Panasonic IPL Hair Removal System

I am so so excited to be writing and sharing this post about the Panasonic IPL Hair Removal System with you today, I feel as though I've been testing out the product and racking up opinions and thoughts for years! In fairness, it has been months since it was sent to me but STILL! 

As a generally hairy gal, I am always interested in ways of reducing the amount of hair on my body. One of the methods I had been looking into was salon laser hair removal, but as you probably already know - this is verrrry expensive. When I met the lovely Panasonic team at the Glam Gala they showed me the IPL and I was instantly hooked. I got in touch with them the very next day and they were kind enough to send me through the Panasonic ES-WH90 IPL Hair Removal System to test out. And tested out I have done! 

What is the IPL I hear you ask? I'm not going to pretend to be an expert but I will do my best to try and explain. Essentially, Intense Pulsed Light is a broad-spectrum light which is absorbed by the melanin in the hair to reduce hair growth. In very simple terms, the light off the IPL is absorbed by the hair, this heats up the hair and this destroys the hair-producing part in the root. It is not laser, as laser only uses one colour whereas the IPL uses the whole colour spectrum (I think!). As it only works on "active" hair follicles, it does take quite a few treatments for it to work. Darker hair absorbs more of this light, as you can imagine, and therefore it works better on dark and corse hair. It is not advised to be used on blonde and white hair. 

I have been using it since March 20th, as you can see in the Before picture. I decided to stick to just my armpits to test out for this post. I hope you all enjoy seeing photos of my pits! I won't lie, it take quite a while before I started seeing results. But now that I have, the results are getting better and better. I noticed a particular difference when I was on holiday. I was definitely shaving my armpits much less than I usually do!

Both the Before and After pictures show one week of growth. 

So, how do you use it? First of all, you clean and shave the area where you are going to use the IPL. Once dry, you press the IPL device against your skin and you will see a bright flash. It feels quite warm on your skin but doesn't hurt. Then you remove and place it on the next part of the skin! It's super quick and the head is large, so it can cover a large area of skin. It's seriously easy to use! You can shave as many times between treatments as well, very handy for when you have events.

For the purposes of this post, I shaved once a week for 12 weeks and used the IPL pretty much straight after I shaved. It is advertised that it takes 2 minutes to do both armpits and I would either agree or even argue that it takes even less time than that! It takes no time at all and definitely doesn't take any time out of your day. Again, so so easy to use. I started on the lowest setting and went up to the full level 5 setting by week 5. 

Like I said earlier, it did take a while for me to see results. By week 8, I still hadn't seen any massive results. But as it only works on active follicles, it is hard to expect instant results from it! You definitely do have to be patient with it. As you can see from the Before and After photos, which was around 12 weeks, there has been a clear reduction of growth. The hair is definitely taking longer to grow and I think it has become much finer.

As I shave my armpits anyway, I didn't find using the IPL to be a hassle at all. The one downside to it is that you have to shave, you're not allowed to wax or epilate I'm afraid. I'm not 100% sure why, but I assume it is because the root is still in tact when you shave, which allows it to absorb the IPL light. I should make it clear now that the IPL does not burn the whole hair off, the hair is still there after you apply the device to it. For some reason, I thought it would burn the follicle off completely and fall out. This does not happen, silly naive Gweni! 

The Panasonic IPL comes with a charger and a face attachment, which makes the window for the light a little bit smaller. You can use the device on pretty much every part of your body, although it is not advised to use it on the upper lip area, abdomen or genitals. You can do your bikini area but they advise to wear underwear and so you may not be able to do quite as much as you may like to. It makes a little bit of noise when you use it as well, but not so loud that you couldn't watch TV at the same time.

It is not permanent hair removal, but it does reduce growth as long as you continue using it. As you only pay for the device once, it is not difficult or expensive to keep up the use of the product. And as it is only once a week, it's not a massive pain either! It is worth the investment, in my opinion. You can buy on a few places on the internet, the Panasonic website being one place! It retails at £349.99 on the Panasonic website, but I have seen it being sold for quite a bit cheaper on other websites,  for example Amazon is selling the IPL for around £169.99. 

I hope this review gives you a good idea of what to expect with the IPL. Please do let me know of anything else you would want to know so that I can add it to the post. It's obviously not a cheap product to buy, so would love to help as much as I can!

Thank you for reading! 

Love, Gweni xxx

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This post contains PR samples but all opinions are my own.