Best Epilator For Face

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What is the best epilator for the face in 2015? We recently tested 9 of the most popular facial epilators along with 6 regular epilators with facial attachments. Find out which epilator left our face the smoothest.

The challenge was to find which epilator removed the most hair on the face, leaving the smoothest finish behind. After completing months of research, listening to beauty bloggers, and purchasing and testing all of the most popular facial epilators, we have decided that the Braun 810 is the best facial epilator for most women. For thicker facial hair or those with PCOS, we recommend the Emjoi Epi Slim. For light facial hair, before spending money on a battery operated epilator, we recommend picking up the Bellabe spring. This tiny spring works by catching small fine hairs in its coil and pulling them out at the root.

According to Braun, the Braun facial epilator is the world’s first facial epilator and facial cleaning brush in one. A spokesperson explains: “It’s the perfect tool to help you achieve luminous, smoother and brighter skin.” Sleek-looking, chic, and handbag friendly, this facial epilator was able to remove both fine and course facial hair on the upper lip, chin, forehead, cheeks, sideburns, uni-brow area, and above the eyebrows with greater precision and in a shorter time than comparable options. While it has a few shortcomings, we think it is well worth the $75 dollar price tag.

To find the best facial epilator, our testers tried each epilator on various hair types: thin, downy, light, thick, coarse, and dark. One of our testers says: “When Epilator Central told me they were testing 15 epilators on the face, I sort of cringed. I told them I would need a couple of tequilas for the pain. I hope my face isn’t going to be swollen after. I love you guys. Please pray for me. Lol!” Before we go any further, we want to warn you that epilating the face is very painful. If you are looking for a painless solution, a facial trimmer or dermaplaning may be a better solution. If you are still here, “It is time to go beast mode. Let’s get those prickly bast—-s.” Hold our hand, we’ll help you get through it.

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Summary Of Best Choices For Different Hair Types

	Good Light Facial Hair Bellabe Spring CHECK PRICE	Better Very Course Facial Hair Remington EP7030 CHECK PRICE	Better Thick Facial Hair Emjoi Epi Slim/Plus CHECK PRICE	Best Course/Fine Facial Hair Braun Face 810 CHECK PRICE
Type	Manual	Rechargeable	Battery Powered	Battery Powered
Tweezers	–	40	16	10
Noise	–	Loud (75dB)	Loud (74dB)	Low (55dB)
Battery Life	–	Excellent	Fair	Poor
Eye Brows	Poor	Poor	Poor	Fair
Forehead	Poor	Poor	Poor	Excellent
Sideburns	Fair	Poor	Good	Very Good
Cheeks	Fair	Good	Good	Excellent
Chin	Fair	Excellent	Excellent	Good
Upper Lip	Good	Fair	Good	Very Good
Neck	Poor	Good	Good	Fair
Peach Fuzz	Good	Good	Good	Good
Fine Hair	Good	Good	Good	Very Good
Coarse Hair	Poor	Excellent	Very Good	Good
Time To Epilate	Slow	Fastest	Fast	Fast

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Our Pick

With 10 tweezers, the Braun Face was able to get my face smoother than any other epilator I tested on my face. It removed 90% of the hair on my sideburns, forehead, cheeks, and chin, picking up shorter hair than any other epilator. Since hair on the face grows in so many directions, normally epilating facial hair can be a lot of trial and error.

What I really liked about the Braun Face is that its slender head gave me a lot more precision. I love the ability to rotate the head in two different directions which makes it easier to epilate the more awkward areas of the face. There is a slight learning curve. I felt epilating with this was very similar to how you would wax your face. It has an arrow on it and you simply slide it to the left or right so the arrow faces in the opposite direction of your hair growth.

1. Braun Face

Tweezers: 10
Noise: 55dB

The head is super small and I found I was able to epilate hair on just about anywhere on the face simply by twisting and orienting the epilator appropriately. It was small enough to fit comfortably within my brows. Although it is not for defining the eyebrows, I was able touch up between and around the top of them. It even works for coarse hair on the chin. Unless you have very coarse facial hair, this will pick it up with ease.

I wanted to see just how coarse hair this epilator would pick up so I tried it on the bikini line and underarms and it wasn’t powerful enough to remove the hair.

What I really love is that unless you’re pressing really hard or using it under your eyebrows, where there is a lot of loose skin, it is pretty hard for the epilator to pinch your skin. Oh and if you don’t already own an expensive facial brush, I found that the facial brush improved my complexion, allowing for easier makeup application. It runs on a standard AA battery.

PROS Precise. Cleansing brush. Removes fine and course hair. Relatively quiet. Least painful facial epilator.
CONS Battery life and expensive. Difficult to pick up very coarse hair with strong roots.
OUR VERDICT The best facial epilator we tested.

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2. Emjoi Epi Slim+ E18

Best For Thick Hair
Emjoi Epi Slim Plus
CHECK PRICETweezers: 16
Noise: 74dB

Get this instead of the Braun Face if you have very thick facial hair. It will remove the thickest hair on your face as well as most fine hair. I was a big fan of the original Emjoi Epi Slim. Now Emjoi has updated it with the Emjoi Epi Slim Plus and it is better in every way possible. This battery operated epilator is perfect for hair removal on the face. First off, I have fallen head over heels in love with the gorgeous blue color. It’s small and compact, making it perfect for a weekend trip. I just love how light it feels in your hand. It is not just the design. With 18 tweezers, there are twice as many tweezers as the old one. Compared to the original Epi Slim, it is faster, sleeker, more effective, and a tad bit quieter. It removes all the hair that the original Emjoi Epi Slim removes plus a little more. Using small rapid circles, I first tried it on my upper lip. It removed the thicker hair with ease but took several passes for the invisible peach fuzz. Like all facial epilators, it is not painless.

