Stubble Trouble
If you're having a bad facial-hair day, these are the surefire ways to solve the problem
Facial hair is the last taboo. We can discuss cellulite, pelvic floors and Brazilian waxing but those evil little chin hairs (that you somehow never notice until they are waving in the breeze - why is that?) remain a shameful secret. Here's the tell: if you spot a woman pensively stroking her chin with one finger she has definitely identified a rogue sprouter and is counting the seconds till she can forage in her bag for her tweezers. But plucking can make it so, so much worse.
IPL (Intense Pulsed Light)
Best for
Brunette moustachios.
How
With high-speed pulsing flashes of light that heat up and burn the hair follicle.
The lowdown
Known for her immaculate and flattering eyebrow threading, beauty therapist Kamini is in fact an expert on all parts hairy. She calls herself 'the plucking police' because she says that it makes things so much worse. And she is extremely strict about this. She threads using her uniquely light and pain-free feathering method to train the plucked and invigorated follicle into a docile state and then she blasts it with her IPL laser gun. The light is attracted to the melanin pigmentation in the hair (which is why it is much more successful on brown or black bristles) and burns it using intense heat, which you hardly feel at all. It took our tester three visits to achieve a much smoother top lip and sideburn area and Kamini reckons that a couple more blasts over the coming months will nuke the remaining hairs.
Costs from £75, at Kamini, 14-16 Lancer Square, Kensington Church Street, W8 (tel: 020 7937 2411; kaminibeauty.com).
Best for
Brunette moustachios.
How
With high-speed pulsing flashes of light that heat up and burn the hair follicle.
The lowdown
Known for her immaculate and flattering eyebrow threading, beauty therapist Kamini is in fact an expert on all parts hairy. She calls herself 'the plucking police' because she says that it makes things so much worse. And she is extremely strict about this. She threads using her uniquely light and pain-free feathering method to train the plucked and invigorated follicle into a docile state and then she blasts it with her IPL laser gun. The light is attracted to the melanin pigmentation in the hair (which is why it is much more successful on brown or black bristles) and burns it using intense heat, which you hardly feel at all. It took our tester three visits to achieve a much smoother top lip and sideburn area and Kamini reckons that a couple more blasts over the coming months will nuke the remaining hairs.
Costs from £75, at Kamini, 14-16 Lancer Square, Kensington Church Street, W8 (tel: 020 7937 2411; kaminibeauty.com).
Excerpted from 'The Last Beauty Taboo' article, page 113, Tatler Magazine, July 2011
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