"Are you ripping the hair out of your legs again?" Yes.

My relationship with leg hair: I am resentful that I have to shave. I used to have a dark, tiny shower that was impossible to shave safely in. I am unwilling to pay to get waxed (plus I'm a bit intimidated by it). The chemical cremes scare me a bit, smell, cost too much, and leave a fair amount of stubble. I would pay LOTS of money (if I had it) for permanent hair removal. But here I am in the real world, and I need to find a way to be socially acceptable and smooth and touchable.

Enter the epilator. I did a lot of shopping around (that's how I was introduced to epinions!), and I decided to give this strange product a try. Going into it, I knew that it would hurt. I also knew it wouldn't be speedy.

The [not very technical] Specs It's corded (The good: you don't have to worry about batteries wearing out and the mechanism slowing down/losing effectiveness. The bad: it's not very long, and you need to camp out near an outlet). It has 2 hair removal speeds: normal and frighteningly fast (for use only by accomplished epilators). It comes with 2 heads; one is the regular one that is just a plastic cap to help guard you from sticking the epilator on your skin at a weird angle or digging it into yourself. The second one has weird bumpy rollers on the edges and supposedly helps make things less painful. I've used the 2nd one about 2x, and I noticed no difference, but am convinced it is less effective since they say it's less painful (no pain, no gain! (or loss, in this case)). It comes with a handy long-bristled brush to remove the hairs from the "tweezers" and from the cap. All of this goes into a nice little white drawstring bag. I give the whole package a thumbs up.

Using it The instructions that come with it are pretty explicit about the angle to hold it, how to prepare your skin, etc. It's convenient because I do not have to be in the shower (by the way, don't take it into the shower, it's not waterproof) or even in the bathroom to use it. I've found that you need to make sure that your skin is dry (it may be mentioned in the instructions, but I forget). No recent showering or lotion application. Otherwise, you're in for a bumpy ride. The product's easy to hold, and the speed switch is easy to operate. Using it is a slow process. I must go over spots repeatedly, and I still end up with stray hairs remaining. Because of the time required, I've taken to only using it for my lower legs and feet. That alone can take 45 min-1 hr if I want to be thorough. Since I wear mostly capris and long skirts in the summer, it works out okay.

The Pain As someone else said, you're ripping the hair out of your skin...it's bound to hurt. Different people have different pain tolerance. Mine's so-so. The severity of pain varies depending on where you use it; there are a couple areas (armpits, bikini zone) where I will NOT try to use this again. I drew blood when I tried it in my armpit, and I thought I was going to cry cry CRY when I tried it in on the upper backs of my thighs the bikini area. NEVER AGAIN. On the areas I can bear to use it, it gets kind of numb after a bit, but I don't mind the stinging so much; pain means I'm taking no prisoners in the war with body hair!

The Noise Some people say that they can watch tv while doing this. I cannot; it's too loud. I can only listen to music or something if I have headphones. Plus, I need to keep my eyes on what I'm doing, which makes it hard to watch tv. But this thing is so noisy in normal mode that my bf will yell from the other room, "Are you ripping the hair out of your legs again??" Never mind if I try to use it on the fast speed setting!

The Effectiveness Ehhh. Hard to say. I'm not sold. I find it incredibly satisfying to see the quantities of hair that are removed. It feels like I'm really accomplishing something! But it seems that finer hair (like around my knees) breaks instead of being removed. And if hair is growing in funky directions, it will be missed. Even if you go slowly, maintain the correct tautness of skin and drag your hand before the contraption to keep hair raised for the little pluckers, I feel like I still maintain a thin hair-base. Nothing near the smoothness of shaving. If I come back to it every couple days to attack the strays, I end up with skin that feels almost prickly; I can't tell if it's hairs or my skin erupting from the violence of the ripping. I haven't really done any work to see if there's variation in effectiveness based on hair length; my hair never gets really long so it's hard to tell.

The Bottom Line This isn't the product I was hoping it would be. I keep coming back because I am the kind of gal who is willing to be meticulous (I would tweeze out my leg hairs individually if it made any kind of sense), it's very satisfying in a twisted way, and I really will do nearly anything to avoid shaving (I love shaving's effects, but I HATE how often it's required). Seeing the quantity of hair I remove with this gives me a strange kind of glee. As much as I want it to be a miracle product, I generally find that it lets me down, so I'll give up on it for a month or two, then come back hoping that I'll find the secret to it the next time around. I never do, though, but I have a feeling it'll stay in my hair removal arsenal until it peters out.