I was able to remove both fine and course hair on my chin, side burns, upper lip, cheeks, and neck with a couple of passes. Unlike the Braun Face, it can’t be used around the eyebrows or forehead. With a row of three tweezers, the the epilating area is wide enough to remove a decent amount of hair at the same time. Powering through both fine and course hair, this small epilator leaves your face smooth, leaving only the shortest hairs behind. It removed 85% percent of my unwanted facial hair before I had to quickly tweeze the rest.

PROS Inexpensive. Removes thick hair and fine hair. Compact. Most tweezers on a facial epilator. 3 rows of tweezers.
CONS Loud. Painful. Battery operated. Won’t pick up as short hair as the Braun Face.
OUR VERDICT Our second favorite facial epilator. Inexpensive.

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3. Emjoi Epi Slim

Best For Thick Hair
Emjoi Epi Slim
CHECK PRICETweezers: 9
Noise: 78dB

I know a lot of Italian women, Hispanic women, and those with PCOS use this to remove their facial hair. This is a lot more powerful, louder, and painful than the Braun Face. It will remove the thickest hair on your face as well as most fine hair. I like the size of the Emjoi Epi Slim. For an inexpensive battery powered epilator, even with 9 tweezers this thing is pretty powerful beast. Unlike the cheaper facial epilators, this one has got 3 rows of tweezers, which makes it much more efficient. With the wider epilation area, it is easier to remove facial hair as you don’t have to be precisely over each hair to grab it. Although it takes 2AA batteries, the batteries last much longer than the Braun Face. It lasts a good 3-4 sessions which is about a month if you use it weekly.

I found you do have to be careful and pull the skin tightly to avoid it from pulling the skin. To remove hair, you barely touch the epilator to your skin and move it in small circles with the logo facing upward. It removes annoying peach fuzz on the upper lip, jawline, and chin with relative ease. While super painful, I found it works great for removing sideburns. Compared to the Braun Face, your facial hair needs to be a bit longer before the tweezers will grab it. For most women, it will remove even the coarsest hair on the chin though the hair has to be at least 0.5mm to 1mm for it to work. It is so powerful that it removes the coarsest hair on the underarms and bikini area. It removed about 80% of my unwanted facial hair.

PROS Inexpensive. Removes thick hair and fine hair. Compact. 3 rows of tweezers.
CONS Loud. Battery operated. Painful. Won’t pick up as short hair as the Braun Face or Emjoi Epi Slim Plus.
OUR VERDICT Inexpensive way to epilate facial hair.

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4. Bellabe Facial Hair Remover

Best For Light Facial Hair
Bellabe
CHECK PRICEThe Bellabe looks like a spring with handles on the end. To use it, I bent the spring into a U shape and placed it on my skin. When you twist the handles it opens and closes gaps in the spring which allows it to catch hair. It can be a bit difficult to use on curved areas. I think it works great to remove peach fuzz on the upper lip, chin, cheeks, and sideburns. However, it doesn’t really work that well on courser hair. I did find that it can take awhile to remove hair, but you can do it in front of the television without a mirror.

PROS No batteries or mirror required. Removes fine hair.
CONS Takes awhile. Painful. Not that great on coarser hair.
OUR VERDICT An inexpensive way to remove fine facial hair.

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5. Remington EP7030

Best For Very Course Hair
Remington EP7030
CHECK PRICETweezers: 40
Noise: 75dB

I tested a bunch of regular epilators on my face but none of them worked as well as well as the Remington Ep7030. It comes with a special cap for the face. On its slowest speed, the tweezers rotate a bit slower than the other full size epilators, which made this a little bit more comfortable and effective.

The one reason why I liked this better than any of the other facial epilators is because it is rechargeable. All of the other facial epilators ran on standard batteries. This also means it is a lot more powerful, louder, and painful than the other epilators. Compared to all the other facial epilators, this one removed hair the fastest. This works well on coarse hair as well as most peach fuzz and even on those thick “granny hairs”. Due to its size, I found it a little difficult to epilate the upper lip, but larger areas like the cheeks and chin were easier. Compared to the Braun Face, it seemed that the hair had to be a bit longer. You do have to be careful and pull the skin tightly to avoid it from pulling the skin. Compared to the other epilators I tested, I thought it performed the best on the chin. It made quick work of the course hair on my chin. If you have a lot of thick facial hair or suffer from PCOS, this is a good choice. I was able to remove 70% of my unwanted hair with this but had to use a tweezer in harder to reach areas.

PROS A regular epilator. Rechargeable. Removes very coarse hair.
CONS Bulky and loud. Painful. Difficult to reach some of the hair on the face.
OUR VERDICT The best regular epilator for the face.

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6. Remington EP-1050CDN

Remington Ep-1050CDNTweezers: 6
Noise: 70dB

I loved how cheap this was. While I liked the price, size, color, and shape of this facial epilator, I had a hard time figuring out how to get the best results with this. You sort of have to make slow small circles or hover back and forth against the hair growth at a 90 degree angle. As you are circling, you have to sweep the head away. Sometimes it picked up hair and sometimes it did not. You have to keep repeating the motion until the hair is cleared. There is a lot of trial and error with this facial epilator. If you don’t do it right, it can break the hair instead of epilate it. While it works in a similar way as the Emjoi Epi Slim, it is just not as powerful. The Emjoi Epi Slim has 9 tweezers and this only has 6 tweezers. These tweezers don’t spin around as fast, making the plucking action much less pronounced. If you have very thin and light hair, this epilator may work for you. It does work better on fine hair. For coarse hair, the results are mixed. Even while circling back and forth over my coarser hair from various directions, it seemed to miss them. Sometimes it was easier just to pluck them with a tweezer.

PROS Price, size, and color. Removes thin and light hair.
CONS Not effective on course hair. Uneven results. Painful.
OUR VERDICT Too much trial and error to remove facial hair.

