Personal Care Reviews

The idea of a roll-on hot wax applicator is really great, especially the convenience of heating the wax by simply plugging it in. The lousy thing is, the wax gets kinda sticky and clumpy instead of hot and runny, ready to spread on the stubble and top with the strip before cool and rip ALL the hair out with a heartfelt holler, the way hot waxing should be. This is more like that washable wax or gel stuff, you might like it it if that worked for you.

The concept is great. I am an aesthetician and I really like the no mess and it works. However the cartridge is very small it is not enough for a full leg waxing. It is not economical. If you use two cartridges for waxing it's costing you almost as much like you go to a salon. To find replacement cartridge is very hard and expensive.Overall it is a good idea but needs lots of impruvements.

At last a hair removal system that works! I've never written a review before, but I had to counter the unfounded negative feedback this product has gotten. Of course it is going to hurt some to rip out your leg hair, but if you give this product more than one chance, you'll find that it gets better, i.e., less painful. (Either my legs got used to it or my hair didn't give up as much of a fight.) Any waxing is going to hurt, but the benefit is totally HAIR FREE LEGS!!! The positive definitely outweighs the negative in this case.

If you are leaving hair behind, then you aren't using the waxer correctly. Case closed. To get the best results, you have to leave it plugged in the whole time you are using it, lay it down on its side as the wax in the cartridge gets lower so the wax gets evenly heated, and use firm, even pressure when applying the wax. Apply the strip IMMEDIATELY to the wax, smooth down well in the direction of hair growth, and rip away paper against the direction of hair growth. If you are a slow poke about it and let the wax get too cool, I agree, your results won't be as good because, duh, this is a HOT WAX process.

As to the amount of wax in a cartidge, I don't know how much you all are trying to use on a leg, but I get an entire leg out of one cartidge. Even a cartidge, this is a lot cheaper than paying money to have both full legs done at the salon...which I have done. I do agree, however, that refill cartidges are hard to find and is an awful lot to spend for a tube of wax and some strips of paper! (That is why this product only gets 4 stars in my opinion.) Nevertheless, I immensely prefer the results over shaving my legs.

Regarding the smaller cartidge for face...absolutely the best way to remove facial hair (armpits, however, are a different matter...ouch).

I also received this as a Christmas gift and have already sent it back. The bubbles are so loud it's hard to relax, the water dosent stay warm and the infrared dosent even get warm. The accupressure attachments were very cheaply made and did nothing when I tried them out. As you can tell I was very disapointed with this product. Don't waste your money.
The only up side.....I liked the color!!

I received this as a gift for Christmas and it's now boxed up and ready to go back.

The vibrating massage works fine, but that's all that works. The bubbles work until the feet go in. Once the feet are in, no more bubbles. The heat will not keep warm water warm. The "infrared" heat is also barely warm. I felt like it did nothing at all.

It is certainly possible that this unit is defective, but for both the bubbles and heat to be defective says a lot about quality control.

I did not try the attachments.

I have not tried other products like this but I am happy with this product. I have to agree with another reviewer that the attachments are pretty much useless. They are a good idea but they don't stay attached very well and seem ackward to use. However, I don't think the attachments are necessary if you are looking for a good, basic way to relax. I also like the overall design of this particular product. It is lightweight and has a cord that is a decent length.

Noticing this product reminded me of similar products I recall being sold in the 1980's. After receiving the item I was very disappointed because the product itself as well as the box the product arrived in appeared used. Scuff marks were on the black casing in numerous areas. The box itself appeared old and worn. In fairness I cannot evaluate how well the product functioned because I absolutely will not use a personal product which appears to have been used. In fact, even though I was sent a replacement I promptly returned both items, unable to even want to open the box and examine the replacement unit.

i didn't really know how to use it when i first got it but after that it styled pretty well! You should get it if you have long hair, it works better

I bought this pedometer and I usually read all reviews on amazon before I buy things. I don't know if nobody had reviewed it when I purchased it or what because I would not have bought it with all those bad reviews. Anyway...I have not had accurate readings with this pedometer. It might be because I run with it instead of walk but even when trying to test it around the house walking it does not seem acurate. I have also e-mailed the company several times from their web site with no response yet. I also agree with it being hard to open the cover. when you are running and want to look at your progress it is almost impossible to open the cover without messing up the reading (That is inaccurate anyway so what does it matter)

I really am pleased with my purchase of this pedometer. Anyone purchasing one has to first realize that it is just a gadget, it won't help you lose weight, unless YOU do the workout! What it's done for me is motivate me to walk more steps each day and to make a good portion of those steps at a brisker pace. I've been wearing mine for about 3 weeks now, increased my speed and my steps and have lost 8 lbs. already. Great motivational tool for me. Only drawback is the pulse feature, it's sometimes hard to get it to read the pulse.

