Talking Hair: Vaniqa

Oh, much as I would love to be exposing a brand new beauty fad – talking hair – it’s not quite that exciting! It’s about the tricky subject of facial hair.

I’ve just read a really good feature on the Oprah web-site written in great detail on facial hair and if it is something that worries you, definitely worth a read HERE. Interestingly, they bring up the issue of magnifying mirrors which I have held responsible for large pores for years!

As you get older, hairs pop up in all kinds of places where you don’t really expect them, thanks to a depletion of oestrogen that allows testosterone to do its worst. I found a really fine hair on my neck – by the time I found it, it was literally an inch long (cue screaming alone in my own kitchen); I whipped it out with a pair of tweezers and it has never been seen again.

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However, the real little sods are the stray chin hairs – it never occurred to me that I might get one, but I have to put my hand up now and say, my time is now. It’s not elegant, it’s not glamorous and it’s not pretty BUT neither is it the end of the world. I am constantly trying to outwit the CH; to spot it before it can barely break the skin’s surface, but the bloody devil that it is seems to lie dormant for weeks and then one morning I wake up and it’s had a growth spurt like Jack’s bean-stalk.

Funnily enough, the Oprah recommendation is not to tweeze it out because that might leave a little bump? I’ll take a bump any day over a boar’s bristle. So that’s what I do and haven’t had a bump yet (not that I’d care if I did). However, what I found really interesting in the feature is the fact that there is a prescription hair inhibiting cream – I didn’t know such a thing existed. It is a medicine, and I’m not recommending medicine here, obviously, because I know nothing about it, but if facial hair is making your life an absolute misery, it is something to ask your doctor about. It’s called Vaniqa (trade name) or Eflornithine Monohydrate Chloride and works by blocking the action of a chemical needed for hair growth. It’s really not for those who have one rogue, evil little thing like mine, but for the many women whose confidence suffer so badly with excess facial hair, it’s well worth investigating.

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Jane Cunningham

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11 responses to “Talking Hair: Vaniqa”

  1. Leah

    I’m 38 and get the dreaded chin hair. There’s one black hair, one really bristly blonde hair and the rest are fine and almost invisible until the sun shines on me then I look like a polar bear. I wax and pluck them. I dread old age if my eyes get worse because I might have a goatee if I can’t see to get rid of the buggers!

    Reply
  2. Wildthyme

    Laser treatment.

    I asked my GP for Vaniqua and he wouldn’t prescribe it b/c it’s so expensive for the NHS. He wouldn’t even let me have it with a private prescription. In the end after much despair, I went to a clinic and got it lasered off. Hurts like hell, mind but worth it because I don’t want to be in a position when I’m old and decrepit and can’t remove the hair myself.

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  3. Wildthyme

    And you can never stop using Vaniqua because the hair grows back when you stop using it.

    Reply
  4. Charlie

    Ohhh! I have the inch long hair on my neck! I tweeze it and then wait… never see it coming before it’s at least a cm long despite daily frantic checking. I too freaked out when I first saw it.

    Oh then there’s two that have appeared on my chin. You can’t actually see them, I don’t know how long they’d been there before I noticed them but you can really feel them and so they have to go and tweezers do just fine for me!

    Reply
  5. Eileen Kassem

    Vaniqa has been available in the US for years and years. It doesn’t remove hair, but once the hair has been removed, Vaniqa retards regrowth. It must be used consistently as Wildthyme mentioned, or hair will revert to its previous growth pattern. Vaniqa is not meant for the few chin hairs, etc. that come along with menopause. It is meant for the dense facial hair that plagues some women.

    Reply
  6. Ketty Pirce

    “As you get older, hairs pop up in all kinds of places where you don’t really expect them” – in what places for exapmle?))

    Reply
  7. Amber

    I used Vaniqua years ago when it came out here in the US.
    It really was great! Definitely slowed he hair growth, eventually stopping it. I didn’t have any issues using it on my sensitive skin. I think maybe I will ask about it at my dermatologist check up next week! Maybe there’s a generic now.

    Reply
  8. Liz

    I had one of those random silvery hairs growing from my neck. Every now and then it would glisten in the sun and I’d have a panic. It was in such a tricky position that when I got in from of the mirror I had a job to find it. One day I was saying goodbye to my best friend and she casually went to pick a stray hair off my scarf -but guess what it was still attached to my neck! I’m now a nervous wreck whenever anyone motions towards me to pick off “stray” hairs.

