Reason for purchase:
I purchased the philips epilator a couple of weeks ago for £27 from amazon (very reasonable price for this product). The main reason I decided to try epilation is that I'm going on holiday in a couple of weeks and due to excess body hair I usually have to shave my legs at least once a day whilst on holiday.

Packaging:
The epilator is packed very well and comes with two different head attachments. The first is the epilator which comes with a "lift and massage" adaptor. This raises the hair for epilation making it easier for the tweezers to catch. The massage part rubs over the skin once it has been epilated to ease the skin. Your also receive a razor which comes with a "trimmer" adaptor. Also givens is a cleaning brush and simple bag to keep all the accesories and epilator in.

Item description:
The epilator itself comes with a long power cord which is very handy as I can imagine if you needed to charge this it would be irritating if battery ran out half way through. It's about the size of the palm of your hand and is a nice lilac and white colour. It also comes in two speeds so I started at 1 then moved to 2 once I had gained confidence. It is very noisy (I make sure the windows are closed before I use it).

Usage:
I won't lie...this is quite painful. I used it for the first time and only managed the lower half of one leg (and I have quite a high pain threshold). However, after shaving almost daily for 10 years I did expect this. I would thouroughly recommend that you exfoliate and have a hot bath/shower before epilating as this will ease the pain slightly. Once you get into the hang of it though I almost found it enjoyable. I did have to go over the same patch a few times then tweeze the odd hair manually but I also expected this. I often sit and watch TV whilst epilating (with a towel handy) and this usually distracts from the pain.
I did also try epilating my armpits but this gave me quite a sore rash. However, I am going to try again after exfoliating properly.

Results:
I am absoluetly delighted with the epilator! Two weeks on and whilst there is hair growth, my legs are as stubbly as they would be a day after shaving which is amazing! However, you can find yourself with more ingrown hairs as the hairshaft is weakened and so the hairs struggle to push through the skin. Therefore would definitely try and exfoliate every other day and have a look with the tweezers to sort out any ingrowns.

Recommendation:
I would definitely recommend this to a friend but it does take a quite a lot of perseverance and the level of pain is quite high. However, the rewards definitely outweigh the pain!