If you’ve read BBB for a while, you’ll know I’m a genuine fan of home hair removal treatments – my experiences have been good in that they’ve worked well for me and done the job of preventing hair re-growing, notably on my legs. I have an interest in any new technology in this area, particularly as, whether you choose home or salon, it’s still a faff so it needs to be an exercise worth pursuing.
I think most of us will have a few beauty gadgets lying around gathering dust. All the will in the world at the beginning tends to fall by the wayside further down the line but with hair removal devices, if they work properly, gathering dust is exactly what they should be doing after a certain period of time!
To put my mind at rest with the new HoMedics Duo Salon IPL Hair Removal Device, I’ve had some very technical conversations with the brand; it’s an expensive product but it’s also next generation for IPL. I was concerned that the claims are for ‘permanent hair reduction’ rather than ‘removal’ but clinical trials have been completed and legal requirements are to wait a year before you can claim ‘permanent’. However, findings so far are that in side by side tests (carried out by Swansea University), Duo Salon causes the least damage to the epidermis of all the devices tested, but crucially, causes the most damage to the hair follicle. That translates to more effective hair slaying but less skin damage. To give a benchmark on the energy levels (the higher the energy transmitted to the hair follicle, the more effective the treatment), current devices use up to 5 or 6 joules of energy, while Duo Salon uses up to 10 joules. A salon will typically use between 20 and 40 joules, but the end result is the same. The energy joules are what transmits the heat to the follicle and stops it growing.
Because of heat – definitely a downside on a poor bare leg – Duo Salon has a built in cooler. This means that the chilled glass treatment head helps lessen the heat build-up and should, in theory, make it a more comfortable experience when the light that sends the heat flashes. That brings me round to why it’s rather more bulky than other devices – because of the energy required to make the cooler effective.
Hairs are tricky. They appear where you don’t want them, randomly, and disappear where you do want them. Evolution needs to work on this! Hair can disappear completely for up to a year after IPL, then suddenly make an unwelcome appearance and the reason this happens is – hormones! A hormonal surge can reactivate a dormant hair. That follicle has always been there – it’s not new – but it may always have been inactive. Because of hair growth stages, there is no existing treatment that will slay your hair in one go and the number of times you need to use an IPL treatment will vary from person to person. What I do know is that occasionally, you will be surprised by an unwelcome hair and have to zap it again.
The pros of an effective at-home treatment are obvious – no travel and salon expense, but at £549.99, you need to know that you are committed to sticking with the programme. The head size is pretty standard for today’s IPL devices at a 3cm Squared area – I think a whole body in 20 minutes claim is optimistic but who knows.. maybe you are an IPL Ninja! It’s obvious that the quicker the flashes of heat, the quicker you can get through it. Duo Salon sends two flashes per second which is a big improvement on the old glide and wait technology used when I first started using at home hair removal treatments.
So, I think that’s all you need to know: oh, and that the machine has a 120 day money back guarantee. You can find the HoMedics Duo Salon IPL unit HERE.
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1 comment
I’m a huge fan of home hair removal gadgets- it was after reading your review on the Philips IPL that I took the plunge and have been using it happily on/off ever since! This one looks interesting- maybe once my existing one kicks the bucket I’ll consider it. Not as small, but with time maybe it’ll evolve to become less bulky?