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7. Emjoi AP-9T Tweeze

Emjoi AP-9T Tweeze
Tweezers: 3
Noise: 80dB

When I turned this facial epilator on, it let out an obnoxious grinding noise. I felt like I was in a horror flick. At 80dB, this was the loudest facial epilator we tested. I love that this epilator is so cheap but it feels cheap as well. It felt like it was going to fall apart in my hand. Unlike the Emjoi Epi Slim, it has only one row of tweezers which makes it terribly inefficient. This epilator is not really designed to remove a lot of facial hair. It works better to remove a long stray hair here and there. While it works pretty well for removing fine hair, it left most of my shorter and thicker hair in place despite repeated attempts to pluck them.

PROS Cheap. Removes fine hair.
CONS Flimsy. Loudest facial epilator. One row of tweezers. Leaves short and course hair in place. Painful.
OUR VERDICT Doesn’t live up to the infomercial.

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8. Epilady EP-803-17 Face-Epil

Epilady EP-803-17 Face-Epil
Tweezers: 6
Noise: 69dB

I like the price of this, but the performance of the Epilady EP-803-17 Face-Epil isn’t very good. Powered by 1AA battery, it just doesn’t seem powerful enough to remove the majority of thick hair on the face. The tweezers seem to completely miss thicker hair only occasionally grabbing them. You have to go over and over a spot and it misses smaller hair. Oddly the instructions suggest holding it at an 80 degree angle, but I found that difficult with no guide. Provided hair is long enough, it will remove most light blonde hair and fine hair.

PROS Inexpensive. Removes most fine hair.
CONS Not powerful enough to remove thicker hair. Misses short hair. Painful.
OUR VERDICT Not worth the money.

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9. Epilady Esthetic

Epilady Esthetic
Tweezers: Spring-Based
Noise: 60dB

This was one of the more unique facial epilators that I tried. It’s got a springy looking thing on the end of it. You are supposed to hold it flat on the face so the spring makes contact with the skin. I know why they call this epilator delicate. It doesn’t remove a whole lot of hair except for the finest peach fuzz. It only removes the hair you don’t see. I actually thought that this facial epilator worked well to remove small unnoticeable grey and white hair on the face. The only problem is that it didn’t touch everything else. It is not very powerful to pull out thicker facial hair. With thicker hair, sometimes it pulls your skin up with the hair, failing to pluck it. I’d say I removed 10% of my hair with this before I gave up.

PROS Removes unnoticeable hair.
CONS Pricey. Not powerful. Only removes the hair you can’t see. Painful.
OUR VERDICT So delicate it won’t remove most of your facial hair.

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10. Wizzit Tweezers

Wizzit Tweezers
Tweezers: 3
Noise: 60dB

I’m trying so hard not laugh. Requiring 2AAA batteries, this “As Seen On TV “product makes a lot of promises that it can’t keep. I’m not sure if these were supposed to remove hair, but this didn’t do anything except spin around and make noise. It smells like burning plastic when you turn it on. Like the Emjoi Tweeze, it only has one row of tweezers. Occasionally, it managed to randomly pick up a stray hair on the chin or upper lip if it was grown out long enough. It came in a large package with a bunch of other useless stuff. With a single row of tweezers, it would take forever if you have a lot of facial hair. A regular tweezer works better.

PROS It turns on.
CONS Everything.
OUR VERDICT Wizzit in the trash.

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Why Braun Face Is The Best?

After testing all of the facial epilators from all of the major brands, we like the Braun Facial Epilator and Facial Cleaning Brush. Once you get the hang of the Braun face epilator, it is completely amazing for all types of facial hair. It a bit pricy, but this is the best facial epilator I have ever used. The Braun Face isn’t just a facial epilator, this nifty device is also a cleansing brush. It removes facial hair but can also cleanse your face, depending on what attachment you use.

The Design

I know it’s superficial, but I loved the way this epilator looks. A lot of brands nowadays don’t really consider the way something looks. This doesn’t even look like an epilator. It looks like a very beautiful high end electrical toothbrush or mascara. It has a neat little cap that covers and protects the head when storing it. The size of the epilator makes it easy to slip into your purse. It might be tempting to stand it upright, but because it is hefty it can tip over easily.

Much of the Braun face’s performance advantage comes from its design simplicity. It is smaller and much more precise than any of the competing products. The epilator head is oriented perpendicular to the device instead of mounted on top. This allows the head to make contact with the skin with greater precision.

It has an electric tooth brush look that provides a natural grip with a solid heft on the bottom that makes it easier to maneuver along the face. The epilator feels light in the hand and feels a lot like handling mascara.

The head of the epilator is around 1cm long. The narrow head makes it easier to epilate in tight spaces, such as above the lip and above the eyebrows. We have used other regular epilators with facial attachments which worked well on larger areas like the cheeks, but it was an exercise in dexterity to get to tighter areas on the face such as the upper lip and above the forehead.

Even with smaller epilators like the Emjoi Epi Slim, it is difficult to position the epilator just right. Contrastingly, the Braun Face 810 seems to be designed to reach the tighter areas on the face with relative ease. I was amazed that the head was small enough to fit comfortably between my brows.

The on button is easily accessible. It is right in the middle of the device where the thumb would naturally rest while holding the device. The on switch on the epilator allows you to epilate in opposite directions which make it easier to epilate in awkward positions on either side of the face. This feature is also great because it doesn’t matter if your dominant hand is left or right.

At around 55 decibels, it is also one of the quietest facial epilators. It sounds like an electric toothbrush so your family and entire neighborhood is not going to wonder what you are doing in the bathroom.

One feature that I am totally in love with is that it is waterproof , which means you can hop in the shower to use the cleansing brush. However, you do have to be in front of a mirror to use the epilator.

