Braun 5270 X'elle Body System Epilator
|
List Price: Category: Health Care See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Customer Reviews of Braun 5270 X'elle Body System Epilator
Customer Review: From a male point of view
Summary: 5 Stars
Yes I am a MAN who for the past several years, off and on, have been shaving my entire body below the neck. I would only keep my legs shaved every week, and 3 or 4 times a year I would get it all, unless I was on vacation somewhere, then it was 3 or 4 times a week.
I have never tried waxing, so this YANKING the hair out by the root was a new experience for me. And can be a painful one, the first few times.
Well when my Braun 5270 Silk-épil arrived last month, I noticed several attachment heads. One was the shaving head that was suppose to cut the hairs to the "Ideal Length" for epilation. That does work on some areas, but for most areas there is no "Ideal Length".
I had read in another review, the user suggested shaving the area you plan to epilate, and latter that day or the next day, start epilating. Some areas work just fine using the shaver head to get started; the legs, arms for me the pubic area was one of the less painful areas to start with. But keep in mind trying to epilate anywhere the hairs are full length, it will HURT, and hurt BAD.
There were a few areas that even using the shaver head, or the old fashion razor blade caused me to break out in a cold sweat the first time I took the epilator to them. The area between the pubic hair and the navel was not that bad, but I did know the epilator was there. When I did the area between the navel and the nipple line, it did curl my toes a few times. But one of the worse areas was above the nipples to the neck line. I had to do that area in SMALL sections, with plenty of breaks over several days.
But the area that I'm still trying to get completely done is my under arms. Those two small areas are being more painful than the entire rest of my body. I will do as much as I can stand, and then take the razor to the rest. I'll start again the next day and get as much as I can as the hairs are starting to grow out again. One day I will have it all done.
Keep in mind that the first time is always the worse, no matter what part of your body you are trying to do. But it will soon seem like there are on hairs to pluck.
When you shave the area with a razor and then start using the epilator a few days latter, you will not pluck all the hairs at the same time. It seems to me that the hairs grow back at a different rate, so on the first time you may be getting only 10 to 20 percent. The next day another 10 to 20% and so forth.
You will also have a certain percentage of breakage, the hair does not pull out, but it breaks off level with the skin. Those can hurt worst than the ones that do pull out, and they will look much thicker than the ones that did pull out as they continue to grow.
Like I said I've had mine for about a month now, and I still go over at some part everyday.
At this point I'm about 99% smooth, there are still a few strays that I find every few days, but for the most part I have not been this smooth I was born. Also less and less hairs seem to be growing back.
Yes if I had it to do over again, I would buy either this model, Braun 5270, or the next one up.
***UPDATE***
Two nights ago I convinced my wife to let me start using it on her legs. She is very pain sensitive, so I used the shaver attachment on both of her legs first. I then started using the Epilator attachment and started pulling the hairs that the attachment could grab. She didn't mind it at all, but keep in mind I did a pretty through job with the shaver head. Tonight I could feel a little more stubble from the shaving, so I went over both of her legs again. She felt far less pain tonight than she did last night. Apparently I missed quite a few hairs around her ankles.
We are going to keep up this nightly ritual until we can tell all the hairs have been plucked. Once she gets use to it being used on her legs, I'll try to convince her to let me do her arms, underarms, bikini line and anywhere else she has been shaving at.
I hope to have her as smooth as I am by next summer.
For myself, I spend an hour or two once a week to stay smooth all over. At first she hated the smooth look on me, but now she likes it.
Customer Review: It's fabulous but...
Summary: 4 Stars
Rather than write a book here... click "see all my reviews" to get my reivew on the 20 tweezer model of Braun epilator. Everything there... applies here, except this one has 40 tweezers.
Then... First of all, order this from Drugstore dot com, where the price is less.
Second of all... the accessories that supposedly come with this, don't. I don't know why, this is not the first place I have seen the accessories wrong, Drugstore has it wrong, too. You will get the epilator with the massaging head... the EfficiencyPro clip (which I think is useless)... and a shaver head with the attachment to cut your hair to the best length for epilation (which I haven't used yet, so can't comment on...) You won't get the cooling glove or the gentle start head.
