General information
Depilation means the removal of the hair, i.e. the removal of the hair root. This is of course much more sustainable. There is a difference between temporary epilation, which can last up to several weeks, and permanent epilation, which is at best permanent.
Temporary epilation has been used for a long time and only requires simple utensils such as tweezers or an epilation device. The use of warm or cold wax and various sticky pastes also belongs to this group. All these methods do the same in the end.
Correctly used, they pull out the hair including the root. You can see this by the fact that the hair becomes lighter towards the skin side. If the hair looks unchanged and dark, you probably just tore it off instead of pulling it out.
The time it takes for new hair to grow depends on the growth phase the hair is in at the time of epilation. A hair that is already in the final phase of its development, i.e. just before it falls out, will soon be followed by a new hair. However, it is also possible that after several applications the hair follicle is irreversibly damaged.
Especially if a hair is just in the growth phase, this can be the case. The methods of temporary epilation are just as inexpensive as those of depilation, but are somewhat more difficult and often unpleasant or even painful to use. For example, cooling the skin before depilation helps against slight pain.
The depilation can continue for several weeks. For permanent depilation (epilation) it is important to reach the hair in the right growth phase. The best time for this is the first phase of hair growth, because in this phase the hair is still connected to the bulb and it is possible to damage the bulb irreversibly, so that a regrowth of the hair is impossible.
However, the individual hairs of a certain body region do not go through the same phases at the same time, so that after a single application, only about two thirds of the hair follicles (= bellows) will have been sclerosed. This makes several treatments necessary, the number of which varies depending on the procedure (epilation). These methods include laser and light epilation (epilation).
With both methods it is advantageous if the hairs to be treated are as dark and thick as possible, while the surrounding skin is as thin and light as possible. This is because the hair root and bulb must absorb the light of different frequencies. Dark absorbs better than light.
The more light is absorbed, the higher is the resulting heat. This effect (epilation) is known by everyone who has ever walked through the summer sun in a black t-shirt. The different light and laser technologies, which differ in the treated area and the physical properties of the light used, are therefore not applicable to all hair types and are equally successful. Although people with thin, slow-growing light-colored body hair are usually less likely to have the motivation for permanent hair removal (epilation), a general need for complete depilation is growing, especially among women, in certain areas of the body, for example the eyebrows.
