Philips Lumea hair removal Does IPL at home workThis IPL hair removal device claims to show desired results in as little as four treatments. It's designed to maximise contact with facial and body skin, as well as ensuring that light doesn't escape. The treatment aims to be precise, effective and gentle, and there are three different attachment heads (body, face and bikini). When each is clicked on, the device tailors a light treatment programme to suit the targeted body area. It also offers five energy settings and has a sensor that indicates the most comfortable setting for your skin tone. You can download the Lumea App for free too, so you can create a treatment schedule for each zone, accompanied by advice and tips.
It’s taken me over a year to write this. Not because I’m lazy…or because I’ve been sat at home marvelling my silky soft legs. It’s because my review is mixed and I’ve wanted to give the Philips Lumea a good run for it’s money before coming to a conclusion.
If you’re impatient and want the nutshell version of whether the Philips Lumea IPL works, my best ‘sum up’ answer is: yes, but not as well as you probably hope or expect.
I know, that’s not the most helpful reply but you’ll understand why when you read the detailed review below.
For me (and a lot of other people leaving reviews for Philips’ IPL at home device), it’s one of those products that has a list of pros and cons and whether it’s worth buying and trying comes down to your specific needs and, let’s face it, body hair.
Should you buy it? I’d lean towards yes because it has significantly reduced my body hair and over the course of a year, it’s paid for itself versus waxing. There are a bunch of other benefits too.
But will it leave you hair free? The answer is no. However, no at home hair removal machine will do that. And any advertising material that tells you otherwise is telling big, fat hairy lies.
Setting your expectations for IPL at home
What’s the point in throwing down £300-£500/0-0 if it’s not going to make you hair free? That was my biggest deliberation when I was trying to decide whether to buy a Philips Lumea or not. But here’s the thing, even that £3,000 professional laser treatment isn’t going to remove your hair permanently or totally. Nothing is. Or at least nothing that you want to try. Skin flaying, anyone?
So, it’s important to set your expectations. Doing IPL isn’t about getting 100% hair free. It’s about reducing your hair thickness and growth to a more maintainable level. I have a good, long list of pros coming up – focus on them. And also compare IPL to your current hair removal system. I can almost guarantee it’s going to be better, simple and cheaper in the long run.
Does the Philips Lumea work?
If I wrote this review after the initial phase, this would have been filled with ‘don’t bother, waste of time, waste of money’ comments. I was genuinely disappointed. My hair didn’t seem any different.
Knowing it was too late to send the IPL machine back, I decided to give it another full go. And that’s when I started to see results. I don’t know if I’m harming myself by doing this (hopefully not and nothing has happened to my skin in the year I’ve been doing this) but I think a few ‘initial treatment’ phases are required to really have a noticeable impact on your hair.
I imagine the results will vary from person to person and body area to body area but after three initial treatments with breaks in between (some caused by lack of motivation, some due to travel), my hair reached a point where it was noticeably patchy. Not ideal for your lady garden if it’s being regularly visited and you need to explain you don’t have downstairs alopecia. Or worse, something communicable (I still worry about that wax in Bolivia). But in terms of taking a lady rug to a hot country, it was noticably cooler (and, sorry to be disgusting, but less sweaty) down there.
Meanwhile, I’ve buried the lead because my legs and underarms have achieved almost hair free states (having adjusted my expectation and knowing I wasn’t going to achieve hair free). After those initial treatments, my underarm hairs have become wisps that friends genuinely tell me they can’t see, even when I’m paranoid that I looked like a yeti. And when I went to have my legs waxed professionally (as part of a combi-wax for a wedding), the waxing lady joked about my legs: ‘there’s nothing there to wax’.
Overall, it was a pretty significant win, with better results possible if I could just persist at shooting elastic bands at my bikini area.
It’s worth noting where I was hairwise before I started IPL – I’d been waxing for about 10 years (legs and underarms). I rarely look a razor to my legs but would regularly shave my underarms between waxing sessions. I was slower to the waxing table with my bikini area (pain and embarrassment were factors), so there was definitely more work to be done. Coupled with the fact that ‘those’ hairs are more fierce anyway and I wasn’t surprised to have less success downstairs.
sources:
https://indianajo.com/philips-lumea-review-ipl-at-home.html
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/product-reviews/beauty/a30252607/philips-lumea-prestige-ipl-bri95400-review/
https://hairremovalmachines.net/philips-lumea-bri956/
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