Welcome to my torture chamber. (Philips HP 6414 Epilator)

Member Name: sandemp

Product:	Philips HP 6414 Epilator
Date:	24/05/05 (2138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well if you're into pain . . . .

Disadvantages: The pain, the rash, the burning . . . . .

I think my husband must have been annoyed at me the day he bought me this epilator. I can't think of any other reason he would have bought this instrument of torture, let alone actually expected me to use it more than once in the proverbial blue moon.

~~~The looks~~~

So let's have a look at this hair removing device that would have been quite at home in a torture chamber of days gone by. I actually have the original version and it's a very non-descript ice blue colour (the new version is a pretty pink colour, but otherwise identical), and is mains powered. The power lead is actually pretty long, so I don't actually need to sit on top of a plug socket, and has a standard three pin plug already fitted, so I didn't need to nick my husband's plug adapter. Along with the epilator and power cord, I received a nice little carry bag, cleaning brush and a mini loofah.

~~~How it works~~~

An epilator is basically a motorised hair plucker, with lots of tweezers on discs that pull out your unwanted hair by the roots. Sounds painful? Well believe me it is, very, very painful, in fact eye wateringly painful but more about that later. My particular model has an extra little attachment on it which looks like a comb, is made of rubber and is supposed to help de-sensitise the skin and make epilating less painful. Well we'll see about that.

~~~Using the epilator~~~

Right so I plugged the epilator in, and had nice dry skin on my legs, so I was ready to go. The epilator has two speeds, low for sensitive areas such as the knees and ankles and fast for the rest of the leg. As well as the two speeds, the comb can be be adjusted into three positions, which are, out of the way, all the way out and one that's sort of inbetween where the comb moves in and out depending on how much pressure you use.

So, because I'm a wimp, I started it up on the slower setting, and whoa, what a noise, it sounded like someone just started a lawnmower. Note to self : Don't try using this when the children are in bed, I'll just wake them back up. Now trying to forget the noise, I pulled the skin on my leg taut and brought the instrument of pain in contact with the hair it was to remove. And all I could think is why? Why am I putting myself through this torture? I could feel every hair being ripped out, and within seconds my leg was beginning to burn. So I gritted my teeth and finished one stroke of my leg, before lifting that thing off of it.

And what did I find? Well a lot hair had been pulled out, but that strip of my leg was left red, hot, bumpy and extremely sore, I wasn't prepared to put myself through any more pain without a break so I waited for a good ten minutes before continuing. This carried on for quite a long time, me managing one strip and then having to take a break, but eventually I finished the whole of one lower leg. By this stage my leg was not only sore and burning, but also itching like crazy, so I made myself an ice-pack which was bliss.

~~~The results~~~

Immediately after using this my leg was (as I've already said) hot, red, bumpy and itchy, but even worse when I ran my hand over it I could feel that not all the hair had been removed, so I'd experienced all that pain for nothing. As you can imagine I wasn't very happy and nearly threw the blooming thing at my poor husband, but he told me well maybe the stubble that was left was not quite long enough and to give it another try the next day.

You've got to be kidding right, I couldn't even face the pain of doing both legs and he wanted me to do it again!!! But after sleeping on it, and noticing the redness had gone down quite a lot by the next morning I did indeed have another go and my leg was finally hairfree, but at what price. Yes you've got it, once again my leg got very angry with me and turned bright red, in fact this time it was even worse and the only way I could control the pain was by sitting in a bath of cool water. It was then I decided that this wasn't for me.

~~~Worth the pain?~~~

Now, using this is supposed to mean that my legs remained smooth and hair free for upto four weeks. Well my hair must grow at an extraordinary rate, because I had regrowth within a week, so I somehow don't think it was anywhere nearly worth the pain I put myself through.

Now what really surprises me is that the packaging claimed that this could be used for the underarm and bikini line areas. Someone would have to have strapped me down for it to get anywhere even close to these areas.

For those of you that use these regularly, I can only say “how do you manage it?” or perhaps you enjoy pain, because that is all I experienced, pain, pain and yet more pain. I even gave it another go tonight, just to be sure that I remembered the experience accurately, and yes it hurt just as much and I'm now sitting here with a leg that's on fire.

~~~Maintenance~~~

It's very easy to keep this clean (even easier if you don't use it like me), simply unplug it, brush any hairs that have got caught in the rotating discs with the supplied brush, and put it in the supplied bag.

~~~Price and Availability~~~

To be perfectly honest I don't know how much my one cost, as it was a gift. But the updated pink version, the Phillips Satinelle Super Sensitive costs £33.97 from Amazon.

~~~My final words~~~

When my husband bought me this I was initially pleased, however after having tried to use it on more than one occasion, I was left wondering if he had been upset at me when he got it. I find it too painful to use and can only wonder why someone would invent such an instrument of torture.

As you can probably guess I'm only recommending this (or any epilator) to those that enjoy pain. I suppose it would make quite a good prop at an S&M party, but if, like me, you're not into that sort of thing, I'd give it a miss and stick to other methods of hair removal.

Summary: