Bellabe Facial Hair Remover Review

MSRP

$19.99

CHECK PRICE

Facial hair can be embarrassing. We all have it and as you get older and hit menopause it can become more pronounced. When we received the Bellabe Facial Hair Remover, I was excited to review it. It’s made in the USA and has been featured on the Rachel Ray show. This simple spring mimics the same hair removal technique as threading. The spring is moved along the skin in a twisting motion, trapping unwanted facial hair from the roots.

At under $20, it is pretty inexpensive. Bellabe says that is safer than using hair removal creams that can burn the skin. The company claims it works to remove hair on the upper lip, chin, cheeks, and sideburns. Does it live up to this claim? Find out in our hands on review.

Unboxing

Our Bellabe came packaged in an envelope. It is fun to see what color you get but you are not allowed to choose the color. Ours came with sweet pink handles. Inside the envelope, there are instructions of how to use and clean the product. The Bellabe comes inside a tube with a removable cap. After removing the plastic packaging around the cap, the cap can be taken off to remove the Bellabe spring inside. The spring has colored rubbery, neoprene handles on each end.

Preparation

Since rubbing the skin with the spring, may cause bacteria, dirt, and oil to slip right into pores where hair is removed, I recommend cleaning your face before and after using the Bellabe spring. If you don’t, you may get a breakout. It helps to take a shower before using it.  To clean the face and prevent breakouts, I like to use medicated witch hazel before and after each use. If your skin is very sensitive to breaking out you can also use a small dab of antibiotic ointment like Neosporin after each use. If you get a pimple use 100% tea tree oil to clear it up. Before you begin, cover the area with a hot washcloth to soften hair. Skin must be completely dry before you begin.

How To Use

Don’t expect to immediately be able to roll the Bellabe on your face to remove hair. There is a slight learning curve that takes a few minutes. I found with the instructions it is a bit hard to visualize the technique. Thankfully, Bellabe has put up an excellent how to video on using the product.

You simply bend the spring in a downwards U shape and roll it over your face while twisting the ends between your fingers. When you bend the spring, it opens up little gaps in the spring. As you twist the spring, it creates tension on the spring and the gaps will close over the hairs. When you roll forward, it will pull them out. The Bellabe works best on areas with flat skin pulled tight. You have to make sure the spring is pressed firmly against the skin so sometimes you have to contort your face.

The Learning Curve

In the beginning, to get the hang of the technique, I first tried the Bellabe on my cheeks. I found it is easiest to place the Bellabe on the skin and twist the handles so that your thumbs come closer together toward the inside. The instructions say to turn the handles in and out. I found just twisting slowly inwards with the thumbs worked better. If you twist the handles too fast, it can break hair instead of pulling it out. While it is a bit surprising at first, you can definitely feel the spring catch hair. It feels like pin pricks or tiny snaps with a rubber band. While painful, I found it satisfying to see the hair caught in the spring. It is so much faster than manually tweezing each one.

I found it a bit awkward to twist and glide the spring when I first started. At first, I found it easiest to place the inverted spring on my face and turn both handles inward. Then I lifted the Bellabe off the skin and placed it on new location, making another twist with my thumbs coming together. After awhile you will be able to twist inward and move the spring upward. You have to keep the coil tightly in the u shape to ensure hair is plucked. Hair should be removed somewhere along the u shape.

Once you get the hang of twisting the handles with your fingers to produce the torque on the spring, it’s pretty easy. You do have to play around with the Bellabe, using different techniques on different areas of the face. You can vary how fast you twist inwards, how fast you roll, and how much you bend the spring.

Fine Or Coarse Hair?

While you can get both fine hair and coarse hair, it works best to remove fine facial hair including light soft hairs on the chin and upper lip. The trick is to keep rolling over spots until you get it all.

You can remove coarse hair with it but it’s a bit of trial and error. For coarse hair it does take awhile and the hair has to be longer. If the hair is coarse, it has to be about 1/4 of an inch since it is difficult to remove coarse hair that is too long or too short. The technique for coarse hair is a little different and it takes a few tries. You have to approach the hair from the opposite direction of hair growth. Then you make just one turn with both handles with your thumbs coming together. When you feel the hair caught in the spring, you simply jerk the spring away from the face to pull the hair out.

Because the Bellabe is not very precise, once and awhile it can be difficult to remove a lone hair especially if it is short and thick. I found sometimes it was necessary to use tweezers on more stubborn hairs that are thick and deep.

Portable

While you can use it in front of a mirror, I loved that you don’t need a mirror or proper lighting once you master the technique. You can go by feel. It is so discrete. Nobody has to know what women go through to be beautiful. It makes no noise and you can take it anywhere. There is no need for an electric outlet. The size makes it perfect for traveling or sticking in your makeup bag. At home, it is convenient to use while sitting in front of the TV, reading, or on Facebook. It helps to find something distracting to do.

Facial Areas It Can Be Used On

I found that the Bellabe can be used just about anywhere on the face though you still need to get your eyebrows waxed. The Bellabe is not a precision tool and great care should be taken near your eyebrows and eyelashes. It is a mass plucking device. Don’t use this on your unibrow. It is very difficult to control the spring in a small area. You can accidentally remove more hair than you want to. It covers a lot of area when you roll it.

With enough practice, you can somewhat control where the spring pulls from. The area is determined by how compact you bend the spring. It takes some practice to learn to position the spring in some places especially where hair grows in different directions. Roll in different directions to get as many hairs as possible. It can be difficult to use on curved areas as you have to tighten skin. Try it on a flat surface with light hair to start with.

I started with removing the peach fuzz on my cheeks. It goes pretty quick and it is not too painful. It feels like tiny pricks. To remove peach fuzz on the cheeks, place the u shaped spring flat on the side of the face and rotate your fingers slowly with the thumbs coming together. You have to keep the coil tightly in the u shape.

I then moved onto dark coarser hair on the chin. You have to work harder to remove hair on the throat area. It is hard to keep the skin tight in this area and the hairs are not visible. Place the coil just above the neck on the throat and twist the coil upwards toward the chin. Be sure the top of spring is pressed firmly under the chin. In order to remove hair on the chin, tuck your lips into your mouth and make a big smile. This keeps skin tight. Then start at the bottom twisting the handles slowly toward the lips. The Bellabe will grab coarse hair on the chin if you are patient, but these hurt more to pull out. You have to constantly go over these areas until the spring grabs the hair. Sometimes it is easier to just pull out a pair of tweezers.

I found that you can also remove the baby hairs on your forehead, but you need to be careful around the eyebrows and hairline. Though very painful, it can also be used on the sideburn area.

Lastly, I tried the Bellabe on my upper lip in the mustache area. I purposely kept this area for last because knew it was going to hurt. Not surprisingly, this area hurt like heck. This area is particularly sensitive to pain because there are more nerve endings here. Apply a hot towel to reduce sensitivity for a few minutes. Some women have even used an ice cube to numb the area. When doing the upper lip, you can push outward with your tongue to make the skin on the upper lip flat. You can also blow air under the lips to create a puffer face. It is best to do the upper lip in three sections- right, left, and middle. Work your way from the corners of the mouth to the center of the lip. Do the same thing with the other side. I found rolling in each area about 5 times would get most of the hair. It is much quicker than tweezing each hair out.

I don’t recommend using this on other areas besides your face. While it can theoretically remove hair on other areas of the body, it is pretty difficult to do since both of your hands are occupied. Additionally, hair on the body tends to be thicker and grow in different directions. Even if you could remove hair on the body, it would take forever.

Does It Hurt?

If you have ever had professional facial threading, this is a lot like that. It is painful. This is not for everybody. Seriously, ripping hair out from the face hurts so bad, though your skin won’t get caught in the spring. The spring won’t nick or cut skin. If thick hair is long, I recommend trimming hair to 1/4 of an inch since it hurts way less. There is a stinging sensation as the spring plucks hair. The first time it stings the most since you are removing so many hairs at once. At first, it is easier to do a little bit at a time instead of going after every hair. After a week or 2, the pain is more manageable. The discomfort lessens significantly the more you use it.

