Selfish Mom

My first laser hair removal treatment

Aug 30, 2011 What's Going On

So I’ve been toying around with the idea of getting laser hair removal for years. I’m a hairy chick, and I take care of it by an annoying and time consuming combination of waxing and shaving. Or I just wear jeans when it’s 95 degrees. Both methods leave something to be desired.

The only thing stopping me from getting laser hair removal was money. It’s not cheap. Spending thousands of dollars on something that seems so frivolous put it out of my reach. But I had never really checked it out, specifically, how much it would cost. $2,000 or $10,000? Is that for just my lower legs, or everything? I had no idea.

What finally changed my mind and prompted me to check it out was how much I was spending on waxing. I’ve been getting it done at least twice a month all summer. And that would be fine if it actually worked, but I still have to shave every single day – even if they managed to get all of the hair with the wax, more was just under the surface ready to pop up the next day. Waxing really just cleared things out enough to get a decent shave, especially in my bikini area, which is really sensitive.

So, I asked my dermatologist about it. She said I was the perfect candidate (dark hair, light skin). But she was very expensive. And she knew this. She told me that if cost was a factor (it was!) that I should find someone who’s been in business a long time, that I can get a personal recommendation for.

So naturally, I turned to Twitter! What’s more personal than that?

No seriously, twitter can be a great source of recommendations, as long as you check them out independently. Someone from twitter (Suzanne Chan of Mom Confessionals) had someone she knew give me a first-hand recommendation for Danna Homburger, who has an office on 57th Street. I did some research on Danna and was really touched by her story: when she was a teenager she developed a hormone imbalance that caused dark hair to grow all over her body, and even parts of her face. After twenty years of bad treatments she finally was “cured” of her problem, and decided to help others with unwanted hair problems.

She’s been in business for a couple of decades, and there was a glowing review of her on Yelp. I could find nothing at all negative about her. Plus, the person who had recommended her to me was a respected hair removal professional herself, and had gone to Danna for her own laser treatments. I was sold.

I called her and made an appointment. We decided a consultation wasn’t necessary since I’d already seen my dermatologist and knew I was a good candidate – I wanted to jump right in! She told me I should stop getting waxed and start shaving all of the areas I wanted to have lasered – she mentioned that if I simply let the hair grow in and then shaved right before the appointment, my skin could get very irritated. Better to shave for at least a couple of weeks first.

The morning of my appointment I shaved, put on some old clothes (I wasn’t sure if there would be any mess involved), and headed into the city. Danna was very sweet, and took about half an hour to explain her story and the procedure to me – she really wants her clients to understand the process and potential results.

I filled out a form about my skin color, how it reacts to sun, etc., and Danna determined that I’m a skin type 3 (from 1-5). She explained that within my skin type, there were different levels she could set the laser at, and I could tell her if it was too uncomfortable. I’d been warned by other people that I should go to my doctor first and get a topical anesthetic, that this was going to hurt. But Danna had assured me that her machine kept things cool and comfortable.

Hair can only be effectively lasered if it’s in a certain stage of growth, the live growth stage. So any hair that’s not in that stage would not be affected by the treatment – that’s why multiple treatments are required. You have to catch each hair in the right stage.

She uses a machine called the CoolGlide. She would be covering each area to be lasered with aloe vera gel, then sliding the CoolGlide over my skin, controlling the machine with a foot pedal.

It was time to start! I took off my pants and got comfortable on the treatment table, protective glasses on and my phone at the ready (because why wouldn’t I live tweet something like this?), and she got to work. When she ran the laser over areas with thinner, lighter hair, like my upper thighs, I really couldn’t feel anything (which probably means that that hair won’t be affected). When she ran it over hairier parts, it felt sort-of like someone plucking a bunch of hairs at once, but nowhere near as painful (I know, I’ve used an Epilady). In fact, I can’t really call it pain at all. It was discomfort, and it really wasn’t bad. Nowhere near as uncomfortable as getting a wax!

I asked her to turn it up to the maximum for my skin type, and it was completely bearable. As for the people who warned me that it would hurt a lot, they may have a lower threshold for pain than I do, or they may have been treated with a different machine, or they may have been even hairier than me. In other words, there are different variables that make it impossible for me to guess how this would feel to you. But for me, it was a piece of cake.

The entire treatment took about forty minutes, and I was done! There were small red bumps on some of the treated areas, which Danna said should be gone within a couple hours (and they were). She put an analgesic cream on me, even though I didn’t think I’d need it, but also didn’t want to be uncomfortable on the subway. She told me that the affected hairs would look like they were growing for the next few weeks, and that shaving was a great way to help expel them.