Now... assuming you were a good girl (or boy) and followed my directions to go to my review on the other epilator... here is a continuation of that. Pretty short and sweet.
This thing works GREAT, for pulling hair. It does in fact have twice the tweezers of the other Brauns so yes, it does work faster, and IMO does a more thorough job.
The casing is a pretty sparkly blue which, while irrelevant to the performance of the product, is quite pleasing to the eye.
But that's about all I can say that is good.
The tweezers, rather than being two metal thingies that clamp together (as with the 20 tweezer silk epil), are actually just one metal hicky that clamps against the plastic of the epilator head. It works fine, but I have to wonder about the long term reliability of such a design and wonder why Braun would make it like this.
Then, the epilator head is designed so that, if you don't have the massaging head on it (an attachment I find useless and cumbersome) the gears of the head are exposed, which is,of course, an aesthetic matter, but makes the quality of this product seem less than that of the other silk epils.
The light, which seems like a good idea, is really just kind of... blinding. It does illuminate the area being epilated, but it does so at the cost of seeing anything else clearly. It has that effect where, you know, if you look at just a little bit of a picture, you can't figure out what the whole picture is? It would be easier to see all your legs in good light than try to see a small portion at a time in great light. Plus if you are moving the epilator in such a fashion that the light is on the other side... IE you are doing the back of your left calve, from the inside, sitting on the floor and moving the epilator sort of down and around to the back... you really can't figure out what you are looking at. It's hard to describe, but the light makes things harder to figure out, not easier - and there is no way to disable the light.
I have actually taken the 40 tweezer head and use it on my other silk epil, because I really don't like the light. I use it in the broadest diaylight I can, finding early morning light as the sun comes in our patio door to be especially helpful/horrifying (you are always hairier than you think you are). I think if I had to use the light, if I didn't have the option to use the lightless unit, I would be a lot more unhappy with this product.
Anyway it's great in ways but... I am left somehow thinking "Wow, Braun had a great idea here!" and "What the $@%! was Braun thinking here??" which is kind of odd. They should really just take the 20 tweezer unit and make it have 40 double-metal-thingied tweezers, don't change anything else.
OK, the blue sparklies are nice.
This is actually sort of a Eurpopean product - if you go to Braun's website, they only have the X'Elle on the European site. I wonder if this model of the X'Elle (there are several other models with various attachments) is a US - only model and is of lesser quality than the others. No way to know for sure but I find it odd that this is the only one for sale in the US (at this time) and the quality is so not in keeping with the other Silk Epils.
I am really not sure of giving this 3 or 4 stars... so I will err on the side of generous here. It's not a bad product, but bear in mind its flaws.
Customer Review: Scary but effective, on some areas.
Summary: 4 Stars
I decided I was really tired of shaving every other day, and the regrowth of shaving is always sharp and spikey! And I didnt want to spend tons of money waxing everything at a wax salon every single month. But I still wanted to be as smooth and hairless as possible, so I did a little research and deceided to buy the Braun 5270 X'elle Body System Epilator. I have used this item for a little over a month now. It is the first epilator I have ever used or owned. Here are my thoughts,
The Good:
This epilator was not nearly as loud as some reviews lead me to expect. I like the helpful light on it and the choice of speeds and the soothing roller buffer head or the close, I-Know-What-Im-Doing head. It comes with a shaver head as well, but I havent used that yet. I like the clear instructions and little cleaning brush and storage pouch it comes with. At first I was really afraid it would suck in my skin and pinch me, but as long as I pulled my skin taunt, I had no such problems. It worked VERY WELL for my arms and underarms. Although the underarms was EXTREMELY painful the first time, I was prepared for the pain as I have had this area waxed in the past. I have been shaving there the last 2 or 3 years consistantly, so had some strong, thick hair there. After the first traumatic time of epilating the underarms, I have almost no pain and very sparce hair regrowth which I epilate simply every few days now. No problem and I enjoy having smooth, clean underarms everday. looks even better then when I shaved because there is no "5 o'clock shadow" to deal with! I have no ingrowns under my arms, but I think maybe its because I am diligent about exfoliating with a rough washcloth every time I shower. SO that first super painful time was so worth it for me. You could get it waxed the first time and just maintain with the epilator if you wanted to forgo that first time torture.
