You heard the stories of epilating and those of shaving. Epilator vs shaving, which is better? I don’t know because it depends on your personal needs.
You may have to answer a few questions for yourself to determine which of the two hair removal techniques is better.
What is your pain tolerance, do you suffer from ingrown hairs, how fast do you want to achieve smooth skin, how soon will you need to go out, how long the results last or is the cost a problem for you? In this article, I answered these questions for you.
Epilator vs shaving? What is the difference?
Shaving is cutting your hair at skin level. Which is vastly different from using an epilator that plucks hairs out from the hair follicles. An epilator leaves your skin smooth for up to 4 weeks. While shaving will leave you with smooth skin for a few days, then the hairs will return leaving your skin feeling like a cheese grater.
Pain Tolerance: No Pain No Gain
Let me go right to the point, epilating is more painful than shaving especially when you are going it for the first time.
Do not be disheartened because as you use the epilator, over time, the pain felt will be reduced. In other words, your pain tolerance will increase and you feel less and less pain.
You may move from an ‘oh my god’ level of pain to an ‘ouch’ level of pain on the epilator pain scale.
It is very difficult to say where you will fall on the epilator pain scale because everyone’s pain tolerance is different.
Some people may even experience more pain on one side of their body as opposed to the other. You will never know until you try it at least once.
Some of my friends even experienced the, oh my god, water from the eyes level of pain while for others it was quite a bearable ‘ouch’ and others seem not to feel anything at all.
The pain level is different in different areas of the body, the face, underarms and pubic region are more painful than the legs.
It is therefore recommended that you start to epilate from the ankles up.
It is quite different when it comes to shaving. Shaving is just cutting the hair to skin level and, therefore, there is literally no pain or discomfort. Unless you use an electric shaver and it gets really hot.
0 Epilator vs 1 Shaving
Speed of operation
When epilating, you may have to retrace a portion of your skin numerous times in order to epilate all the hairs.
It may time you 90 minutes just to epilate the legs and get rid of all the unwanted hairs.
Comparatively, shaving is much quicker, you can completely shave off all the hairs in a matter of moments.
If you do not hole the epilator in an upright position, 90 degrees to the skin, glide it lightly, you may find that it snaps your hairs instead of epilating them.
With shaving, you are literally scraping a blade against your skin and therefore there is the potential for accidental cuts.
Shaving is a much faster mode of hair removal in comparison to epilating. Therefore, shaving when in this round.
0 Epilator vs 2 Shaving
The cost of hair removal
The cost of the two methods is different. One method is more expensive while the other is quite cheap. Depending on the brand a good epilator is anywhere from $60 to $200.
Similar prices can be seen for electric shavers, with some being as low as $10. You can get shavers quite cheap. In the cost fight, shaving is much cheaper than epilating.
If you are going down the route of epilating, then it is wise to get a good quality one that will last for years.
There are epilators that focus on different areas of the body but you can choose a general one that can epilate different areas of the body using the different attachments.
Normal razors, as well as electric shavers, are pretty cheap but you may have to change them more often than you would a good quality epilator.
1 Epilator vs 3 Shaving
Epilating or Shaving: Which causes Ingrown hairs?
Anyone who regularly shaves or uses an epilator is prone to ingrown hairs. Exfoliating your skin thoroughly before any hair removal will get rid of dead skin cells, dirt and oils laying on top of the skin surface.
Following this step reduces greatly the occurrences of ingrown hairs. It is good to know that the process of epilation causes fewer instances of ingrown hairs when compared to shaving.
2 Epilator vs 3 Shaving
Stubble after epilating compared to stubble after shaving
In Shaving, you will cut the hair down to the level of the skin. It is right there below the surface of the skin, you will be able to see the shaft of the hairs if you have dark hair and light skin.
After a few days stubble will appear giving you the feel of rough sandpaper over that area of the skin.
Epilating is plucking the hairs out from its roots. Therefore no stubble after epilating, you will have to wait a few weeks before you start seeing the reappearance of new hairs peeping through your skin.
The new hairs will be finer and less noticeable. Fewer hairs will also grow, even further reducing the appearance of stubble.
In other words, epilating provides you with a more lasting result. With shaving, you will be back to the task of shaving only after a few days.
3 Epilator vs 3 Shaving
SEE HOW TO DRY EPILATE
Products in Video
SEE HOW TO SHAVE
Products in Video
Gillette Venus Satin Care Sensitive Skin Gel
Camille rose naturals caramelized sugar cane scrub or SheaMoisture Coconut & Hibiscus Hand & Body Scrub
Shaveworks The Cool Fix
Conclusion
It is difficult to say whether epilator or shaving is the perfect choice for your hair removal needs because, which is better, epilator vs shaving, is totally up to your personal preference.
I prefer epilating to shaving because of lasting results. I got myself a good quality epilator to do the job.
A poor quality epilator will snap your hairs instead of pulling them out and make the process more painful, I used my trusty Braun Epil 9 epilator to get the job done right.
This epilator is more expensive but I am worth it. If cost is a problem for you then you can so for a cheaper shaver.