Danna kept using the words “life changing” to describe how these treatments were going to affect me, and I’m really excited to find out. I go back in six weeks for another treatment. She estimates that I’ll need about a year of treatments to catch all of the hairs in the right stage, but she does not sell multi-treatment packages because each person is different – I could be happy with fewer treatments.

Laser hair removal is not defined as permanent hair removal, but permanent reduction. People I’ve talked to say that they go in a couple times a year for additional treatments, and many still shave, but now it’s to get a few stray hairs and the finer hair that lasers don’t remove. For me, any reduction will be welcome: even when I shave with a new razor, you can see the black dots just under the surface where the hair is, waiting to grow back out within hours. So, hopefully by this time next year, a trip to the beach will not involve days of preparation, but a quick spot-shave…or less.

If you’re in the NYC area, you can find Danna Homburger’s contact info here.

After finding out that I was tweeting about my procedure and planned on posting about it, Danna gave me a $25 discount on my treatment fee, less than 5% of the total. There was absolutely no discussion of a discount prior to my treatment, and this did not affect my decision to write about it.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: laser hair removal, NYC

Tough decision? Bounce it off of Bounce!

Aug 30, 2011 Paid/Sponsored Post

The following post was commissioned by Bounce.

Bounce – the very same company that keeps my socks from sticking to my pants – has a very cool campaign on Facebook right now, called Bounce It Off Millions. You just go to the Bounce Facebook page and click on the Bounce It Off Millions tab on the left side of the page. You enter a question, whatever decision you’re having trouble with. Should you vacation in Hawaii or Paris? Dye your hair red or blond? Have pizza for lunch or tacos?

Some of the questions up there right now are of the non-life-changing variety, like what kind of music to listen to, what a new dog’s name should be, and how much allowance a child should have.

But others, like whether to take a part-time job now or wait for a full-time job, are more serious. Do you talk to your MIL about how she cleans out your closets without your permission? Do you sell your house at a loss to buy your dream house by the lake? And while I wouldn’t expect anyone to base a big decision like that solely on the opinions of Facebook strangers, sometimes a poll is just what you need to get your brain working on a big choice.

My personal favorite on the site right now: Should I find out the sex of my baby at my 20-week ultrasound? (For the record, I voted no!)

Once you vote on a particular question, you get to see the poll results – what everybody else thought.

But here’s the best part: The Grand Prize! If the folks at Bounce choose your question as one of their favorites, it will be featured on a Facebook ad! You’ll win a prize pack from Bounce (worth about $200), and your question may get voted on by millions! You can find all of the rules here.

While you’re on the Bounce Facebook page you can also enter to win two Bounce Dryer Bars – one to keep and one to give to a friend!

You have until September 17th to answer the poll questions and submit one yourself. One winner each week will win the grand prize!

My big dilemma right now? I’m trying to lose weight, and none of my clothes look good. Nothing fits right. Buying a bunch of new clothes would definitely make me feel better about myself, and when that happens I’m always more motivated to improve myself. On the other hand, spending money on those clothes may make me less motivated to exercise, since I’ll have spent so much on clothes that will no longer fit! What to do?

Make sure to go to the Bounce Facebook page and add your own question – you could win a great prize!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 13. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: Bounce, exercise

Today’s Agenda: hitting the ground walking edition

Aug 30, 2011 Today's Agenda

I was supposed to start my new exercise program yesterday, or so I told myself. I even contemplated getting on the treadmill at 1:30am before bed. But no excuses today, I’m doing day one of an eight-week walking program. I get one day off a week on the program, I guess I used this week’s on the first day. :-)

I’ll also be posting about my first laser hair removal procedure, which took place yesterday. Of course it will be months before I’ll know the results, but I can definitely say that the procedure was much quicker and easier than I thought.

Last, I’ll be heading out to a press event held by Samsung tonight. They’ve been teasing about a big announcement and I’ll admit, they’ve got my curiosity piqued:

I like the theory of a YouTube commenter: a new fragrance by Samsung! But the second video points to either a smartphone or a very small tablet.

I’m guessing my hope that it’s a new Windows smart phone headed for Verizon is a pipe dream. But a girl can hope.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: laser hair removal, tech

Toss and Chop review: chopped salads at home

Aug 29, 2011 Product Review

Last month I went out for lunch with my fellow Blogging Angels and got a delicious salad. It was one of those great places where you can add whatever you want and then they toss it in a big bowl with dressing and charge you an insane amount of money. But I don’t care, those salads are always so much better than the ones I make at home (and I make awesome salads).