The Bad:
I used this on my legs and face and even attempted to do the bikini area with it. I was way to scared to do the bikini area. Having this whirlwind of spinning ninja tweezer action so close to such a sensitive area was just to scary for me, so I resigned to having to go to a waxer for that (Which I recently did get a brazilian wax for the first time, with amazing results, so I think I will keep getting my lady bits waxed from now on for optimal results.) The face peach fuzz was surprisingly painful! But it did remove most of the blonde fuzz on my checks and upper lip. The legs did not work so well for some reason, even with multiple passes it just didnt pull out all the leg hairs.
The Ugly:
My face broke out HORRIBLY 2 days after I epilated! I will never do that again! I will either live with the peach fuzz or get face waxed occasionally. The break out was REALLY, REALLY bad and just not worth it! I still have some scars from the blemishes which are slowly fading. The pro waxer I saw said it was possibly because our skin oil uses the hairshaft as a vehicle to get out onto the skins surface, so maybe with out face hairs the oil couldnt get out and made me have an awesomely ugy breakout? I dont know but Im kinda bummed because I usually do break out with any face wax, and was hoping the epilator would solve this problem, but it did not.
My legs also became comletely COVERED in ugly bumps and ingrown hairs about 2-3 days after I epilated them. I have since exfoliated the bumps and ingowns away and resumed shaving the legs, which isn't too bad since I have only peach fuzz on my thighs and really only need to shave from the knees down.
Final verdict:
This powerful and inexpensive product seems well made and was very worth it for me even if I can only really use it on my arms and underarms. Because my main hair removal concerns where underarms, arms, face and brazilian areas. I will continue to use this item on arms and underarms, but will shave legs and get a monthly brazilian wax. The brazilian wax is not nearly as bad as I thought it would be, kinda looking forward to my next appt. Being smooth and hairless is so nice :)
Customer Review: Say good-bye to waxing and shaving!
Summary: 5 Stars
Review updated: July 17, 2009
I don't know what to say...this is a great product! I remember back in the '80s, we had this crude epilator with a curved rubber tube with tiny slits in it that would open up on the bottom and then close as the tube rotated. Well, it didn't work worth a crap and it hurt like the devil when it did grab a hair. So a couple decades later and there's finally a epilator that works the way you'd expect it to. And the greatest thing is, is that it doesn't hurt in the long run. It'll hurt a bit at the beginning, especially when you're doing thick patches of hair, but subsequent sessions it actually feels good. Basically the density of the hairy area you're doing, the more it'll hurt. Think about it...the more hairs you're pulling out at any given time, the more pain you feel...makes sense, right? But when you're just going afetr a afew strays or the sporatic regrowth, you'll hardly feel it.
Anyway, here's the deal. Hair grows in cycles. Not all hair is above the surface at any given time. So when you epilate and you think you're smooth, don't be suprised when you find new stubble a day or so later. But don't worry, that's not hair you missed, that's NEW hair. Because when you pull it out, it's just as long as the other hair that you pulled out before. And how long is the hair under your skin? You'd be amazed. The pieces I measured were typically 5-6 mm long. And hair typically grows 1 mm per 5-7 days. So if you do the math, once your skin is totally epilated, (usually over the course of a week), expect the advertised 3-4 weeks of smooth skin. And the thing is, is that if you epilate every month or so, over time, your hair will become finer and thinner. You may even experience total hair loss if and when any given follicle gives up producting hair. EDIT: I haven't found this to be true yet, but who knows...
The epilator drum or roller is very unique. It contains 40 metal flaps (tweezers) that move against plastic edges which grabs and pulls out the hairs as the drum rotates away from your skin. It really doesn't take much of a hair above the surface for the tweezers to work either. That's probably one of the greatest thing about this epilator. ie. you don't have to wait days for hair to grow to a certain length to epilate them. You can do it with 24 hours or so.
