But I could not let two weeks pass without some kind of update. As far as my target areas go (armpits and bikini line) I am still not able to see any general decrease of hair density, but the few hairs I targeted by themselves do seem to be gone. I am not discouraged yet.

To complete my opinion on the Rio machine I purchased, I have visited a couple of beauty parlors this week to compare prices. Feigning ignorance, I asked about their laser treatments and sessions, prices,…

First discovery was that both places I went to did not carry out “Laser Hair Removal Treatments” but “Intense Pulsed Light Hair Removal Treatments”. I have done an initial search in Google and have found that in general… there is a lot of confusion about the differences between both methods of hair removal. I will try to learn more about Laser versus IPL (also known as Photoepilation, it seems). So far though, from what they said about IPL treatments, it sounds exactly the same: one must leave 4 or 5 weeks between sessions, you must make sure the treated areas are out of the sun, some dark spots might appear, you must treat each area at least 5 times, and the prices… are astronomical. As my friends were saying: around 60 EUR per session for the armpits, 60 EUR per session for the bikini line, about 25 EUR for the upper lip (fancy way of calling women’s mustachio area… )…

Today I’m keeping it short. Bye bye!

<< previous entry -“Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? – continue reading >>

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• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? armpits area (day 1) (1)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? update 2 (14)
• Rio versus NoNo – which one is better? (8)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? day 10 (11)
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Before, though, a clarification regarding the main test areas. Yesterday I got an email from a friend who after looking at the images in day 2 said:

It’s kind of weird you have square areas of hair. To me this would make me think that you are not from planet Earth.

In case there are more people out there who thought the same, no, the areas are not strictly square-shaped. But the laser aperture does have the shape of a rectangle, so it was easier to define the area with the same shape. The real areas are indeed approximately 64 cm² but, obviously, bikini areas are not exactly squared. There, you made me admit the actual location of the first test areas… (I’m blushing here…)

Anyway, as I was saying, I am going to run two parallel studies, so every week there will be an update on the topic.

1. Test area 1 (yes, the bikini area), was two 8 x 8 cm² areas, with about 2 hairs per square centimeter.
2. Test area 2 (the armpits) is about (wait, let me grab a ruler) 2 x 10 cm² each area. Less skin to cover, but hairier: about 4 hairs per square centimeter.

I shaved my armpits 3 days ago (with Veet cream if you want to know, not those dreadful B’kini razors things I used the first day) and the hairs today were 2 – 3 millimeters long as desired. Although the skin of the armpits is whiter than the skin in my legs, I decided to stick to Power Level 3, for my armpits are a bit sensitive (I cannot use any alcohol-free deodorants, for example… Yes the opposite to what you’d expect, the more for “special skins” or “sensitive skins” the deodorant is, the worse in my case). On day 2, I estimated that you need to place the laser 3 times in 1 squared centimeter, to cover the whole squared centimeter. That means in my case 3 times in 20 cm², 60 times! on each armpit! 30 seconds per laser application gives half an hour per armpit… So to do one armpit, I should spend half an hour with my arm up and slowly cover the area with the laser wand placing it 60 times. Hmmmm….

So, I did it. Kind of. My arms seem to get tired quite quickly (I never thought the Rio Laser Hair Remover would help exercise my arms… interesting, they should add it to their list of advantages). I managed to cover each area in 8 minutes. Aha. Well, the way I figure it is

1. there are the hairless patches I was mentioning on day 2. So I can actually skip some tiny areas.
2. if this machine does work as they claim, next time I will have less hairs and any hairs I missed today due to my impatience, will be more visible then and I’ll be able to attack them directly.

The slight burning smell was there, and so was the “pin prick”, but a lot less noticeable than in the bikini area. Not sure why… Oh, as the armpits are not very smooth (when you raise your arms, the bones stick out a bit) the metal pins of the wand lose contact with the skin a lot easier. When these pins lose contact, the laser stops as it says in the instructions. Cool thing I learnt, though: when you reestablish the contact, the laser continues counting from where it stopped. It does not start again the 30 seconds. Therefore there is no problem of over-treating an area.

Two things to finish off. One is, I’m going to try to talk to a couple of people I know that have had laser hair treatments done by professionals, to compare prices, results and overall impressions of the whole process. I’ll let you know what I find out. The second thing is that my intention with this posts is to share my experiences with the Rio Laser machine to help out other people decide whether it’s worth the money or not. It seems that the posts, though, are also being enjoyed as a source of amusement, at least by some students at the University of Edinburgh. To them, and specially the friend of my sister’s who pointed it out, thanks for your visits and may the laughter be contagious

PS. ZoltarStark’s 3 hairs: one on the left arm is still growing as usual (from 2 to 9 mm long in one week); the second one on the left arm seems to have stopped growing, it has been half a millimeter long since last week (hooray?); the one hair on the left arm… I still can’t find it… (double-hooray?).

<< previous entry -“Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? – continue reading >>

Related post(s)

• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? update 1 (7)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? update 2 (14)
• Rio versus NoNo – which one is better? (8)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? day 10 (11)
• “Rio Laser Hair Remover” does it work? day 9 (16)