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

HRT did make my body hair thinner and lighter, and I suppose it takes a little longer to grow back. Kind of a “your mileage may vary” thing but I do personally find things easier to cope with, especially facial hair which is barely visible for me now even if I don’t shave for a week or so.

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.

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.

Either a safety razor or Phillips one blade are excellent investments. The former is a smoother very economical shave, the latter is very fast and convenient (can’t cut yourself, and don’t need water). They don’t last as long as an epilator, but it’s a worthwhile trade off for the convenience.

As others have said, lasers are supposed to be great if you have dark hair, but I’m sharing what I’ve settled on as a person with nothing but light blonde.