This Hair-Removal Device Saved Me From a Year of Painful Bikini Waxes | Reviews by Wirecutter

By Maxine Builder

It was only after I unboxed Braun’s at-home hair removal device—and showered and shaved and started mentally preparing to blast a strong, laser-like light along my bikini line—that I found myself wondering if I had lost my mind.

I had learned about Braun’s Silk-Expert Pro 5 on TikTok, and in my defense, the woman talking about it seemed trustworthy. She was a Los Angeles–based Pilates instructor, after all, and I had fallen down a rabbit hole watching her series about things that her private clients recommended to her. And if there’s one thing I trust rich people in LA who do a lot of Reformer Pilates to recommend, it’s effective beauty treatments. The Pilates instructor also said it works “really well.”

In hindsight, this was embarrassingly little research for me to have done before spending well over $300 on a gadget that would semi-permanently stop my body hair from regrowing.

This at-home gadget uses intense pulsed light (IPL) to prevent hair regrowth.

But the potential reward was just too tempting. It was August—the peak of bikini season—and I was tired of paying $95 every six weeks for waxes that didn’t last and left my skin irritated and itchy as the hair grew back. I also couldn’t shave in between waxing sessions, for fear of angering my aesthetician, so my bikini line would often be patchy by week four or five, and that didn’t do a lot to make me feel confident in a swimsuit. I had started researching in-studio laser hair-removal packages but balked at the prices, as well as the indignity of having another human shed so much light around my most delicate bits.

This device, though not technically a laser, promised salon-like results, with phrases like “long-lasting hair reduction” and “up to 1 year of smooth skin from home.” And even at the list price of $380, it was still about half the price of any reputable salon laser hair-removal package I could find. If I could skip four bikini waxes because of this thing, I would be saving money—and Braun promised that I would start seeing visible results after just two sessions.

If I had been doing my due diligence, I would’ve learned that this device uses intense pulsed light to remove hair—a technology that has been studied in clinical settings and determined to be both effective and relatively safe. A 2010 study published in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology found that 95% of patients noticed hair reduction after three months, with no serious adverse effects. This Braun device is FDA-cleared, as well, as are all of the company’s IPL devices.

IPL works by emitting strong pulses of light that break the cycle of hair growth at the root. It targets and effectively disables the melanin in the hair follicle, so it isn’t really removing hair as much as it is preventing hair from growing back. But this also means it works on a relatively narrow range of skin tones and hair colors. So if your body hair is red, gray, or blonde, or your skin is melanated—and there’s not a lot of contrast between the color of your skin and the color of your body hair—this might not be the tool for you. (If you want to check, Braun has a chart of skin tones and body hair that can be helpful.)

I, of course, did not know any of this before I used the Silk-Expert Pro 5 for the first time. But I did follow the instructions carefully, starting with an everything shower, shaving off all of the hair in the area I wanted it gone, and toweling myself dry. When I plugged the device in, I was surprised by the whirring noise it emitted, which was closer to that of a jet engine than something I’d expect to find in a gentle spa environment. This was about when I started to have concerns about burning my flesh.

The good news is that the device has safety mechanisms in place. It works only when it is flush against the skin, and when the sensors detect a contrast between skin and hair. That means if the sensor can’t “see” enough difference, it won’t let you accidentally burn yourself. You’ll know that you’ve done it right when you see a white light on the side of the device instead of a red one. After putting it in place and seeing the white band of light, I took a deep breath, exhaled, and then pulled the trigger. The flash was bright, and the light felt like a rubber band snapping on my skin—uncomfortable and hot, but quick. I moved the tip to the next spot and pressed the button, and I repeated the process until I’d gone through all the spots where I wanted hair to stop growing.

It took no longer than 15 minutes, and I spent most of that time trying to get the head of the device in all the hard-to-reach areas of my bikini area, rather than actually zapping. At the end, I had no lingering pain, no redness, and no downtime—though I was sweating profusely, probably due to some combination of the heat from the flashing light, the gymnastics of getting my body in the right position, and general anxiety about doing what felt like an at-home science experiment.

But the process got progressively easier, and after two months of weekly treatments, the body hair in areas where I used the Silk-Expert Pro 5 had noticeably thinned out. Shaving my bikini line became less onerous of a task and less frequent. When I went on a trip to Costa Rica in January, after about five months of regular use, I didn’t have to do much at all before confidently stepping into a high-cut surf suit.

In the year since, I’ve done occasional touch-ups, and though I can’t say the forest has completely stopped growing, the landscape has definitely changed. I still sometimes have to do a last-minute once-over with a razor to remove any stragglers, but going to the beach or the pool doesn’t require a ton of prep work, and I haven’t been plagued with a single razor bump in over 12 months. I’ve also saved, by my rough girl math, about $800 in bikini waxes, and I’ve avoided the pain of physically ripping out my body hair.

I have become an evangelist for the Braun Silk-Expert Pro 5, sharing the good word with all my friends and even curious co-workers who have come across similar TikToks about the one that grabbed my attention. “Does it work? Yeah,” I tell them. “Really well.”

This article was edited by Hannah Rimm and Catherine Kast.

Maxine Builder

Maxine Builder is Wirecutter’s deputy editorial director. She previously led The Strategist, New York Magazine’s e-commerce and shopping vertical. As a writer, she has interviewed celebrities about their favorite things, tested kitchen gear and tech gadgets, and performed a deep-dive into the history of Four Loko.

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