Smooth Legs for Crossdressing

by Shane Foster

Reading time approx: 7 mins

One of the greatest assets for many crossdressers is our legs. Due to our build it is easy to accentuate our legs in all the right places, especially when wearing heels. The problem is that you don’t get this great look with legs covered with hair. So you have two choices: cover them up with hosiery (an acceptable solution), or remove the hair.

Epilation – the most effective method

Having tried different ways to remove leg hair (shaving, creams that dissolve the hair, etc.), I found that the only method that had the best results was epilation. Since epilation removes each hair from its follicle, it takes a while for its replacement to reappear. You don’t get that result with shaving or creams, both of which leave the root intact, giving you stubble starting the very next day.

Epilation for crossdressers leaves smoother legs for longer than either of those methods. This is because the epilator removes hair by tweezing it. Think of how you use tweezers to remove hair. You put the tweezers over the hair, close and pull the hair out, and open the tweezers to let the hair fall. This is the same process that the epilator uses, except it has dozens of tweezers working together.

It can be painful

Hair removal using epilation isn’t without its bad points, namely pain. The device is pulling dozens of hairs out at a time. This is like waxing for hair removal. Waxing removes an entire section of hair at once, where epilation takes longer and is more gradual. The good news is that, over time, the pain becomes less. Your body’s nerves get used to the sensation after a while. The returning hairs also gradually become finer, so the root of the hair becomes easier to tweeze out. This means that if you can overcome the first levels of pain, epilation gets better over time.

Getting started

The first step for epilating is to buy an epilator. I don’t recommend using someone else’s epilator, just like it isn’t advisable to use someone else’s razor or toothbrush. It’s a hygiene issue.

Once you have an epilator, you want to do as much as possible to cut the amount of pain. Some parts of the body are more painful to epilate. The legs are easier, for example than the bikini area or underarms.

Making it easier

In addition to choosing a good first site to epilate, you will want to prep the length of the hair. With most epilators, the ideal hair length is between 1/8 and 1/4 inch. When the hair is too short, the tweezers on the epilator cannot reach the hair. On the other hand, long hair is painfully yanked from an awkward angle.

There are several ways to shorten your hair. The quickest is to use hair clippers that have the proper size of the attachment. Some epilators come with such an attachment, or you can use hair clippers. You can also trim hair with scissors, although this is a tedious process. Finally, you can shave the hair and then wait until it regrows to the proper length.

Let’s get epilating

Now that you have done what you can to cut the pain, it is time to get epilating. The most important piece of advice I have for you is this: if it gets too intense for you, there is nothing wrong with taking a break, whether it is just a couple of minutes or longer. I could handle only a few inches the first time I used an epilator. Just keep in mind your long-term goal as well as the fact that it will get easier over time.

You will want to pull the epilator “against the grain.” This means that when the hair is going down toward the floor, you will be pulling up toward the ceiling. In other words, line up the epilator with the hair, and pull it in the direction opposite of how the hair is pointing.

The reason for doing this is simple. If you were using a pair of tweezers, is it easier to grab a hair if it lines up with the tweezers, rather than across the hair? And by pulling “against the grain,” the tweezers on the epilator will be in contact with the hair longer, increasing the odds that the epilator pulls the hair successfully the first time.

After epilation

There are a few negative side effects to epilation. Some of the hair roots are very tight and stubborn, so they may bleed a little when pulled. It could be disconcerting the first time it happens. I suggest you turn off the epilator, use a tissue to dab the blood and wipe the epilator, and then try in a different area for a few minutes. It doesn’t take long for the follicle to stop bleeding.

Next, nearly all the follicles will become irritated. The irritation appears with a small amount of redness surrounding each follicle. This gives your skin a dotted appearance. It goes away after a few hours. The lesson to learn from this is to do your epilation a few hours before going out so that you look your best as the irritation will have largely disappeared.

Finally, some hairs can become ingrown when they return. A hair is ingrown when it gets stuck under the top layer of skin. This is mostly of no concern because it eventually pushes out from under the skin. However, sometimes ingrown hairs can become infected. They will look like a pimple with a hair in the middle of it. When this happens, treat it as you would a pimple.

Conclusion on epilation

Given everything I have mentioned in this article, the key question here has to be: “is it worth it?”

If you have ever shaved, you already know the feel of the fabric swishing against your bare skin. You also know how much better you blend in while dressed as a woman. Shaving has a problem, though. Stubble quickly replaces the short-lived smoothness.  Compare that to my legs a week after epilating.

Although epilation for crossdressers is not permanent hair removal, it does have the advantage of keeping your legs smoother longer than any other method you can do at home. If having smoother legs is something you want for yourself, I suggest you consider it. Do your own research on epilators, I think you’ll be amazed at the results!