The only thing that bothered me about the design is the battery compartment on the bottom. It’s annoying. The battery is housed in the handle. To insert the battery, you have to use a coin. To open the device, you put your coin in the little notch and turn anti clockwise to open it. Then you drop the battery in with the + first. Then you put the cap back on while making sure the metal piece is in line with the Braun logo. Insert your coin and turn clockwise to lock it. If you don’t align everything, the battery could get jammed inside or the epilator might not turn on. I had a little difficulty inserting the battery and turning it on until I read the instructions.

Given that you need to open it so often to change out the battery, it feels clumsy and cheap. At the very least, I wish that the little cleaning brush it comes with could be used to open the compartment instead of running every time to go get a coin.

CHECK PRICE
These rechargeable batteries essentially turn the Braun Face into a rechargeable facial epilator.Speaking of which, while it is cool that you can take this anywhere and it runs on a single AA battery, the battery life is horrible. It’s a real bummer. I like that Braun included the AA battery in the box, but a rechargeable battery would have been nicer. A standard AA battery will probably last you a week tops roughly 7 – 8 uses. In my experience it will probably drain a fresh battery after 1 hour of continuous use. It is a real bummer.

When the battery is low, the performance tends to dip. I can’t see owning one of these without purchasing these rechargeable batteries which can be recharged 2100 times. I always use a fresh recharged battery or new battery for each session.

Preparing The Face

It is recommended that you use the Braun Face at the end of the day as it can leave your face slightly irritated. I like to the device after a hot shower where my pores are relaxed and the hair is softened.

It is important that your face is clean. Joy Randall, owner of Flawless Makeup Art, advises to “cleanse the skin with witch hazel before you get started” removing hair at the root. Before I started to test the epilator, I dabbed my face with medicated witch hazel to keep bacteria from entering my pores and causing whiteheads as it is a natural antiseptic. I also recommend after you are done epilating, you also dab witch hazel on your face to minimize the chance of a breakout. I like to dip the epilator head in 70% Isopropyl Alcohol before each use to kill any bacteria on the device. The first thing you want to do is to make sure you have the appropriate length of hair. If you have long facial hair, trim your hair down to about 1/8 of an inch or so.

Using The Facial Epilator

If you have ever manually plucked out individual hairs on your face with a tweezer, you know plucking out those bad boys takes forever. With 10 micro openings, Braun claims that this facial epilator is 200X times faster than manually tweezing. Our tests show that the epilator head rotates around 20 times per second. After epilating with the Braun I admit it is considerably faster than tweezing.

I have to admit that when I first tried the Braun 810 facial epilator, I was disappointed. It turns out I was using it wrong. It is unlike any other epilator I have ever used. It seems simple, but there is a bit of a learning curve since hair on the face grows in so many different directions.

When you switch it on, the epilator can either spin counter-clockwise or clockwise. The switch can slide either left or right and the head will spin in the corresponding direction. You have to hold the epilator like a toothbrush so that the twirling plastic head with the tweezers makes contact with the skin in the opposite direction of hair growth. Don’t press too hard and go slowly over the area so the epilator plucks the hair out. Let the epilator do the work.

You will feel a slight sting when the hair has been plucked. I found it works best when you hover the epilator right over the hair growth. Make sure that it spins in the opposite direction of the hair growth so that you are plucking hair correctly.

The Technique

I recommend that when you are first getting started you give yourself a lot of space to practice. Start at the unibrow or chin. Then move on to the forehead before trying the upper lip and more sensitive areas. After epilating my unibrow and above my eyebrows, I started at the bottom of my ear under the side burns and epilated using short strokes in the opposite direction of growth while working down my jawline and in towards my nose. I’ll tried to get the whole cheek, jawline, and chin. I saved the upper lip and side burns for last since they are the most painful.

I first removed that nasty light fine hair between my eyebrows on my slight uni-brow. The long slender size makes it pretty precise, though it is not really designed to shape your eyebrows. Although Braun claims you can use it to contour the eyebrows, I found it difficult since it removes more than one hair at a time.

While it can be used to remove stray hair on the top part of your eyebrows, you have to be careful because the epilator can cause the skin to move. Pull your eyebrow and cover the area you don’t want to remove hair with your finger. I wouldn’t try it under the eyebrows as the skin is very loose and slides a lot.

At first, it can be confusing which direction to make the epilator head spin. If you are familiar with waxing, the direction you select on the epilator is the direction you would want to pull your wax strip away. It is always in the opposite direction of hair growth. The arrows indicate the direction of movement. Let me try and explain.

Say you want to remove stray hair above the left eye brow. Hold the epilator upside down. Now you want to switch on the epilator so that the arrow points to the right so it will remove the hair in the opposite direction of the growth. Hair above the left brow grows to the left so we want to pull it from the right. Pull the skin very tight and simply hover the epilator on the skin until the hair is removed. Then slowly glide the epilator across the face to the right in the same direction of the arrow on the switch and against the hair growth. That will be the direction of epilation. Don’t go fast. Slow is better.

For the right brow switch it to the left and move left slowly. Always remember you have to orient the epilator on your face so that the arrow on the switch is pointing in the opposite direction of your hair growth. It can sometimes be difficult to figure out the direction while looking at yourself in the mirror. After awhile, it becomes second nature.

Pay attention to the direction hair grows on your face so that you are plucking hair from the root. According to Dr. Doris Day, a NYC dermatologist, “In general, hair grows downward on the cheeks, chin, and sideburns, and at an angle above the lip.” So on the cheeks, chin, and sideburns, you want the arrow on the Braun Face to point upward. For the upper lip it is best to divide the lip in three sections. When removing hair from the upper lip treat each side separately. On the left portion of the upper lip, you want the arrow to point in a diagonal upward-right direction and vice versa on the other side of the lip. Then epilate the middle portion of the lip using an upward stroke.

Perfomance

I was able to remove 90% of the unwanted hair on my face with this alone, which is more than any other epilator I tested. Sometimes you have to make a few passes over an area to get all of the hair and you still have to go back over stubborn hairs with a tweezer, but it will save you so much of time.

