I hate shaving every day. What would happen if I used one of those temporary hair-removal products on my face? What about the permanent ones? –Dan, Merrick, New York, via e-mail
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Temporary chemical hair-removal products like Nair–depilatories, they’re called–can dissolve some of the hair on your face, but they’re primarily intended to remove the relatively lightweight hair of women. One male Straight Dope staffer has tried several such products on his face and been disappointed with the results, claiming he saw pretty much no hair removal and got a serious headache from the fumes. Beard hair often won’t respond to topical treatments before the skin becomes too irritated to continue. (Some depilatories are marketed to men as a means of fighting razor bumps–ingrown whiskers that can interfere painfully with shaving–but anecdotal evidence suggests they don’t always work so well in this role either.) Vaniqa (eflornithine hydrochloride), an increasingly popular prescription ointment, is said to suppress facial hair growth in women, but it’s not recommended for men, and even among women doesn’t appear to have an especially high rate of effectiveness.
That leaves electrolysis, laser treatment, or a combination of the two. Electrolysis has been around for more than a century and can achieve nearly 100 percent permanent removal if done by a skilled practitioner. The drawback with using it on beards, I’m told, is that it hurts like hell–any prior belief that big boys don’t cry will be sorely tested by this procedure. Anesthetics are available and a gradual course of treatment can help spread out the pain, which may be a good or a bad thing depending on how you look at it. I don’t recommend home electrolysis kits–due to user inexperience they tend to have low permanence plus increased risk of burns, skin lesions, scarring, and infection.
