Epilady Esthetic Facial Epilator Review

Epilady Esthetic Facial Epilator
MSRP
$49.95

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So many women whether young or old suffer from unwanted facial hair because of genes, age, or hormones. Most of us have tried plucking, DIY wax strips, and even shaving. Other than Braun‘s facial epilator, the Epilady Esthetic is one of the only epilators designed specifically for removing unwanted facial hair. With this compact facial epilator, Epilday has returned to their original vision with a coil based system. Epilady claims that the Esthetic is intended to delicately remove peach fuzz on the sideburns, jaw line, upper lip and cheeks, leaving you hair free 4 to 6 weeks. Will you be able to throw the tweezer away? Find out in our review.

What’s In The Box

Inside the box, you get the epilator, the cleaning brush, and a traveling bag. We do wish the traveling bag was a little bit bigger to store more than just the epilator. The instructions are very brief and sort of confusing.

Design

The first thing I noticed about the Epilady Esthetic is that it is very different from any other facial epilator that I tested. There are no tweezers on this model. Like the very first epilator, it uses a spring coil to remove hair. Theoretically, it works a lot like the Bellabe facial hair remover. The coil inside is bent in a u shape, wrapping around itself. The little motor vibrates, causing the spring to rotate quickly. This creates little gaps that open and close, creating a tweezing effect at the top. It is supposed to grab hair and pull it out at the root. Unlike tweezers, it is supposed to pluck multiple hairs at once.

The actual unit itself is nicely shaped for hair removal on the face. Weighing only 3.5oz, it is lightweight, easy to hold, and small enough to take on a cruise. It has a tapered design at the top, giving it the ability to reach the more difficult areas of the face. The epilator head is about the size of your index finger. Although the Esthetic is cordless, it is not rechargeable. It requires the use of 2 AA batteries, which means when they die you have to replace them. On the back of the device is the battery compartment. The battery cover simply slides off by pulling it backward. The instructions warn that the batteries should be taken out of the device if you don’t plan on epilating frequently.

On the front of the device is the on switch. You simply push it up to turn on the device and push it down to turn it off. There is only one speed setting.

At the top of the epilator is a little sloped angle guide that when placed gently on the skin keeps the epilator at the perfect angle to epilate. The angle is very important while using this epilator so this is a nice feature.

The Epilady Esthetic comes with a little cleaning brush to remove hair that has collected in the coil. You are supposed to be able to pop off the angle guide, which covers the spring, to brush the hairs out. However, I found the cover to be pretty difficult to remove.

Preparing The Face

Proper preparation is very important when epilating the face. For best results, Beauty expert, Annie Tomlin, recommends gently exfoliating your skin the previous day to remove dead skin, so that the tweezers can pluck the hair better. Before using the Epilady Epilady Esthetic on my face, I took a warm shower to soften my hair and relax my pores. This helps the hairs to slide out more easily.

One of the most common side effects of removing hair at the root on the face is that it can cause whiteheads. Since you are removing hair from the root, bacteria on your face or the epilator may enter your pores and cause an infection.

Your face and the epilator must be thoroughly cleaned and free from make-up, lotion, and cream. Jaime Richards of Pop Sugar, recommends cleaning your skin with a little witch hazel which is a powerful anti-stringent that is great for killing the bacteria on your skin.

After dipping the cleaning brush in rubbing alcohol, I cleaned the epilator head with the brush. I also lightly brushed the epilator head with rubbing alcohol. After everything dried, I tested the epilator on completely dry skin as it is not waterproof.

Epilating With The Epilady Esthetic Facial Epilator

Compared to the Braun Face and Emjoi Epi Slim, the Epilady Esthetic doesn’t remove any noticeable facial hair. Even a manual spring such as the Bellabe Facial Hair Remover was able to pick up more noticeable hair that the Epilady Esthetic just wouldn’t touch. The Epilady Esthetic only works for the lightest most unnoticeable peach fuzz. Even after repeat attempts, it left most of my fine hair and course hair in place.

When you first turn on the Epilady Esthetic, it makes a vibrating buzzing sound. At 60dB, it is not the loudest facial epilator. Out of the facial epilators we tested, only the Braun Facial Epilator was lower. I first tried the epilator on my cheeks. I used my freehand to stretch the skin as this helps lift the hair off the skin for the epilator to grab.

I found that in order for the epilator to remove any hair, you must hold the epilator at the correct angle or it won’t pluck the hair. You have to make sure that the entire sloped angle guide at the top of the epilator makes gentle contact with the skin. You can’t just place the tip of the epilator on your face. As long as you rest the angle guide flatly on your face, you should be holding the epilator correctly. You always have to maintain gentle contact with the skin. I found that one of the best ways to make sure that the angle guide is always in contact with your skin is to hold the epilator upside down. You have to try different directions so that you can place the angle guide gently on your face. In certain positions on the face, I found it a bit both awkward and difficult to rest the angle guide on my skin especially near the upper lip.

