I’ve seen some searches coming in lately about laser hair removal, as well as the No! No! hair removal system, and I wanted to post an update.

First, should you spend money on a No! No!?

No. No. You should not.

(Sorry, I had to.)

I’m not convinced that it can’t work, but it must take forever and was difficult and unsatisfying to use. I don’t think it contributed to any hair removal for me, and buffing afterwards did not leave me smooth and clean as promised. It also ended up smelling like burnt hair, which wasn’t particularly pleasant. (As a side note, if you want my No! No! let me know and I’d be happy to hand it over.)

So what should you do instead?

Well, as much as it’s expensive and painful, I do have to recommend laser. I’m unfortunate in that I’m very hairy, but I’m fortunate in that my skin type (not super pale but also not super tan) and hair type (very dark and thick) work well with laser.

I’ve had a number of rounds on my face (I’d have to check to see exactly, but I think four or five) and most of my face continues to be smooth a few years later. I have some hairs that just won’t go away – above my upper lip and right below my lower lip, as well as a few along my jaw line – that I’ve gone in for minor touch ups, but the vast majority of the hair that was there is gone. I now shave much more because I’m anal and don’t like even the little hairs appearing than because I really need to.

That said,  as I’ve mentioned before, hair removal isn’t particularly fun. It does get easier each time I go, because there are fewer hairs growing back in the first place and the ones that do grow back are finer, but it’s still not easy or painless. And the first time doing any area – my face, my legs, my chest, my arms – it was very painful. Get numbing cream and slather it on before, and save some to slather on afterwards (and possibly the next few days for itching).

But is it worth it?

For me, there isn’t a question: yes, it’s definitely worth it. I’m looking at my arms right now, almost a month since my last laser treatment (the fourth of a package of six) and they’re almost hairless. I do have some hair around the bones in my wrist that the clinician must have missed, and some finer hair growing back elsewhere, but they’re miles from what they were before. (I’ll probably start shaving the little spots that are growing back soon, I just want to wait and see what places still have hair before I shave it all off.)

As for my legs, they’re not quite as good (that is, quite as hairless) but they had a lot more hair to start with. They’re definitely much better, much less hairy, than they were when I started. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I have some irritation on my legs – particularly on the shins where there’s not much meat between the skin and the bone – that still hasn’t totally disappeared a few weeks after my last session. Next time, I’ll need to slather on more numbing cream beforehand, and be better about putting on lotion and neosporin stuff after.

Likewise, my chest has much less hair, too. (Although some stubborn hairs, embarrassingly enough right around my nipples, do keep coming back. Grr!)

All that said, hair removal isn’t cheap. My package of six sessions on my arms, legs, and torso cost $4,390. That’s a heckuva lot of money, and I would have rather had it to spend on a moped or something else a little more fun than laser hair removal.

But if you really want that hair gone, and have the skin/hair type to make you a good candidate, laser is the way to go.