It seems to grab smaller hairs better than any other facial epilator. Braun claims that the epilator can grab the finest hairs down to 0.5mm. It can remove hair 4 times shorter than waxing, which means you don’t have to wait long for hair to grow out between sessions.It works for most peach fuzz, fine hair, and course hair. It will miss some of the very fine baby hair, but it will get most of the hair that other epilators seem to miss.

With thicker hair like on the chin, the hair has to be a bit longer so that the epilator can grab on to it. Even though it doesn’t seem powerful enough, we were amazed that it was able to pluck very coarse and thick hair, which is great for those who suffer from a lot of growth. With very course hair sometimes it does take more than one attempt. We wanted to see just how course hair it could remove so with tested on the very course bikini line. Sadly, it will not remove hair that is that course very efficiently. We did notice that the epilator does get a bit warm while it is in use.

Braun claims that you will be left up to 4 weeks hair free. This is not true in the beginning. You must epilate regularly through an entire cycle of your personal hair growth pattern so that you can catch hairs at different periods in the cycle. Eventually the hair should grow at the same time which allows you to go for longer periods of hairlessness.

Before and After

Does It Hurt?

I think that something that most people are afraid of is that it is going to hurt. Any time you are removing hair at the root, it is going to hurt. At first it hurt, so I used very soft pressure until I got used to the stinging sensation. I don’t know- it feels a lot like getting hit by a rubber band. The tighter you pull the skin, the less pain you experience. I found this epilator was a lot less painful than other general purpose epilators used on the face since it didn’t have as many tweezers and the tweezers didn’t spin as fast. If you are worried, I really recommend waxing or tweezing first to weaken the roots.

There are a couple of things you can do to reduce the pain.

• Avoid epilating within a week before your monthly visitor, when you are extra sensitive to pain.
• Be sure to exfoliate your skin prior to epilating as removing dead skin allows the hair to slip out easier.
• Skip your morning coffee as caffeine makes you more sensitive.
• About 45 minutes before I epilated my face, I took Tylenol. You can take any pain reliever that you usually take like Tylenol, Advil, ibuprofen, aleve, or aspirin.
• Dr. Philip Young says to “Make sure your hair is trimmed and about 1/4 inch in length to ensure no excessive “pulling” is needed.
• Although I look and sound like a pregnant woman, I find breathing out hard when the hair is pulled helps distract you from the pain.
• I know some women have had success with  lidocaine numbing creams, but this can get super expensive. The best one is Elma but you need a prescription for that. A good one to try is LMX. In my experience, it can help take the edge off but the pain is not going to disappear entirely.

If you been waxing and tweezing your face, it is pretty bearable but still hurts a bit. Instead of one pluck at a time, you are plucking multiple hairs at the same time. The uni-brow and above the eyebrows was a cinch but in other places it can be pretty painful. This is especially true where there are a lot of nerve endings like the upper lip, side burns, and under the eyes.

This is not something you want to do before going out. I recommend doing it at night. My face was a bit red and irritated after for a few hours. However, the next day the redness was gone. Ever since I was introduced to it by an Esthetician, I starting using Finipil after epilating and in between treatments which greatly helped with the irritation.

The Cleansing Brush

I love how you can transform the device into a facial cleanser by simply swapping the heads. The cleaning brush has got 10,000 bristles on it. The bristles are super fine and are supposed to get deep down in your pores. Braun claims that the product uses ultra sonic technology which delivers hundreds of micro oscillations to leave skin six times cleaner than manual cleansing. According to Braun, the benefits of the cleansing brush go far beyond the skin, as the brush will massage the skin which will improve blood flow. The product has been tested and approved by dermatologists for sensitive skin.

Dr. Gabriele Stahl, creator of the Braun Face epilator, states “the cleansing brush preps the skin to absorb products more efficiently and leaves women with visibly brighter skin. The brush can be used every day on cheeks, T-zone and chin for a more radiant skin.”

My skin is naturally a little oily so I was anxious to try the cleaning brush. I put a little Cetaphil on my wet skin but the brush can clean the face with just water.

I recommend spending most of the time on the T-zone where most of the dead skin and oil collects. Be gentle and use small circles. I started at my forehead.Then I worked my way to my nose and to the outer corners of the nose where dead skin collects. Next I moved on to my cheeks. Like the epilator, I like how you can change the rotation of the brush to get hard to reach areas.

I was impressed with the results. The cleansing brush definitely got my face cleaner than face wash alone. Usually over the course of the day, my skin will begin to look oily. Throughout the day, my face felt ridiculously clean and refreshed. I recommend using it before you epilate because it helps lift the hair up, which makes epilating the hair easier.

It removed most of the dead skin on my nose and eyebrows and left my skin oil free. It is great for removing makeup too. Beauty blogger, Huda, put it this way: it literally removed all her makeup. Braun claims that the cleansing brush can even remove blackheads. However, I found most of the blackheads were left on my nose after a single use. After about a week of use, I did notice the number of blackheads decreased and my pores looked tighter.

This cleansing brush is not going replace a Clarisonic but if you don’t already have a cleansing brush, this is a wonderful addition. The Clarisonic brush head is much bigger in size and cleans the face better than the Braun. This is primarily because the Clarisonic runs on a rechargeable battery whereas the Braun is powered by just one single double AA battery.

Unlike the Clarisonic, the Braun face brush doesn’t rotate all the way around. It vibrates and switches direction about a quarter of the way through a full rotation. The Braun cleansing brush has the ability to rotate in two different directions, whereas the Clarisonic doesn’t. This can be super convenient while cleansing the face. Experts haven’t really decided which technology is better, but they do agree that most facial brushes work better than manual cleansing.