This epilator comes with several different heads and attachements. It comes with the epilator head with two snap-on attachements that supposedly alleviate the pain for new users. I found out that the one with the rollers wasn't really necessary. The advanced user head makes you use the epilator at a 90 degree angle from your skin. It also helps keep the RPM at a high rate. But it hinders fine placement in those hard to get areas. At which point, it's just as well if you don't use an attachment and go with the bare drum. The other head is a oscilating razor with foil grill as seen in many other razors of this sort these days. However, being a Braum product, it works really well. The razor also has a leading trimmer for those long hairs that won't go into the foil. There's also an attachment that supposedly cuts long hair at the preferred length for optimal epilation.
The spotlight on the on/off switch is excellent. It's one of those little LED bulbs that are used in those multi-LED flashlights, so it is pretty bright. It is kind of necessary in non-flourescent lighting as I notice that if I go outside in sunlight I can see a bunch of hairs (stubble) that I didn't know I had.
Anyway, if you want the very best of modern epilators, get this one. It'll save you tons of money in disposable razors and/or waxing. It'll pay for itself in just one month.
EDIT: The new Emjoi AP-18 Emagine Dual Opposed 72 Tweezer Head Epilator is supposedly more efficient, but it has mixed reviews. Some say it's wonderful, but others say older models of different brands work better.
Customer Review: I love this product!
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a woman of fair complexion who has sensitive skin with various types of hair growth ranging from black thick sticks to clear feathery wisps. I've been shaving for years and enduring painful razor burn after every shave. I've tried all kinds of razors and cremes and nothing gave me exactly what I was looking for. Electric razors never shaved close enough. I tried waxing at home, but I could never get it to work especially on the thick, stiff hairs (which I am sure was due to my lack of technique). In a moment of desperation I decided to look into epilators. After reading several review sites the Braun line jumped to the forefront. The one I was initially interested in is not offered in the United States so I found the one most similar to it.
Several of the reviews that I read suggested that one should get a professional wax job (one or more) before attempting epilating. I am too cheap to do that so upon suggestion from my boyfriend I tried plucking out some hairs with my tweezers just to see how painful this may become. Yes, it hurt but the pain was fleeting. I decided that I could live with this and bought the epilator.
When it arrived I started with the beginner attachment and ran it on the high setting (the high setting was strongly recommended by many as the slow was too torturous for them). *OUCH!* The initial shock momentarily took my breath away! Tweezing one hair at a time is one thing, but pulling out several at a time is MUCH different! It wasn't too long before I felt I might pass out so I stopped and took a break. After regaining my breath I tried again. Each time I did something a little different. I experimented with how fast I moved the epilator along and the attachment that I was using. It took some time and several breaks before I had just my left calf done. However, I managed to gather valuable information such as where I am the most sensitive (ankles, shin bones, knees, and the backs of the knees) and that the toughest hairs will sometimes take multiple swipes to pluck. I also discovered that moving the epilator faster results in a more intense level of pain, but that the pain subsided that much faster. The beginner attachment works just fine, but the professional one is much more efficient in that it plucks out more hairs at one time. More initial pain, less time spent plucking, AND faster recovery ... Oh yeah!
On to the right calf! My right calf was much more difficult. Unlike the left one the hairs grow in all directions. This calf took even longer *Sigh!* I had to move the epilator in multiple directions multiple times just to get all of the hairs. Just remember to keep the skin pulled taught no matter what direction you are going in. This helps tremendously!
The first day was the most time consuming. I thought I wouldn't make it! However, the maintenance is a breeze! About every 10 days I go back and epilate the few hairs that are growing out. This is quick and not nearly as painful as before. I've only had my epilator for 1 month, but in my mind it has more than paid for itself. No razor burn ever again!!!!
Since getting it I have epilated all types of hairs all up and down my legs with great success. There were a couple of bumps that formed and quickly went away, but nothing painful. Yes, I have to take multiple swipes with the epilator, but that may be due more to my multiple hair types and multi-directional growth patterns than anything else.
All told, I highly recommend this product to those willing to endure that first very painful session. Believe me, once you get past that point it's all a breeze from there!
P.S. - If you decide to try plucking with tweezers don't do what I did and pluck too large of an area. The tweezers don't do nearly as good of a job as the epilator does. I am still dealing with hairs in that area that are growing straight under the skin. I've had to go back and dig them out with my tweezers. I can't wait to be able to use the epilator that area!