A light touch is all that is needed. You never want to push down on the epilator really hard like an electric shaver. You should never hear the motor straining. Pushing down hard on the epilator will smush the tip of the hair on the skin, which makes the hair harder to pluck. If you go lightly, the hair will be allowed to stand up off the skin. I found slow and continuous movements worked the best. You really have to make methodical circles back and forth to allow the hair to get caught.

Hair grows on the face in multiple directions so it can be sometimes difficult to epilate it if you are only moving in one direction. Once the epilator made gentle contact with my face I found that moving in small circles both forward and backward allowed the epilator to grab the hair the best. You have to gently rest the whole angle guide on your skin and move in circles in every direction- backwards, forward, up, and down.

Sadly, this won’t remove any noticeable facial hair. It only gets the hair you can’t see. It is not meant for wirey whiskers or hair that you can see. It will not remove fine hair. Forget about removing thicker facial hair with it. It will sometimes pull on thicker facial hair but not have the power to pull it out. It will only remove the lightest blondish peach fuzz that you can sometimes see on your silhouette when under the bright sun. Most of the time I notice this when I’m in an awkward place, like while driving around and stopping at a light. If you look at the edges of your face and the light catches the hair just right, you will notice this light blondish hair on your cheeks. Even with peach fuzz it is not perfect. It is not going to get all the tiny hairs. It works better on longer hairs than short hairs.

If you can see the hair in the mirror at home when you directly stare at the mirror, this epilator will not remove it well. It only works for light unnoticeable blond hair. It is great if you have lasered off your hair but still have peach fuzz covering your face. Lisa Benest, MD , a Burbank dermatologist, says laser will not get peach fuzz since it is not dark enough to provide contrast with the skin. Unlike laser, this works on any skin complexion and on every hair color. If all you have is light unnoticeable hair on your face that bothers you, this will work well. This type of peach fuzz hair is impossible to remove with just tweezers, but the Epilady Esthetic is able to remove most of this hair in just a few minutes.

For anyone else who has noticeable facial hair, this is not the facial epilator for you. While it removed light unnoticeable hair on my face, it didn’t touch anything else. This is not going to remove pesky whiskers growing on the chin or noticeable hair on the upper lip. I did notice that it can break thicker hair instead of plucking it from the root.

I found that it is not a very accurate plucking device. You just simply move it forwards and backwards in circles on your face and whatever it gets it gets. I found it works the best on the flat area of your cheek. It doesn’t work that well on curvier areas like on the underside of the chin or upper lip area. You can’t keep it in one area for a long time trying to remove thick hair as I did notice sometimes the spring gets uncomfortably warm. Since the coil rotates fast, it generates a lot of friction on the skin. The instructions warn hovering it over on spot may heat the skin too much. Just lightly make a quick pass or two to avoid burning the skin.

The hair that you pull out will grow thinner over time. While Epilady claims that you will be hair free for 4 – 6 weeks, this is not true for most women especially at the beginning. Hair grows in cycles so it takes awhile to achieve hair free skin for a lengthy period of time. The first week or two, you might have to use it daily as hair grows at different rates. Then you can slowly spread out your epilation sessions.

Does It Hurt

Although Epilady markets this epilator as delicate, removing facial hair is not a delicate process. When you run this epilator on your face you will feel it. Removing peach fuzz doesn’t hurt as much as removing thicker hair. This does pull on the hair but for the most part it is tolerable. However, in certain areas it can hurt more especially the upper lips.

The coil is designed not to pinch the skin and only pluck hair. Occasionally, for thicker hair, it has a tendency to pull the skin while pulling hair unsuccessfully. You really have to pull the skin tight in the area you are removing hair. This will prevent the skin from being pulled up along with the hair. I noticed this happened a lot near my side burn area. I really don’t recommend using this epilator on anywhere else other than the cheeks, jaw line, and upper lip especially on areas with looser skin.

What Others Are Saying

Apparently, Epilady brought back the Epilady Esthetic because of popular demand.  On Amazon, it is getting a 2.9 out of 5 with over 120 reviews.

Wrap Up

Epilady may be counting on its well known brand with this average facial epilator. Given that it only removes hair that you can’t see, I have a hard time justifying its $50 price point. I only recommend it to women who have had laser hair removal and want to get rid of the blondish peach fuzz on their face. Since many people are familiar with the Epilady brand, a facial epilator from Epilady might seem like a great idea. Rest assured, there are much better choices.

We found the Braun Face to be the best facial epilator for all hair types. Even the very affordable Bellabe manual spring did a much better job at removing facial hair. For an epilator designed specifically to remove fine facial hair, this epilator falls short of being useful.