Plucking hell? Yes that is a Pl not and F! (Philips Satinelle Soft Epilator)

Member Name: nursie_nursie

Product:	Philips Satinelle Soft Epilator
Date:	11/06/08 (687 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Almost completely painless, can take up to six weeks for hair to grow back.

Disadvantages: Some people have a lower pain threshold, price now it's not on offer.

On and off for the last year I have been considering buying myself an epilator. There are reasons both for and against them in my eyes and the prospect of pain was my main reservation!

Epilating is similar to waxing as it pulls the hair out from the root so it takes, depending on the speed at which your hair grows, up to six weeks to grow back again. Having tried waxing I thought that if epilating was anything like it then my money would be being wasted as the epilator I bought would end up being thrown to the back of a drawer as I couldn't face using it because of the pain!

Epilators have several lots of tweezers that go round and pull the hairs out as you roll it over the skin. Some are battery powered (rechargeable) and others are mains powered. They can actually be very expensive! I have seen some for £70!

After reading a review on them and talking to the person that wrote that review I decided to take the plunge and went in search of an epilator on various websites.

Argos and Amazon both had this epilator at £20 on offer. So I thought that it sounded like a bargain and after reading others and comparing them it seems to me like a very good model. I bought mine from Amazon as I had some money in my account on there from a voucher I had a while ago. It had free postage, as it was over £15.

As Philips is such a big brand name I thought it must be a good model to try and as it was such a saving I felt I was getting far more for my money. They do several models that are similar to this one.



After a few days a large box arrived. The packaging was far more than necessary for the small box I found inside.

It comes well packaged with the epilator, adaptor, sensitive area cap, cleaning brush and of course instruction manual.

When I ordered it I stopped shaving, don't panic, it didn't get too disgusting! Just a few days till my order arrived. After shaving every day or every other day for years I just couldn't take it after four days I felt minging! So on the morning of the day my order came I had shaved under my arms.

I tried it out on my legs straight away! I mean within ten minutes of it being in the house! That includes me reading the manual, well there isn't much to read!

The manual is very helpful and I can't see how it could have contained any more information than it did without being patronizing and pointless. It was clear and well written especially for a complete beginner like me.

It was really easy to use, you just plug in the adaptor and plug the end of the wire into the epilator at the bottom of it and switch it on!

The epilator is well designed and is cream and strawberry coloured, small and very easy to hold without feeling uncomfortable or awkward with it. The approximate measurements are 9.5cm in length, 7cm in width and 3cm in depth. On the front of the main body there is a red switch that has three settings, off, speed 1 and speed 2. Speed two is for larger areas such as your legs.

The tweezers area rotates round and if you push it round with your finger you can see how it works. This model has 21 sets of tweezers on! The area they cover is 2.5cm across.

Using it is very simple you pull the skin tight with one hand and use the other to roll the epilator in the direction of hair growth. You pull the skin tight like you do when waxing or plucking your eyebrows. The main reason for any pain or discomfort is because when the hair is pulled out the skin is pulled up and then flicks back into place. Much like when you pull an elastic band and let go.

Behind the epilating head there is a row of massaging beads that are supposed to help stop the plucking from hurting as much, they are spring loaded and will move down by 3mm(ish) and although that doesn't seem much it is when the epilator should stay at a similar angle all the time.

The sensitive area cap makes the area the tweezers can access smaller. It is a small piece of plastic that snaps over the head with a hole of 1.5cm this is easy to clip in to place but not as easy to get off, just fiddly.



When I first switched it on I was shocked by just how noisy it is, if you have children I doubt you will be using it whilst they are in bed! That said it is not that noisy that I would recommend against buying it. As this is my first experience of epilators I am not sure how loud it is in comparison to any other model.

I put it against my skin ready to be in pain and slowly slid it up my leg. Nothing! It really didn't hurt! I would say it hurts less than plucking my eyebrows! I am not joking it is almost completely painless! It feels a little bit tingly, on the side of my leg I found it more difficult because it was similar to a tickling sensation! I think it was closer to discomfort but it was like it was tickly, you know when something tickles and you want to pull away. That was it! I could not believe it!

That is it there is no way this is going in the back of the drawer and a waste of money!

You do have to go over areas several times to get all the hairs and you are likely to find that you miss a few. It takes longer than shaving but you don't have to do it as often.

After it arrived I didn't shave under my arms for three days and on the fourth I bit my lip as I started expecting it to be complete agony! Nope again I was wrong! It wasn't as painless as my legs but it certainly wasn't painful! Just a little uncomfortable. When I was done I could not believe just how amazingly smooth my underarms were! I hadn't felt them like it since puberty had hit! No stubble whatsoever!

I started off using the sensitive area cap to be more careful but just found it made the process more lengthy and to be honest it was pointless, I took it off before I had finished doing one! I noticed no difference at all, on or off!