You never want to cleanse your face too long until it is red. Dermatologist Dr. Dennis Gross says: “Too much of anything is not a good thing.” Unlike the Clarisonic, there is no timer on the Braun cleansing brush so you want to stop on your own after 1 or 2 minutes so that you don’t overdo it.

While it may not be as effective as the Clarisonic or a facial, the Braun Face left my skin feeling pretty good. At half the price of the Clarisonic, it is impressive especially if you have never used a Clarisonic brush. The bristles were soft and delicate on my face. It felt like a mini facial. Like other facial brushes, Braun recommends you change the brush every 3 months for top performance and hygiene.

Overall Thoughts

Even though it is not perfect, this is hands down the best facial epilator I have ever used. I love that in one device, you have two very good beauty products. The cleansing brush is a nice bonus if you don’t already own one.

After removing the hair on your face, your makeup and foundation will go on so much smoother. When I washed my face with water, I could literally feel the water flowing smoothly across my face. It is so amazing that you might want to go without makeup or even less makeup. This is my new best friend. I can’t see living without it. Just be sure to grab rechargeable batteries with it.

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What About Ingrown Hair?

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Bliss pads are super easy to apply on the face and help prevent ingrown hairs.Anytime you are done removing hair from your face the war with ingrown hair has just begun. You know what I mean. Those lumpy nasty little things with the hairs trying to get out, which turn into ugly red bumps. As the the hair is growing back out, exfoliation is crucial. Yani Cifuentes, a waxing professional, says the best way to prevent ingrowns is “dry exfoliation.”

Every morning before I hop into the shower, I like to use the Braun Face cleansing brush on dry skin to exfoliate my face. Brushing on dry skin allows more of the skin to slough off. A facial scrub won’t work as well. If you don’t use the facial cleansing brush, I recommend using a gentle facial scrub in the shower like Aveeno Positively Radiant Skin not St.Ives which can tear the skin.

In addition to physically exfoliating the skin, you need to use a chemical exfoliant to treat it like you would treat acne. For the face, I recommend using the Bliss ingrown eliminating pads everyday. The pads are soaked in 2% glycolic and 10% salicylic acid. You just swipe them over your face everyday and it disinfects and exfoliates the skin. Tend skin works too but I find it messy to put it on a cotton pad and apply it on the face. The Bliss pads are super easy to apply on the face. I know they can get super expensive and I found that Glycolix Elite Gly/Sal 10-2 contains the same active ingredients as the Bliss pads but they are much cheaper. However, they do have acetone in them. If you want something super cheap that sort of works, I would just use the red Stridex Max strength pads but they have a lot less salicylic acid on them.

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Who Else Likes It?

There is a lot of hype around Braun’s latest facial epilator. Both beauty bloggers and customers seem to love it.

Although Jessica Alba is the brand ambassador, she claims that the Braun facial hair remover is her secret for flawless spot free skin. She says it has given her the confidence to go out without makeup. She said: “It doesn’t matter whether you’re going for a red carpet look, or want a day without any make-up on; we need to be able to count on beautifully cleansed skin as our foundation. Braun Face gives women the confidence and freedom to either wear make-up or not.”

Alba goes on to say that she achieves “luminous, smoother and brighter skin” with the cleansing brush. In an interview with Cosmo she says, “I love to get facials and I’ve had mine done by Shani Darden for years. If I don’t have time for Shani, I’ll do a deep cleanse using a Braun Silk-épil Facial Cleansing Brush: it’s like a mini at-home facial!”

Huda Kuttan, an award Winning blogger and Hollywood trained celebrity makeup artist, praises the Braun face with every superlative saying: “This is the first facial epilator and facial cleansing brush, there is nothing like this out there. It’s a great way to combat facial hair for women, and the cleansing brush with its soft bristles is very promising…they are super fine…super impressive and my skin looks much more even. Women don’t need to have hair on their face.”

Personal style blogger, Nilu Thapa, said “Most of my girlfriends who suffer from PCOS have issues of thicker facial hair and one of them got her Braun Face and tried it and the result is fantastic. The device does what it promised to do.”

On Amazon, the epilator is getting 4.0 out of 5 stars with close to 80 reviews.

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The Competition

Best Epilator For Fine Facial Hair

Most women have fine vellus hair on their face which makes the Bellabe the best choice for removing peach fuzz. The Bellabe is a manual spring epilator. It’s simple to use, inexpensive, and is pretty great at removing unwanted hair from the face. It’s been talked about on many beauty blogs and on YouTube. In fact, beauty blogger, AprilAthena7, demonstrated the technique she uses to remove hair with it on her upper lip. Quite honestly, it might be the best kept secret for removing unwanted fine facial hair from the root.

It works very similarly to the ancient hair removal process of threading except anyone can use it. It works to remove hair on the upper lip, chin, cheeks, and sideburns. Bellabe has two handles and a spring between them. It is about as long as a standard sized pencil. Just hold the ends and bend it like a horseshoe and use your thumbs to twist it inward and outward as you move across your face. As you twirl the device, it catches hair in the coil. The hair gets trapped inside the coil as you twist the spring. It even manages to get fine hair that you didn’t even know existed. Although you may have to make several passes, it gets rid of all the peach fuzz. It works just like an epilator but you don’t need electricity. This spring epilator is great for removing pesky “whiskers”.

Compared to the Braun Facial epilator, it takes considerably longer to remove facial hair. There is a lot of trial and error and it is difficult to remove hair on curved areas of the face. We don’t recommend using this anywhere else other than the upper lip, chin, and cheeks. It doesn’t have the control you need for the eye brows. We also should mention that it doesn’t work well on courser thicker facial hair.

Best Epilator For Course Growth On The Upper Lip, Chin, And Sideburn Area

We love the size of the Emjoi Epi Slim. It’s great for the face. The Emjoi Epi Slim is a nice compact traditional epilator that removes hair from the root on the most delicate areas of the face – like the upper lip, chin, and cheek areas. It’s the best Emjoi epilator for the face. Fashion blogger Theresa Huarotoxo used it for her sideburns. It’s not much bigger than a lipstick case. It’s inexpensive and has a smaller head designed to be used in tight areas.