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  9. Anita

    Honesty… I would scream with happiness if I had ten hairs on my chin. As it was, I had closer to 200 on my chin and neck, and they were black and wiry, and I was seriously depressed about it. I tried Vaniqa but a family friend (dermatologist) recommended laser treatment instead (not IPL). After two years (yes don’t believe them when they say 6 to 8 treatments, for dense patches of facial hair you can be talking double that), I am almost hair free on my chin and quite frankly my life is so different now. The only thing is that I wish I had started earlier and not waited til I was nearly 30 to feel normal again. I will have to have laser maintenance treatment once or twice per year for the rest of my life, but oh what a carefree life it is 🙂

    Reply
  10. HJ

    I am 24 and have suffered from excess facial hair (mainly on my chin, but also upper lip, neck and cheeks) for a good few years now… not sure why it started really but it’s definitely progressively got a lot more coarse and grows back much faster as times gone on :(. I feel like I’ve tried EVERYTHING- I started epilating it a few years back, which kind of worked, but was a bit of a faff, left lumps and bumps, and was never going to permanently reduce it so I wanted to explore a few other options…. threading was good at first, but I had to go twice weekly (at least) and it got expensive/ time consuming trekking all the way there so often, and again was never going to be permanent. I went to a Transform consultation for laser hair removal and they advised me it probably wouldn’t work very effectively as I have fairly tanned skin and light(ish) hairs which isn’t the best combination for the treatment. I got a Phillips Lumea last Christmas, but haven’t really got on with that as I don’t want to shave my face before I can use it if it isn’t going to work and risk it growing back thicker! I did some research and found out about Vaniqa online which seemed like the only prescription medicine for facial hair (although 95% of the reviews were from the US, which is why I was so excited to see this on BBB this morning!), so went to my doctor, who was honestly just USELESS – she had ever heard of it, didn’t seem interested in finding out about it, and even though I had printed out a lot of info for her to read through she skirted round the problem and instead prescribed me Skinoren (an acne treatment) – total waste of time. I eventually was driven to ordering Vaniqa online (for about £80) but after a couple of applications it gave me horrible acne (it is a very common side effect apparently 1 in 10 are affected and having had horrendous acne as a teen – cured with roaccutane – it was inevitably going to happen to me!) which I didn’t want to have over the Christmas period (vain maybe, but I just bit the bullet and made extra festive trips to the threading lady…!) so I postponed using that also. My most recent experiment has been the no!no! hair removal device, which apparently works using Thermicon technology to burn the hair at the root. It sounded too good to be true on the website, but I did a lot of research and it seemed worth a try. So far so good, although it takes about 2 months to get visible results (there is a 60 day money back guarantee) – so fingers crossed. It genuinely is pain-free though, takes hardly any time at all, super-easy to use, has instant results as well as long term (hopefully), and I haven’t noticed any side effects yet – so am hoping this could be the one!

    I’m not really sure where I am going with this post – but just thought I’d share my experiences. As well as being expensive and time consuming this stubble really has affected my confidence – I flinch at anyone touching my face and hate people seeing me without make up on. Does anyone know if maybe there is a contraceptive pill which could help with balancing the oestrogen/ testosterone problem? Or has anyone been using no!no! longer than me and has any feedback? I really want to nip this in the bud as I am only 24 and already suffering – dreading getting older and it only getting worse!

    Reply
  11. Myriad

    @HJ – I was on Dianette for a while for hormonal acne and painful periods – it’s prescribed for acne and “hirsutism” (what a lovely word) but also functions as a contraceptive. Unfortunately it turns out to have a higher breast cancer risk than standard combined contraceptive pills, so GPs are pretty reluctant to prescribe it these days.

    As for effectiveness, I have a fair amount of hair and Dianette didn’t actually do anything for that, but I think mine is genetic rather than hormonal. I gather that it can work pretty well but as with many hormonal things it’s a bit hit and miss. Standard contraceptive pills make my spots worse (I have a pretty strong tendency to spottiness, and was prescribed Roaccutane in my late teens) and Dianette pretty much made them go away, but I think it’d be a last resort for me these days since my skin isn’t nearly as bad as it was.

    Reply

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