But this time, they asked me if I wanted it chopped, and of course I said yes, because chopped salads taste even better than regular salads. You get every single flavor in your salad in each bite. I watched in amazement as they fed my salad into a big machine that spit it out chopped!

Since that lunch I’ve been obsessed with making chopped salads at home. I researched all the different gadgets you can get for chopping salad and decided to try the Silvermark Toss and Chop. It’s like two pairs of scissors glued together with a little scoop on the bottom. It also has a little clip that holds everything closed for storage – very good design. The blades are very sharp and you wouldn’t want to come across them while rummaging through a drawer.

I gathered my ingredients. I tore the lettuce leaves, used a peeler to slice the carrots, cut the onion into big chunks, and left the grape tomatoes and chick peas whole.

I set a timer for two minutes and got to work. This instructions said to hold the Toss and Chop in one hand and steady the bowl in with the other, scooping up salad and then moving on to another area, so that’s what I did. After two minutes, my arm was killing me and the salad looked like this:

I had chopped a lot of it, but not very small, and not uniformly – there were plenty of pieces still almost untouched.

I went to work again, but this time I held the Toss and Chop perpendicular to the bottom of the bowl, and squeezed with both hands. I was able to get a lot more control this way, work faster, and not tire my arms out so quickly. I stopped every 30 seconds or so to toss the salad around and see which parts still needed work. After about two minutes more I had a very nicely chopped salad! There were a few pieces of onion that were bigger than the rest, and a couple of chickpeas had remained whole, but that was it. Everything else was done beautifully. The blades were even sharp enough to actually cut the tomatoes instead of smooshing them.

I tossed it with some croutons and dressing and was done. But – and trust me on this part – before I sat down to eat my salad I rinsed the Toss and Chop off and left it on a towel to dry. If you leave it until later, even a little later, you’ll be digging bits of lettuce out of the grooves with a toothpick. But rinse it off right away and it takes about ten seconds to get completely clean.

My salad was absolutely delicious. I’m not sure I’d make the effort every time I make a salad to chop it, but it’s nice to know that doing so only adds a few minutes to the prep. Now I just have to invite Rebecca over for salad – not sure that’s enough to get her to Brooklyn though.

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

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Tags: cooking, Food, kitchen gadgets, Shopping

Today’s Agenda: adopt-a-turtle edition

Aug 29, 2011 Today's Agenda

So I woke up this morning to find that one of my turtles had destroyed the little thermometer that used to hang out in the bottom of their tank. I should’ve taken it out before. I’ve seen them snap at it, but it would just bounce out of their mouths. I guess one of them finally got it.

So here’s the best part: the bottom of the thermometer was weighted with about a hundred tiny metal balls. Which are now all over the bottom of the tank. I just tried to suck them up with the suction thing I use to empty the tank, but they’re too heavy. So I will be picking them up by hand. Plus, there’s glass in there, and I can’t see it. This will be fun.

I took the turtles out to check their mouths for cuts, and didn’t find any. I did, however, find what I think are little bite marks on one of the turtles, on her legs. I’ve seen them snap at each other, and had read that I would probably have to separate them when they got to be about a year old (they’re not quite there yet). Since I didn’t want turtles in the first place (I rescued them in December when some kids abandoned them on my neighbor’s stoop), there’s absolutely no way I’m getting a second tank. The first set-up cost me more than $400 and is taking up a lot of valuable counter space. I’m done. I need to get rid of one of these turtles before one of them gets seriously hurt.

So, if you know anybody who wants a turtle, and is willing to spend hundreds of dollars on a tank and supplies…

After cleaning the debris out of the tank, I’ll be heading off to my first laser hair removal appointment – yay! I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment for 20 years. I’m half Sicilian, but my body hair doesn’t recognize the “half” part.

This process is not cheap, and I don’t know how many treatments I’ll need (the estimates are six to ten, with one or two more each year for maintenance – this hasn’t really achieved “permanent” status yet). But I’m glad to be getting started.

Several people have told me I should’ve gotten a topical pain killer prescription, but I think I’ll be OK. After a decade of having the hair ripped out by the root by hot wax, I really can’t imagine this being worse. I guess I’ll find out in a few hours!

Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.

Tags: laser hair removal, turtles