I read lots of reviews before I bought this pedometer. The pedometer I had was awful, and I wanted to find one that worked really well. The PE316PM got some great reviews from customers on several web sites, so I bought it. I have now used this model daily for over a year, and I love it! I would recommend it to anyone. If you set the motion sensitivity adjustment properly it is almost always dead-on accurate. Walk 100 steps, and it reads 100 steps. It has never been wrong by more than 1 step, plus or minus. Any inaccuracies experienced by other users are probably due to not setting the motion sensitivity (VERY IMPORTANT), not entering their personal weight (their HONEST weight) and stride measurement settings, or not wearing it properly. The instructions tell you how to do this, but you do have to READ the instructions carefully! The instructions indicate that there is a metric model as well as the one with miles and pounds, so the person complaining about the wrong type of measurements simply bought the wrong model. (That's not the pedometer's fault.) The instructions also tell you how to open the cover, which is easy enough to do if you use two hands as you are told to do. I'm glad it has a tight cover because my previous pedometer's cover constantly fell open while I was walking and then didn't count the steps I took when it was open. (A very easy-to-open cover is not necessarily a good feature!) The pulse meter works as well as any other pulse meter I've ever used, but it sometimes takes a couple of tries to get it to read the pulse. I find varying the position and pressure of my finger usually solves that problem.

My pedometer has accidentally fallen on the floor several times, and it fell in water once. There was no damage to the plastic casing, even when if fell on a hard surface. (This can, however, turn off the display, and require resetting it. But this rarely happens.) It still works perfectly even after these accidents, and I put sticky-back Velcro inside the clip to make it hold better on my thin exercise clothing. It hasn't fallen off my waist since then.

I really like this pedometer. It has made a big difference in my exercise program. It is very compelling to see the number of steps go up and up as you walk farther and farther. It makes you want to keep walking to go on to the next round number, so you walk farther than you would otherwise. (You won't stop at 9,345 steps... you'll go on to 10,000. It's like wanting to see your car's odometer change to the next thousand miles.)

If you read the instructions carefully and set everything properly (including the motion sensitivity), then you should find this pedometer to be an excellent buy for the money. At under $20, if it has a problem after a couple of years, it's easy to just buy a new one. $10 a year to maintain your health is certainly worth it! I'm a very satisfied customer.

I received the Emjoi4Men as a gift today. I followed the directions, and the product does NOT work as advertised. It is not painless, even when you hold the buttons for 3x the necessary time. The Emjoi4Men is just an expensive tweezer. Save your money!

ditto to what the last guy said. it doesn't work, and it's a big waste of money.

It just doesn't work. Period. The hair doesn't come easily at all. As far as I'm concerned, the unit operates the same with or without batteries. The radio frequency doesn't help. Even if you spend 2 minutes in each hair (recommended is 15 to 20 seconds), you basically have to pull it off just like a regular tweezer - and it is very painfull as you may guess.

I got screwed with 2 test packets that expired 10 days after I got them $35 bucks down the drain. Amazon sucks !!! Big Waste of my time and money.

I received 2 packages of test strips on April 26, 2004 and they expired on May 1st, 2004. I immediately returned them and requested replacements. However, they gave me a refund instead so I would assume they have a boatload of these sitting around in a warehouse which they are trying to get rid of.

Although I love the Lifestream cholesterol monitor, I've had two instances of buying the strips where the expiration dates were unreasonable. The latest was the set I bought here in April which arrived April 20, 2004, with an expiration date of May 1, 2004!!! Hello? Since they weren't in stock until two weeks ago, I can only presume the supplier was trying to unload old stock. There's no way that I know of to check the date unless you go to the Lifestream web site and order there--for $6.95 shipping.

I would have rated it zero if only the scale went that low. These tweezer-type hair removers do not work. Anyone who says they've tried it and it worked is deluding themselves. The hair will grow back. I was suckered into one several years ago before doing the research on it and I will never be duped again. Electrolysis works by inserting a needle into the hair shaft to deliver the (painful) shock which eventually destroys the follicle. The tweezers don't deliver enough energy to do anything. Please don't waste your money or hope on this useless product.

First, its really boring and unmotivating to use this product as you have to switch off the radio/TV etc, before using it.
Second, its very tedious.
If it was effective, it would have probably been worth the effort, but the hair wouldn't come off after more than 20 seconds of holding.

