Mum Review: Using Boots Smooth Skin IPL for the Face

Disclosure: This unit was supplied as a PR sample, which I handed over to my Mum.


One of the many sad facts of growing older, so I'm told, is the growth of annoying hairs upon one's face.  We've all seen old ladies with slightly furry chins, and while my Mum is definitely nowhere near old lady age, she's very concious that as she ages, more errant hairs grow.

My Mum remembers her own mother asking often if her chin hairs were visible, often whilst hunched over a mirror, plucking them out.  Luckily, nowadays we have more high tech ways of dealing with unwanted hair than just the good old tweezers - so when I received a Smooth Skin unit to test out, I thought my Mum (and her chin) would be a good test subject.

Suffice to say, she was beyond excited at the thought of blasting those hairs to oblivion.  She's now run through the full ten sessions recommended for a permanent result, and is a full on convert to the Smooth Skin.  She said that she found the unit very easy to use - and for those of you wondering about the pain factor on delicate facial skin, she reported that the only thing she felt was a light burst of heat.  She's been using it not only on her chin, but also on her upper lip.

The best thing about the effects, according to my Mum, is not just that the number of hairs has been dwindling - the hairs that are still growing are easier to pluck.  She's found that she doesn't have to pluck every day as she did before - the hairs haven't disappeared entirely, and the few that are still growing are doing so much more slowly.

In fact, my Mum has decided that if I ever take the unit back to test it myself, she'll be buying herself one to keep those hairs at bay for good.  Which, in my view, is the highest recommendation it can get - at around £300, the unit represents a pretty big investment.

If you're interested in the Smooth Skin, you'll find plenty of documentation at the Boots.com website.  You can also read more about the Smooth Skin and other IPL devices here on the LBR.  This is a serious piece of kit with a correspondingly serious price tag: make sure you do your research, and ensure that the unit is suitable for your skin, before you buy.