Things are about to get really personal here.

Okay so we may not always admit to it, but women have facial hair. Usually these kinds of conversations are saved solely for our besties, but it’s quite common for women to have upper lip or chin hair. Yes, we can grow a {somewhat} mild beard or moustache.

I’ve been waxing and plucking my upper lip hair for as long as I can remember, and it’s just another thing on my already-long list of items I do to keep myself in check. Plus, it’s kind of annoying always having to Photoshop your upper lip to make it look like you don’t have a moustache when you take lipstick swatch photos (#bloggerproblems). I’ve always wondered about laser hair removal for this problem area, but it’s so expensive to go and you need to do multiple treatments to keep it up. So I’m sure you can imagine my excitement when the Tria Hair Removal Laser 4X showed up on my doorstep late last year.

I’ve been putting off doing a review on this product as I really wanted to use it thoroughly before saying my thoughts on it.  This device is very pricey (C$515 at Sephora), so it’s no chump change to just pick it up to try out. With items like these you really have to do your research on it, and I wanted to give my most honest opinion.

So off the bat, does it work? Yes.

This is a handheld device (available in a variety of colours – the one I have is Honeydew Green) for the face and body that permanently reduces unwanted hair and provides lasting silky-smooth skin. It’s the only FDA-cleared laser available for home use currently on the market and it uses the same diode laser technology preferred by dermatologies to deliver safe, effective, and permanent results. Because of its design, it’s very easy to hold, making treatments simple.

There are five levels that you can set it on, one being the most tolerant, and five being the most “painful”. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, so level five is no biggie for me (although sometimes it would be a sharper pain- it’s like a burn sensation – depending on the area). First you need to cleanse the area you’re going to treat, then shave down the hair. This is very important because you want the hair root to still be there (you’re essentially zapping it away from the root; if you pluck or wax there’s nothing to zap). Then, you put the base of the Tria device on the area you are going to treat to unlock the device.  After, just start zapping away! You place the tip of the device on the treatment area and then move it slightly until you’ve covered the whole area.  It does make a noise when it’s a successful zap (it’s like a needle prick, nothing too painful) and then another noise if it’s an unsuccessful area. It says on the screen how many treatments it’s done and Tria usually recommends a certain number so that’s what I stick with. For my upper lip, I do 20 zaps a side (they say 25 pulses per treatment; should take two to three minutes).

Tria recommends doing a treatment every two weeks. After two to three months of treatment, hair re-growth will begin to appear lighter and finer. You will begin to see a visible reduction in the amount of re-growth, especially in areas where hair growth tends to be dense. They say that after three months of treatment, hair follicles that have been deactivated by the device will no longer grow hair.

The Tria hasn’t fully cleared me on upper lip hair just yet, even after three or four months of use, but I will say that I have noticed a huge reduction in hair growth. My hair is growing back slower and it’s also much finer than before. Since it takes so little time to treat (because the device is so pretty, I keep it displayed on my bathroom counter), I just grab my mini razor, shave the area, then treat it after my morning showers on Saturdays. It takes maybe 10 minutes total (cleanse, shave, zap).

I will say this isn’t my first foray into at-home laser hair removal treatment. I won a different brand laser hair removal system at the London Drugs Fall Beauty Preview event two years ago. I only ended up using that system a couple times because I found it wasn’t that convenient for me.  You had to plug it in to use it and the laser part of it was in a rectangular shape, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it didn’t target the area as well as a smaller circumference, which the Tria has.  I also want to note that at-home laser hair removal will not work on darker skintones or grey, blonde, and red hair. It is designed to work on fair to light brown skintones and light brown to black hair. So that peach fuzz you may have on your chin, yeah sorry, it won’t treat that.

If you have a low pain tolerance, Tria offers a Hair Removal Laser SmoothStart Calming Gel, which preps, comforts, and cools skin prior to using your Tria Hair Removal Laser, helping to speed results, while smoothing skin during treatments. You will get a more pleasant laser hair removal experience at home with permanent results, and skin will be left soft and moisturized.  Since I have a high pain tolerance and I don’t mind a little pain, I haven’t tried this product up until this past weekend just for comparison’s sake.  To be honest, I didn’t find that this masked the pain at all, in fact some of the zaps felt a little sharper. For C$40, I would say skip this product and just deal with the pain. I used this on my face, which is where I was using the Tria, but i’m not sure how well it’ll help on other areas (such as the legs).

Overall, I do recommend the Tria Hair Removal Laser 4X. Yes, it’s expensive (although if you are a VIB or VIB Rouge member at Sephora, you can get 15 per cent off it until this Wednesday), but if unwanted hair is an issue of you, it may be worth it in the long run to pick this up. I can’t tell you how many years I’ve been plucking and waxing my upper lip. And then sometimes I would forget and I would be out and the hair would be pretty noticeable and it’s kinda embarrassing (TMI?). Using the Tria, I don’t have to worry about this as when the hair does grow back in, it’s more sparse and much lighter (which, coincidentally, the FDA also found based on their studies. “Wheeland Report 2012: In a controlled, peer-reviewed study, the FDA-cleared Tria Hair Removal Laser 4X demonstrated statistically significant permanent results 1 year after 8 treatments: Any hair that did regrow was found to be less noticeable, finer, and lighter.”)

Upper lip = hair free! No Photoshop required!

My number-one piece of advice when it comes to these kinds of systems, regardless of the brand, is that you have to be patient.  You will not notice a difference after one use. You need to use this religiously every week or so for at least two to three months before you notice that the hair will seem finer or disappear altogether. Also, keep in mind that I was treating a small area, if you use this on your legs, you’ll be spending probably an hour to do both legs.  It can be really time consuming!  My coworker was also testing it out on some pesky chin hairs and even she noticed a difference after using it a few times (due to me not bringing the device into work every week). Although the hair do grow back, she said they are finer and they take less time to grow.

Let me know if you’ve tried the Tria Hair Removal 4X Laser, I would love to know your experiences with it and if it worked for you.

Have you tried an at-home laser hair removal device?

Also, don’t forget to enter my New York Color Lovatics by Demi contest, which features a signed copy of Confident!

Please note, this product was sent by PR. All opinions are my own.

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