The pain level depends on the thickness of the hair and where it is. Work your way up to the scarier spots. Peach fuzz on the cheeks or forehead is not bad. The area on the upper lip and right under the eye socket is the most painful, as there are more nerve endings there. In the beginning, it might even make you teary eyed. In painful areas, some women recommend using an ice cube to numb the skin. After placing an ice cube in a plastic bag, put it against the area you plan to remove hair on for just a few seconds until the skin is numb. Then use the Bellabe.

Results

At first, this can be time consuming especially if you have a lot of facial hair, but the results are easy to maintain. Similar to threading, you have to make multiple passes over areas. It won’t tear the skin like waxing. It did leave my face a bit red after. Unlike waxing, this cleared up shortly after.

Bellabe removes hair from the root leaving skin soft and smooth unlike a razor which leaves stubble. Even if you don’t think you have hair on your face, after using the Bellabe, I was amazed at how silky and smooth my face felt.

Like waxing, hair pulled out from the roots takes about 2 weeks to grow back. However, the hair ends up growing back slower. Since hair grows in different cycles, it can take a couple of sessions to catch all of the hair at the same time.

You don’t have to wait long to use it again. I think it easy to use as part of your makeup routine in the morning. It will not eliminate hair. The hair will grow back finer. You have to do at least a weekly touch up.

After using it, your complexion looks so much better. Makeup and foundation will go on so much smoother.

The Bellabe works on thin to regular hair. This device works well to remove all the little fuzzies on the cheeks. All those fine baby hairs that you don’t know you had that tweezers miss? It rips most of them out. For light fine hair, it gets the job done much faster than tweezers since it plucks multiple hairs at once. Even for thicker hair on the mustache area, it works well.

My only complaint is that it is difficult to make it work in certain angles. It tends to only work when going upwards. It has trouble grasping hair on the curved part of your face like the rounded areas of the chin. Very thin hairs can be tricky because you have to get them from the right angle. I found that there were still a few hairs that required tweezers to pull out especially on the areas that are not flat like under the chin and jaw line.

It grabs finer hair better than darker thicker hair. For coarser thicker hair on the chin, the results can be mixed and there is a bit of trial and error. It will get the coarse hair but you have to struggle with the angle and keep trying. For these hairs, it is best to use an epilator or tweezers.

How Long Does It Last?

As the spring loses its tension, it will become less effective. Though you can keep in longer, Bellabe suggests that you replace it every 6 to 9 months.

What Others Are Saying

Bellabe facial hair remover reviews by both customers and beauty bloggers are overwhelmingly positive.

Beauty blogger, April, has a fantastic video on Youtube demonstrating how to use the Bellabe. Amazingly, she rolls it over her face without even flinching even in the most painful areas. She called it amazing. She loved that it removed hair at the root. She said that depilatories can burn skin.  This will not. Unlike waxing, she found it doesn’t remove skin and is not messy.

Stacy found that when we age we get more facial hair due to hormones. She bought it to remove fine facial hairs under her nose. She said it really works if you can tolerate the pain. She just found it hurts like heck.

On Amazon, it is getting a 4.0 out of 5 with close to 500 reviews.

Summary

The Bellabe spring is a great product and one of the best epilators for the face. The Bellabe works well to remove fine to regular facial hair on the upper lips, chin, neck, and cheeks. It does hurt like heck but so does every other technique that removes hair at the root. With its inexpensive price, it is much cheaper than waxing at the salon. You can use it for a quick touch up at home anytime. It works better than hair removal creams, shaving, and trimming.  Makeup and foundation go on so smooth.

It is not perfect. There is a bit of a learning curve. It is not going to remove all the hair on your face. You still have to pull out your tweezers for tougher courser hair. Since you are manually removing hair, it can take awhile. Like threading, you have to go over the face several times to get all the hair off.

Still, in terms of effectiveness and results, every woman should own the Bellabe.