So, my egg finally cracked a few weeks ago. And while generally dysphoria isn’t terrible for me at the moment, one thing that is really making me uncomfortable is my body hair. I’ve always been pretty hairy, so I bought an epilator a while ago, and while I’m really happy with it for my legs (smooth legs are aweeesome!), I’m having a hard time on my belly and chest. There’s just so much and it regrows so quickly, and with how sensitive these areas are, I’m having a hard time keeping up.
Do you have any other tips or ideas, or do I just have to power through? I’ve heard it gets better if you do it often, but I can’t feel much of a difference yet
And how are your experiences with body hair on HRT? I’m not on E yet, but would you say it gets better?
Thanks :3
If you have darker hair and lighter skin, IPL devices are fantastic for getting some permanent hair reduction relatively quickly! I use a Braun Silk Pro 5, and it stings like the snap of a rubber band, but everywhere from my neck down just grows WAY less hair than it used to now.
I used to epilate and still do for certain spots like my hands, but that pain is pretty rough. It’s hard to beat the smooth results of epilating your legs though, that was fantastic.
I haven’t been on HRT long enough to experience any changes in hair growth from that, sadly
I do have fairly light skin and dark hair, so this is a great tip! A friend is currently doing professional IPL treatments, but that is really expensive, and I didn’t know you could buy a hand held device to do it at home. I’ll give it a try!
My first couple of months after starting my transition, my legs (and sometimes arms and other areas) were basically razor burn city. I tried literally every razor and shaving cream under the sun to avail. Finally, i switched to an electric razor. No more razor burn. The shave’s not as close, but i also don’t look like a renaissance-era smallpox victim, so worth it.
It probably takes me 5 minutes to do everything (face, legs, arms, chest/abdomen) if I do it every day. It takes maybe 15 if I let it go more than 3 days or so.
I’m so grateful that I started full body shaving really young off and on. I had a little razor burn on my chest the first couple times shaving it again, but for the most part I get along fine by exfoliating, and shaving in the shower with Cremo Shaving Cream (or shaving butter or something, I forget atm. It’s non pressurized and comes in like a hair product tube).
In general, body hair will reduce slightly on hrt. It’s still there, but in particular I saw a lot less growth for chest hair. If laser works for your skin/hair color combos at a practioner near you, I found it very effective and tolerable. Otherwise I use a safety razor for everything else. Once you’re good with it, it’s a very close and low irritation save.
For facial hair, almost everybody will see no effect with hrt. New growth (as in fully new follicles) should stop, but any existing hair will need to be removed if you want a smooth face all the time. I did laser for some initial clearing and now am doing electrolysis to finish up.
I mentioned this in another recent thread, but I spent a lot of time looking through reddit threads where transgirls talked about body hair.
What I thought was interesting is that:
- while you do get a lot of responses that say it only somewhat reduces body hair
- there were several folk who said it eventually did pretty much stop growth in many places (especially the torso), but that it took 3-4 years.
- One thing generally agreed on was that no matter what, hair on the legs/forearms will stick around; that’s typical for cis women as well. (There’s a lot of variability where cis women will have noticeable hair, but almost always on the legs/forearms.)
In online spaces you’ll generally see a lot more folk in the 0-2yrs range of HRT (because they’re newer and have more things they want to talk about.) So my guess is that the long term reduction in body hair is larger than you’d think just skimming threads like this one.
I’m at a bit more than 2 years, and it definitely has reduced a lot on my chest/shoulders/back/butt/upper arms, but I still have to shave occasionally (especially chest/butt). For now I’m content to see if the rest goes away on its own.
