BraunSmart IPL, Silk·Expert Pro 5: at Home Laser Hair Removal for Women and Men, Permanent Visible Hair Reduction in Hair Regrowth for Body & Face, with Venus Swirl Razor, Corded, IPL5137

As a guy who "trims", I have been using the Philips Powergroomer for over a decade. It's fast and effective, but I needed to do it at least twice a week, always had a slight stubble and replacing the blades every 4 months adds up in cost. I stopped shaving eons ago because I get razor burns badly. I have used this device once/week (EVERYWHERE) for a month. The results are AMAZING! I actually shaved today for my weekly "zap session", but almost all of the hair is already gone. I only shaved because I am ready to be done with the weekly process and want each session to be as effective as possible. I had almost zero chest, arm, and leg hair before shaving today. The pubes still need a little more time, but hairs have reduced by about 80% already. This device works on men! I have an average Florida tan (for a white guy) and black hair. I do have a few gray chest hairs. This does not work on gray hair at all.For my first session, I did the Philips "trim" instead of shaving. The entire process smelled like burning hair. The zapping is not pleasant, it gets very hot. I had to take a few breaks before completing the session. After a week I noticed a little improvement, but nothing spectacular. For the second session, I used the Venus razor shipped with the device. Ugh, I knew I was going to get razor burn, but wanted to give this a real try. So, I did a little research on "women's shaving" before hitting the razor. I took a hot 10-minute bath before I started the shave, dried off well, then used the Braun for the second time. The heat from the zapping was more tolerable this time. Immediately after the zapping, I applied cortisone cream where I always get razor burns, then used a good collagen body lotion. I developed only VERY MINIMAL razor burn the next day, applied more cortisone, and everything was fine.So, my weekly process is to shave, zap, cortisone, and moisturize. After 5 sessions (once/week) I am extremely pleased with the results. I'll probably continue this process for 2 more sessions, then do it only once every 3 - 4 weeks, or as needed. I have no ingrown hairs, and I doubt I'll get any razor burn after this session. This bad boy works well on men!The instructions say to avoid the sun for at least a week after use. I went to the beach the day after a session and experienced no issues. But the device does work best on lighter skin. So, as a rule, I plan to avoid the sun until I get as "hairless" as possible. The lighter your skin tone, the more powerful and effective the laser will be.I think "the process" is important. Soak, shave, zap, cortisone, then moisturize. The heat gets tolerable (everywhere) with time, but I still take a break and let the device cool down a few times each session. The instructions say it should take about 10 minutes. That is BS! Plan on 30 minutes of zapping. The device is fantastic in that you don't have to keep pressing the button to zap. But it has to be fully flat against your skin. Then you just glide it over your body. Once in a while, the glide and zap function stops working. Just unplug it for a minute, then it works fine again. If you are working on an area where it is difficult to get it flat against your skin (like your knees or shins), just start it up on an easier part of your body like your thighs and it will start working well again. There is a smaller "laser head" for difficult areas, but I can get everywhere with the larger head now after practice.Do not get discouraged after the first use. If you have dark hair, this will work great! I wish I discovered this a decade ago! One of my best Amazon purchases EVER!

I've had this for half a year now, and I am still in shock about how effective it is. It worked!! My hair growth noticeably slowed down after the first couple of treatments. And I've been able to get rid of armpit hair completely, and got rid of about 98% of my leg hair, and about 90% of hair *down there.* And I have ZERO ingrown hair now, and my skin is smooth like silk. Still can't believe it! Nothing has ever worked for me, and I mean NOTHING. I don't even have that much hair in unwanted places on my body, but the hair I do have tends to be very persistent. And, coupled with VERY sensitive skin, any method of hair removal I've ever tried had more negative side effects than positive results, and the positive outcomes never lasted.I waxed for many years. That was the best solution for me because it gave me the smoothest skin on my legs. But it didn't catch everything. And it never reduced my hair growth to such a level as you often see in ads: a few days later, I had to wax again. I even went to the salon to wax my armpits and *down there* but that hurt like hell, and the results never lasted more than a few days. However, waxing was my preferred method for years because it at least gave me a few days of peace and smooth skin. Kind of. With ingrown hairs here and there. I used wax strips for that.I tried waxing beads that you're supposed to melt. That was a total waste of money.Regular shaving would normally give me the smoothest skin for a few hours. By the end of the day, it would be a little prickly. And I would get ingrowns no matter how much I exfoliated.I've even tried actual LASER, in a salon. Wasted all of that money. It hurt, it cost a fortune, and my hair growth got temporarily reduced, but then it came back after what was supposed to be my last treatment. They told me at the salon that some people have a reverse reaction from laser, and the only solution is to get more treatments. But I didn't have the budget for that.I ended up buying a different IPL machine before I got Braun. It was cheaper. One of those viral ones. Total crap. Don't waste your money. It's too weak to do anything. Took me a full year of trying to recognize that it would never ever work on me.But then I got this magical tool from Braun.Well, first things first: it will hurt. It is an actual IPL, not just some flashlight pretending to be an IPL from a cheap knock-off brand. It WILL do its job, and you might have to do the lowest setting at the beginning because it will hurt. But you will practically feel the roots of your follicles getting destroyed. My ingrown hairs disappeared after the very first treatment. My hair began growing slower after the second treatment. About two weeks into it, my hair growth almost completely stopped.Six months into it, I occasionally need to do a minor touch-up here and there, I think mainly because the remaining hairs are so thin and light that the IPL just doesn't "see" them, so they reappear once in a while. But when they do, it's nearly impossible to see. It's like fuzz, not even hair.The worst area of my body that I previously could never look smooth were my armpits. Even when freshly shaven, they'd look a bit dark. My skin is thin and sensitive there, and so I could never make it look nice and smooth. Waxing wouldn't get rid of the hair for more than a few days. It was hell. But this IPL machine worked!! I have ZERO hair in my armpits, and the skin finally had a chance to heal, so my pits look smooth, light, and clean.The hardest area to IPL is *down there.* Even with a special precision attachment, it's kind of difficult to reach, because frankly the only downside of this IPL is its design. You have to constantly press the button, or hold it down, and it's situated in such a way that makes it uncomfortable to hold when you're trying to do your south region. But it's doable if you're squatting or sitting at the edge of a chair or couch. I find that even after six months, I can't seem to get rid of ALL the hair down there--probably because the follicles tend to be rooted a lot deeper in that region, so the roots of the hairs are harder to reach with IPL. However, I've done a full Brazilian with this tool, and my bikini area is completely hair-free--I mean ZERO hair in the bikini area. Only a little bit of remaining hair way down below. But it is a lot thinner and lighter, and grows a lot slower.TLDR: This is a fantastic machine that works, and it has worked for me even though another (cheaper) IPL never did, and even professional laser treatments didn't work for me. But this thing worked.