Philips SatinPerfect Epilator HP6576/50 - Review

I hate shaving my legs, but I love the way they feel afterward. I really hate shaving my legs in the winter. Really. I've heard of epilators, but to be honest, they sound terribly scary. I mean, the thing rips hairs out of the follicles. It's medieval torture, right?

When BzzAgent offered me a campaign for an epilator, I was curious and excited. Curious about the pain part, excited about the option to try one for free, and a nice one, at that. The Philips Satin Perfect epilator is nice. Really nice. And spendy, too. To view the product details on Amazon, click here. This unit has an MSRP of $149.99, which is pretty steep. But, the bells and whistles it comes with make up for that price, I think.

The body of the epilator is ergonomically designed, with an angled head. It's white, with champagne/gold and silver accents. It's actually very pretty.

The epilator comes with 2 heads, an epilating and shaving head, and four attachments, one for the shaver, and three for the epilator. If you're not familiar with what an epilator is, think of it this way: a bunch of spinning discs, that are tilted to form tweezer-esque blades pull hair from your skin (legs, arms, back, where ever).

The different heads provide a different experience, supposedly. In actuality, I didn't notice a difference between the "active massage" head (the one with rollers), and the other. Both still hurt. The "trimming comb" I found it to be utterly useless. The shaver, like most electric shavers, didn't provide a super smooth result, however, it's still pretty awesome to have that option, so if you did buy this unit and found epilating to painful for all of those areas where you don't want hair, you can use this gadget to shave with. The clear comb for the shaving head seemed useless, as well. The heads and accessories are super easy to clean. The unit itself is not water proof, though, so don't take it in the shower!

The epilator charges in about an hour, and will run for 40 minutes on a single charge. Not too shabby. It has two speeds, and starts out at a high speed, and hitting the power button lowers the speed.The kit also includes super cool tweezers for your brows that have an LED in them, similar to the LED the body of the epilator has, to help you find all those hairs you missed. The tweezers have a little metal tube for storage and travel, that even has a slim mirror. A bag and small cleaning brush completes the ensemble.

So, after all of that, what do I think? It's pretty cool. I've used it a total of 4 times now (not including the sessions that lasted 2 seconds, after which I decided the pain was too great). I have noticed a marked difference in my pain tolerance between the first time and the 4th - the more you do it, the easier it gets, honestly. I do NOT like pain at all, and found the most recent session to be relatively benign. I still can't do my knees, though. I've found that pulling my skin taunt, and taking my time when going over each area also helps - don't go too fast! You'll just have to go over the area again. I've found it's best to exfoliate the area you'll be epilating really well, and epilate immediately after your shower or bath, after you've dried the area. Plan on exfoliating the area again, to help reduce the likelihood of ingrown hairs.

I know it's common to say that hair removal, in general, causes the hair on that area to grow back darker, coarser, etc. I've never found that to be true, and certainly not in this case. My legs stay super smooth for about a week, and then I start to feel a bit of stubble. The areas that I've epilated the most feel less hairy, though, which is likely caused by damage to the follicle. Like waxing, if you epilate enough, you will find that your hair is less dense. The first time using this, I'd recommend using the slower speed, it seemed to hurt a bit less. Also, make sure you keep the head at a 90 degree angle from the surface you're working on, as this ensures the best and smoothest result.

** I was provided a free Philips SatinPerfect Epilator by BzzAgent. Although the unit was free, the opinions above are my own, and I was not compensated in anyway for posting this review.