Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t feel smooth after waxing. I mean, I’m not glad that other people also have a problem, I’m just glad I’m not crazy. Anyway, it sounds like my best bet is to use an epilator and then shave what’s left. Or maybe I’ll just wax and live with the not-smoothness, since it does at least make my legs look smooth.
I find that waxing/epilator followed by shaving a day or so later to give the BEST result, and it lasts longer…
Whoever figures out the human gene for leg hairs - and how to manipulate and eliminate it - is gonna make a fortune.
If you do get an epilator, trapezoidal jellyfish, do let us know the outcome. If you think it was worth it, I might be convinced to buy one too 
Frankly, I just can’t wait until laser hair removal is cheaper/I have more money lying around. For those of us with thick, dark hair, it’s gonna be a godsend.
I’m glad waxing does work on mine. I never feel so clean as after I’ve waxed and taken a shower…and then gone to bed on fresh sheets!
I highly recommend laser hair removal even though the results were patchy for me. Legs were a 100% success, but underarms and bikini were … challenging. I didn’t think I was such a wimp, I’ve had two kids with no drugs but man oh man I cried every week for 3 months during the laser treatments. And all for naught since she turned the intensity down every time I cried and thus the hair grew back almost immediately in the bikini area and after 2-3 years under my arms. It’s been (guessing) about 6 or 7 years now and I’ve got about a dozen hairs across both legs that have grown back. I really should go back and redo the parts that didn’t work but I’ve got to figure out the pain thing first.
The hair on my ankles is extremely sensitive, and the pain is as much as if you were pulling hairs out of my head. They also bleed a lot afterwards.
I’m fairly tough when it comes to pain, but there’s no way I’m going to do that on a regular basis. Waxing and epilating are completely out for me. I can do it fine on the rest of my legs, but no way around the ankles. The hair is also much thicker and darker there, and when you pull it out the root is hook-shaped, so YMMV.
It confuses me that affordable, permanent, hair removal has proven so difficult to achieve. One would think we’d be far past this by now. . .
TruCelt, in terms of waxing, for me the ankles are always the worst. The lower leg in general and in particular the ankles. Blech…
It’s sort of true. Not “you only need to do it every four weeks!” true for most women, but…like everyone else you probably have slacked off shaving during the winter, I presume. You know how your legs get when you’ve gone 4 or so days without shaving? If you epilate regularly, it takes around two weeks of doing nothing to get to that point.
Not slower, really (your hair growth cycle will remain consistent, whatever it is for you), but over time yanking hairs out by the roots will eventually damage many of the follicles so they can’t regrow hair anymore. I have a few permanently bald spots on my legs now, although I’ve been waxing for something like 10 years.
The hair also does grow in lighter and finer, mainly because you’re regrowing from the thin tip of the hair, and not from the blunt cut-off end from where you shaved the tip off. It won’t feel stubbly when it grows back, and if you have lighter hair you may not even see it until it’s fairly long. I’m medium auburn, and my leg hair doesn’t look dark until… I dunno, six weeks? eight?
For those of you who still feel stubbly after waxing, have you tried doing it consistently several times in a row? As pointed out, your hair grows in cycles, and some hairs will be dormant (not growing) at the time you wax, so since there’s nothing above the surface of your skin for the wax to grab, the blunt end remains until such time as it starts growing again (at which point you can wax it off). Keep doing it, and eventually you’ll get all the ones that weren’t growing the first time.
Maybe I have a higher tolerance than most folks, though; as long as the hairs are still fine enough to be basically invisible, I don’t much care. I only wax maybe 4-6 times a year. I can live with peach fuzz.