The small form factor allows it to fit perfectly into your hand. It removes peach fuzz with ease but we also like it because it can even remove coarser hair. It does require you to pull the skin very taut to avoid pinching the delicate skin in the facial region. You simply glide the epilator in circles over the area in which you want to remove hair. Like the Braun Face, it is powered by batteries, which means you’ll have to replace them when they lose power. The battery lasts about 3-4 20 minute sessions before the epilator loses power.

Compared to the Braun facial epilator, we felt that removing hair involved a little bit of trial and error. Since hair on the face grows in different directions, you have to make light circles and hope the epilator picks up the hair. It does miss shorter hair that the Braun epilator removes.

Unlike the Braun epilator, this epilator can’t be used near the eyebrows or on the forehead. While it worked great for epilating the chin and cheek area, we found that epilating the upper lip can be tricky.

Best Regular Epilator For Facial Hair

We like the mid-sized Remington EP7030. It’s the best regular epilator for thick coarse hair on the chin, lip, and cheeks. The only problem with going with this epilator is that it is pretty bulky and difficult to maneuver around the face. We were really touched when blogger Mo Leftwich described her experience with dealing with hirsutism since middle school. When choosing the best epilator for PCOS and hirsutism, she recommended a wet & dry epilator because she found that lubricating her skin makes it not as painful. Women with a lot of facial hair growth need an epilator with a little more tweezers since they are going to be covering more area.

The Remington EP7030 features 40 tweezers but has a precision cap that covers a smaller surface area. It helps to have the ability to capture the difficult to reach hairs around the jawline and chin. It’s got two speed settings. Low is recommended for fine hair and high for thick coarse hair. This was the only epilator that was comfortable enough to use on the face thanks to its slower rotational speed. Still, it is much more powerful than the Epi Slim, which uses disposable batteries so it takes a lot less time. Because it can be used under water, removing facial hair with it is a lot like shaving. You can lather up the skin and rotate the epilator in circular motions up and down your face.

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Why Epilate The Face?

So many women from young to old develop unwanted facial hair because of age, genetics, stress, medicine, or hormones. Some women even have a rare condition called PCOS or hirsutism, which causes dark or course hair to grow on the face. We are all beautiful but facial hair can make us feel unattractive, unsexy, and insecure.

Facial hair is not a topic that a lot of women like to talk about or admit to having though we spend so much money trying to remove it. A survey conducted by Kelton Research showed that 18 million American women are more worried about their facial hair than their finances. Ruth Hency says “If you have facial hair it takes away from being feminine.” Maybe it is the sideburns, or on the jaw line, cheeks, upper lip, or neck.

We all have facial hair but most of the time it is light and unnoticeable. Women have two types of hair on their bodies. Vellus hair tends to be fine. Most women have vellus hair on their face, chest, and back. This hair is soft and light. Sometimes it is easier to see in the light. Terminal hair is found on your head, arms, legs, armpits, and bikini area. It’s the darker variety that can be bothersome.

When you remove hair from your face, your makeup, lotions, and serums will apply better. Makeup goes on smoother as it is no longer cracking or flaking because it is not sitting on top of the hair. It looks so much better because you have a smooth surface and a great base to start with. Removing hair along the jaw line makes your face look slimmer as you no longer have hair sticking out. It really helps define your jaw and makes you look better in pictures. Even if you don’t notice the peach fuzz, it really does have an impact when you remove it. We love to look better, be more confident, and be less insecure.

There are so many different ways to remove hair on the face.

One of the most popular procedures nowadays in spas is dermaplaning hair removal. Dermaplaning is not a long term solution since you are essentially just shaving your face with a sharp blade. Don’t shave it. If you shave, it grows back right away the next day. With a razor, you still have the root of the hair left. For women with thicker hair, you can see the root under the skin giving a 5 o’clock shadow. With shaving, the edge of the hair is cut bluntly, sometimes giving it a coarser or stubbly look as it grows back. Even depilatory creams leave skin red and irritated and really don’t work well on coarser hair.

The best way to get rid of facial hair is by removing it at the root, leaving it softer and finer. While laser removes hair at the root, it is very expensive. The biggest problem with it is that it does not get the peach fuzz because it is not the right color. Laser only works if you have a really dark pigmented hair against a light shade of skin.

Women have all spent time with a tweezer plucking each hair out endlessly or spent a ton of money on professional waxing. With waxing, not only is it expensive you have to wait until the hair grows out long enough. Plucking and waxing can only go so far.

A good epilator can help us control unwanted facial hair. An epilator is basically a giant tweezer and is like having hundreds of different small tweezers. Epilators grab a variety of hairs at once and can help put an end to daily plucking. Epilators remove hair from the root, leaving soft skin behind for weeks. If you are trying to tweeze them out one by one it would take forever.

With an epilator, you are capable of removing facial hair in just a few minutes. Epilators will work both on course hair and peach fine hairs. You get to use it over and over again in the privacy of your own home for just the price of a few waxing sessions. We’ve reviewed many epilators (see here for our overall best epilators), but this time we’ve decided to go hunting for the best facial epilator.

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How We Tested

Our testing philosophy was simple – find out which epilator removed the most facial hair in the shortest amount of time. We were primarily interested in answering this question: Which epilator is best for the face?

We also looked at how easy it was the maneuver, the number of tweezers, how painful it was, how noisy it was, how fast it was, and how it performed on different areas of the face. We wanted to find an epilator that performed well both on fine and course hair so that it would work for most people.

We really wanted to be as comprehensive as possible. We first began to research what customers and bloggers were saying on social media, forums, and online stores.

