Secrets to silky skin

The Smooth Skin Challenge panel (from left) Natalie Payne, Sarah Tye, Zoe Schoon

The annual quest for women to be smooth and hair free is upon us again. Each summer, the laborious rituals begin - but until now there has been no clear winner.

The options? Time consuming shaving, painful epilating and waxing, or costly professional laser treatments. It's enough to make even the hardiest among us reach for a pair of jeans.

That's until the clever people at Philips came up with an alternative: the Lumea Precision Plus. This home-use device, they say, will reduce your unwanted hair by up to 80 per cent, in as few as four fortnightly treatments.

Such a bold claim was crying out to be tested. Consequently, over the past month - along with readers Sarah Tye, Natalie Payne and Zoe Schoon - I've been trying out the Lumea.

So how does it work? After shaving the area to be treated, press the 'on' button and the Lumea whirrs into life. Nudge the power up to the appropriate number for your skin tone (it works for most), place the head on your skin - and off you go.

Each session delivers IPL - intense pulsed light - into the hair follicles, which pushes them into a resting phase. Since IPL only works on hairs that are in a growing phase, the treatments need to be repeated at two week intervals, to catch them all.

We're now almost halfway through the Smooth Skin Challenge and have each used the Lumea twice. How are we getting on?

"Famously," says Zoe, who is treating her tummy after having a baby at the start of the year. "I like the Lumea a lot. It's quick, painless and clean, especially compared to the mess you get with depilatory creams or when shaving."

Natalie is a fan, too. "I'm using it on my underarms," she says. "Even with shaving the whole process only takes five minutes. The actual light treatment needs about 30 seconds on each arm."

That's one of the key things about the Lumea. For all its sleek, lab-worthy looks, it's extremely simple to use.

 

As a beauty journalist, I've had the dubious privilege of testing a number of home-use hair-removal devices over the years. One was the size of a small vacuum cleaner and had instructions so complex that it took me a month to build up the courage to switch it on. Another needed to be plugged into the mains, so the lead barely reached the bathroom. Both required the use of a sticky gel and goggles to protect my eyes from each flash, which made them awkward - and more than a little scary - to use. A third had such a small window that the prospect of tackling an area larger than a matchbox was ambitious.

The Lumea's generous head - and the fact that you can skim the device along your skin, rather than having to lift it up and reposition it before it will fire the next shot of light - means the treatments whizz by.

Which is important if you lead a busy life, but want to use it on a larger area such as your legs, like Sarah. She has been drawing markers on her skin with a white eyeliner (which doesn't absorb the light) to keep track of her progress during each session.

"The most difficult bit has been keeping in straight lines!" she says. "But actually using the Lumea is pretty fast. I can do each leg in 15 minutes."

The challenge panel - myself included - have all been using the two highest power settings; levels four and five. These are perfectly comfortable, even for beginners. The more melanin in your skin, the lower the setting you should use - a booklet that comes with the device shows just which number is best suited to your colouring.

What it doesn't do, though, is hurt. "You get a slight sensation of heat, but it's warm rather than hot," says Sarah.

 

"If epilating is eight out of 10 on the pain scale," says Natalie, "this is two."

And what about results? It might be early days but, excitingly, we're all noticing differences. Zoe has observed a definite change. "The hairs on my tummy and toes are growing back more slowly and they're less stubbly."

For me, progress is subtle. I think there's less hair under my arms. And I'm now working on a stubborn spike beside my lip. The next month should yield obvious results and I can't wait to see what the Lumea can really do.

"It's patchy," says Natalie. "But that fits exactly with the stages of hair growth as explained by Philips."

Which means we're right on track.

• For more information about salon-style hair removal at home with the Philips Lumea Precision Plus, visit philips.co.uk/lumea