving.

Bikini line has had the same effect or even better, hardly any comes back and it looks amazing!!!!! So smooth and silky, can't believe I don't have to deal with shaving ingrown hairs etc.

Upperlip, little bit of reduction I think but its hard to tell because I don't want anything growing back there after treatments so I keep going over it with a razor which is horrible but at least I know there's no shaddow etc. haha

Tummy line all the dark hair has gone which is amazing, but the darkest hairs (the really thick ones) that I have a few of are resisting which is really annoying because those are the ones I bought the machine for to get rid of. It seems that dark/fine hair works best rather than thick parts (apart from bikini which for some reason works really well?)

Nipples meh, alright I guess there weren't many there to begin with, but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere with those. Resisting me thinks.

I've burnt myself a few times so now I'm being extra careful. First time went over a vein on my foot (which I think was because the vein is dark it attracted light maybe) ouch. My feet didn't really have very much hair on but I love them now as they're sooo silky to touch. (Another area I forgot before that I now treat on dark because of the burn) Second time underarm did a bit which hadn't been gelled properly, looked bad but didn't feel it. Third time went over an area on my stomach twice (trying to get rid of those dark ones) eek, learnt my lesson.

Anyway I hope this info helps, sorry if it doesn't make much sense I'm dashing because my dinners in the oven and about to be ready haha. I'll try and post another update in another month or so maybe.