What We Looked For When Choosing The Best Face Epilator

Well renowned beauty blogger, Glamzzle and other beauty bloggers posted tips that you must consider when choosing the best epilator for removing facial hair.

1. Look for a model with a smaller surface area so that you can easily move it around the contours of the face.

2. Choose an epilator with multiple speeds because depending on your facial hair, you might need a slower speed.

3. Choose an epilator with tweezers located on the inside of the head. Don’t use an epilator with tweezers located on the outside of the head or a head that is separated from the body, as these could cut or pinch the facial skin.

4. Test your facial skin before epilating the entire area otherwise you may develop rashes or bumps. If you are used to removing hair from your face, then this is not a problem.

5. Don’t use an epilator on long facial hair. Trim it or let it grow to 2 – 3 mm.

6. The upper lip is the most difficult area on the face. You have to move the epilator quickly in the opposite direction of the hair growth.

After coming up with an initial list of epilators, we knew that the only way to find out which epilator performed the best was to purchase all of the most popular epilators and compare them side by side. Comparative tests provide the most complete picture. We sent one of our testers to purchase not just all the facial epilators from the top brands, but also regular sized epilators that claimed they could be used on the face. We looked epilators from Braun, Emjoi, Epilady, Panasonic, Philips, and Remington as well as some lesser known brands. We searched drugstores, beauty stores, and online.

Here were the facial epilators in contention:

Bellabe Facial Hair Remover
Braun Face
Emjoi Epi Slim Epilator
Emjoi AP-9T Tweeze Tweezer
Epilady Face Epil
Epilady Esthetic
Remington EP1050CDN
Wizzit Hair Remover

One big question we wanted to answer: Are regular epilators with or without facial attachments effective?

Here were the full body epilators in contention:

Braun SE7681 Silk-épil 7
Remington Products EP7030
Epilady EP-810-33A Legend 4
Emjoi AP-18 Emagine
Emjoi Soft Caress
Emjoi eRase e60

Things We Considered When Looking For The Best Epilator For Facial Hair

We started by testing each epilator on various areas of the face, preparing our skin in the same way after a warm shower. We were primarily concerned with the problem areas on the chin, upper lip, cheeks, and upper lip.

First we tested all of the regular sized epilators that claimed they were for the face. Generally, the larger epilators were much louder than the smaller ones. While it was easy to remove hair on the cheeks and chin with these epilators, their bulkiness often got in the way.

Some of these epilators came with attachments, but the attachments really didn’t address the bulkiness of the device. The attachments simply just cover the tweezer head so that less of the tweezers are exposed. Additionally, the wider the surface of the epilator, the greater the chance it could pinch skin. The majority of epilators are too big to put on your face. There are many bones and contours on the face. Since you are dealing with smaller regions, you want to get something that is small enough to remove hair from all these areas.

We knew going in that epilating facial hair is going to hurt. Still, we wanted to find an epilator that hurt the least. Facial hair tends to be a lot finer than hair on the body. During our testing we found that sometimes it can be more painful to remove fine hair using an epilator. Facial skin tends to be a lot more sensitive than the rest of the body. We found the more tweezers an epilator had, the more it hurt. We found that you really don’t really need a lot of tweezers, as this could pinch the sensitive skin on the face.

Most of the epilators we tested seemed to miss the tiniest hairs especially the light colored hair on the face. We quickly eliminated the ones that missed too much hair, pinched the skin, or broke the majority of hair. In the end, we eliminated all of the regular sized epilators because a lot of facial hair was left behind. None of these epilators were precise enough. We found ourselves going back over with a tweezer for a lot of stragglers. The only one that gave us respectable results was the Remington EP7030 though sometimes it was difficult to navigate around the face.

How We Arrived At Which Is The Best Epilator For Facial Hair Removal

We finally narrowed it down to three epilators. Not surprisingly, these epilators all have small footprints, which make them easier to maneuver. We had the Bellabe Spring, Emjoi Epi Slim, and Braun Face. With the top 3 epilators, we not only looked at how well they removed hair, but also their value.

While the Bellabe and Emjoi Epi Slim are great options, Braun’s facial epilator clearly emerged as the leader of the pack. With every single other epilator we tested, removing hair felt like a guessing game. While it is much more expensive than the competitors, the Braun face left our face feeling the smoothest in the shortest amount of time. Unlike the other epilators we tested, the number of times that we had to go back and tweeze was low. Thanks to its slim design, we were able to remove hair on our face that no other epilator could remove.

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Wrap Up

After hours of research and testing, we believe that most women would be the most happy with the Braun 810. You can use it on any hair type. It’s the closest you’ll get to having a facial done at home. If you don’t want to spend the money or have lighter facial hair, the other epilators might meet your needs. It all depends on the type of hair you have and your budget.

Overall, the Braun Face removed both fine and course hair faster than the competitors thanks to its ultra slim design and respectable plucking power. It left us feeling the smoothest, picking up the smallest hairs except the very tiny baby hairs. It’s great for fine hair but even if you are battling PCOS or have thick course hair growth, the Braun Facial Epilator simply works better and is much more efficient. It does come with a steep asking price, but the respectable facial cleansing brush is also part of the package.

Among the choices, we think that the Bellabe will be sufficient for most women battling just light growth. Unlike men, most women tend to have light hair on their face. The spring coil really captures stubborn fine facial hair, leaving you with a smooth and silky face. Customers find it very easy to use and effective in removing facial hairs on the upper lip and chin. We like that there are no batteries to replace and it is extremely affordable. While it does take long, it is easy to sit in front of the TV and epilate away.

For those who have medium growth and don’t mind a battery-powered epilator, the Emjoi Epi Slim would be the better choice.

Finally, for those who have a lot of growth or are battling POS and are looking to make a single investment and want to avoid the clutter of having a separate epilator for the face and body the Remington EP7030 is a good choice.

Best Epilator For Face

Braun Face Silk Epil 810
MSRP
$74.99

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