For years I have wondered about shaving my arms but never done it because stubble is never nice and you don't want it on show do you! Where I have very dark hair it is noticeable on my arms, it probably didn't even get noticed by others but I knew it was there and was very self-conscious when my arms were uncovered. I started to bleach them but it takes time to do. So I decided I was going to epilate them! I am glad I did but it was slightly painful! I think it was just for the simple reason that I could not pull the skin taught so there was the ping factor. After they were finished they were both very red! I will be carrying on with it as it is so much easier than bleaching and the result looks better but I am hoping that like everyone says epilating causes the hairs to grow back thinner with weaker roots so are less and less painful to pluck/epilate.

My skin went a little red and looked like plucked chicken skin after, only for a couple of hours so if you do buy this (or any) epilator I would not recommend using it just before you plan to go out in a skirt or dancing around with your arms over your head in short sleeves!

The massaging beads to me seem like a complete waste of time! They cannot be pressing on the skin hard enough to make any difference and even when I had the epilator angled so that they weren't touching it felt exactly the same. They do not make this epilator more difficult to use or less effective so are nothing bad just pointless.

Once I had finished cleaning was a doddle! You push the epilating head to one side and it comes off easily (it is also easy to put back on) and use the brush to flick off and out any hairs, easy!



I have been sitting down weekly and doing all the areas I normally do to get any short hairs that are just coming back through and any that broke off the last time around, not many do but some are weak and break. I found the most breakages happened on my arms, I am guessing that is where the hairs had been bleached so were thinner and more fragile.

Yes I can read your mind! How long do they have to be for you to epilate, they say as short as 0.5mm! I would say it is more like 1mm! Not like waiting to wax!

I do it on a Monday morning after my shower before I strip the bed sheets off, this means that all the hairs are not left lying around. Well they are being pulled out so they don't just magically disappear do they!

On my legs I don't notice many hairs coming through again at all, it is just a few a week. A quick whip over and they are back to being amazingly smooth again.

Under my arms there is a need to do this weekly, as there are always a few strays that were too short the week before or were missed. It may well be that in time I find I become more of an expert at catching every last one, who knows.

My arms definitely need doing every week so that there are no little dark hairs on show. It is getting less and less painful each time and really isn't bad at all now. I won't stop, I feel far better about my arms being on show now than I did before.

It might be that when I get better at it and get every hair I can leave it longer than a week. I hope so as that would make life even easier. I would have thought I would already be at a point where every hair has been plucked out by now so can't see it happening unfortunately.



I had a look this morning at the prices to see if they were still on offer, they aren't! I am so glad I bought mine when I did.

On Amazon they are now almost £60! And in Argos they are £40. The best thing to do is shop around.

I would not pay £60 but at a push would go to £40, as this really is an amazing little gadget that is saving me time in the shower all the time! Does it save me time compared with shaving, no not really I spend about the same time on it, but if you include the time I would spend bleaching my arms, then yes it is saving me some time.



Epilating can cause ingrown hairs! Where the hair re-grows and has to find its way back through the skin it can get trapped below the surface and as a result you get a small dark mark (where the skin is transparent) and a small local infection can happen. The way I have put it is true but sounds far worse than it is. It is like a small spot that is all.

I have had no problems with in growing hairs but have been exfoliating really well. I have a regime in place (I say regime rather than routine as I stick to it like the military to a battle plan!) every other day I exfoliate, in two ways. On one occasion of exfoliating I use a loofa and just give my skin a good rub and use it to lather my skin with shower gel. On the next occasion of exfoliating I use my own home made exfoliating mix, salt mixed with a little almond oil. (3 parts salt 1 part almond oil (you could use olive, groundnut or any carrier oil) mix well, wash your skin, rub the mixture over skin, rinse, then wash well.) My skin is soft and there are no problems from epilating at all.

The manual says NOT to use this on your eyebrows. I have not and will not be going against this advice! Imagine you do try and do your eyebrows (which would be very foolish!) then you may well end up with none left and there would also be a chance of having no eyelashes too! You wouldn't be able to pull away or switch it off fast enough to stop it happening!

DO NOT use this in the shower or bath! Electrical items and water don't mix!

Read the manual before you start!



I highly recommend this product! If you can get it at a bargain price go for it! This is a great way of removing unwanted hair and really isn't as painful as you would think. It really does get easier and easier with each time you use it too.

If you get professional waxes how much do you spend a year? This would work out far cheaper and you can do it at home in privacy without having to book an appointment! The result is the same without the long wait in between!

I am giving this five stars as I got a great deal and am so pleased with both the epilator and the results I have had. I will certainly be replacing this with another epilator when it comes to the end of its life and I will definitely go for another Philips and this model if it is still available!


OVER A YEAR ON

I still love this and the results are just as brilliant as when I started out with it.

I have checked the price on Amazon and it is now listed with an RRP of £40 but is for sale at just £27.45 certainly a bargain!

I have had to stop using this on my arms as I was suffering with ingrown hairs way more than was pleasant and which looks worse, a bit of dark hair or ingrowing hairs all over my arms? Yeah you guessed it!


There are several versions of this epilator I have model HP6408/02, but all are very much alike.

Summary: Don't be a wimp it honestly isn't as bad as you expect it to be!