Didn't work for me. I gave up after several tries.
Jay

I was so excited to get this product because I hate shaving. However, I quickly found out that it wasn't nearly as effective as it claimed to be. I tried hair from all over my body (legs, underarms, eyebrows, etc.) to see if I could get it to remove one hair. Just ONE hair! Nothing doing. I found out later that electrolysis is best for fine, light colored hair. Well, I have plenty of those, but I don't really need those removed - I need the dark, coarse hair! I was really disappointed. On the positive side (if you have fine, light hair that needs to be removed) it is fairly easy to use, although it takes forever, and has clear instructions. The multi-hair remover coil doesn't work so you really have to try and remove one hair at a time. It isn't very painful, I mean you can feel a kind of weird sensation under your skin, but it doesn't hurt - it just doesn't work...

To my great disappointment this gadget is a real hassle to use -- it frequently "resets" itself and the alarm is not well designed for any practical use in an emergency. Not recommended!

I totally agree with a previous reviewer - it counts movements when there are none, continually, and keeps resetting the total, over and over. I bought this one for the safety cord because I kept dropping the Sportline 360 which I love otherwise but I have broken (3) and lost (1).

Needless to say, the cord is useless because I no longer bother to use it at all. A huge disappointment.

I gave this 4 stars just because it's my first pedometer so not a lot of experience with them - it had clear instructions which allowed me to set my stride length and weight to calculate distance and calories burned. It also allows you to set its sensitivity so that it only counts your walking steps. I found that it doesn't reset itself unless you press the reset button - if you find yourself doing that, switch it to the cal/distance settings - then only the timer (it has a start/stop timer feature!) is affected - distance, calories and steps aren't reset.

Just some corroborating evidence I copied from hairfacts.com :
NOTE: Finally Free is a "transdermal" device.

By the end of 1998, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had finally stated that electric tweezers had produced no statistically significant data indicating the devices could perform permanent hair removal.

In 1999, the FDA stated that they had not evaluated claims made by these "transdermal" devices and that they were not allowed to make claims of permanent hair removal.

DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!!! It doesn't work. Not even a little. I bought it along with two of the large refill packets which I used on my face (upper lip and chin) over a four month period as per instructions. There was NO noticable difference in the number of hairs OR coarseness. In other words, my money and time was completely wasted. It definitely was too good to be true. Instead, spend your money on lazer treatments (expect at least 4 treatments)- much more expensive but it is the only thing (besides electrolysis which takes many, many, many more treatments) that works.

Yikes! I'll wear slacks forever before putting my skin through this painful and useless process.

Rather than removing hair it merely irritated the skin around the hair. Needless to say wasting my time and money also irritated me.

European women don't even think about body hair removal. Mama mias know best.

I had to write in and share my displeasure at this product as well. Like the other reviewers, I also received my watch with a dead battery and had to pay an additional $5 dollars to get the thing to even work. Additionally, changing the battery is a wicked chore since you have to take the entire watch almost completely apart. The instruction manual is VERY difficult to understand! I'm currently shopping for a heart rate monitor for my wife and this time I must say that I will definately choose the POLAR product instead.

This HRM is a complete waste of money... well, unless you're educated in deciphering hieroglyphics and don't mind buying previously opened products. The instruction manual is a joke (hence the comment), the included batteries are dead (another $5 purchase just to get it to work), and getting everything set up requires the intuitive guile of MacGyver- not to mention tools found only at a watch repair shop (you need to remove the wrist bands to get to the battery).
Right now Amazon is having a special on the Polar M71ti- which has a few less features and a more advanced fitness purpose, but comes from a more respected company. Think about it this way, a Yugo and a Mercedes are both cars, but which one would you rather go the distance with?
And now the Mercedes is now on sale for roughly the same price as that iniquitous econobox (about $10 more because of CA sales tax); not to mention that this Oregon Scientific model resembles something out of a Yugoslavian industrial design center.
Go with the Polar, and as a bonus, it looks great- just like you will after a few months of using it.

The name of this item SHOULD give it's purpose away. It TRAINS you to lower and RAISE your heart rate artificially by such means as modern "must haves" like a HRM. that just don't work well. And come with lousy instructions. And battery with no shelf life
By the way, DESPITE it's shortcomings, this item is very accurate. The lady next door pointed out to me when she saw my Oregon Scientific HR318 Trainer Pro Heart Rate Monitor on my wrist that when the screen goes blank, you have actually EXPIRED. At least the paramedics pointed that out to be the case with her husband who had a major coronary. I'm just pointing out the accuracy of the item not a cause and effect.
I'm no M'cedes owner but doesn't the 500 series come with a HRM's for the whole family as standard equipment?
I can't believe how fickled this audience is. I have reported the same problems as other reported and it seems I'm being chastised for it.