Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

First, I have only been using the Tria for about 1 1/2 months. I bought this for my legs and other areas because I have very dark hair that grows at a lightning speed and I also get razor burn with more frequent shaving no matter how much I spend on quality razors and shaving gel. Anyways, I couldn't afford to get my legs done in a center so after doing a lot of research I decided to invest in a Tria. According to the instructions, you aren't supposed to see any results until at least the second month. To my surprise, I believe I am already seeing results. The hair seems to be growing in less dense and slower already. However it definitely is no where close to being hair-free yet. Tria instructions do state you wont see visible reduction until after 3 months and that you wont see permanent results until 8 months. So I am happy that after only 1 1/2 months I am noticing some improvement. So far, the pros are the amazingly low cost compared to going to a center (it would be thousands of dollars to get this done at a center) and it seems to be working so far. It is less painful to me than laser in an office. I immediately started using Tria on the highest setting on my legs. It is moderately painful for me, but for anyone who has done waxing, electrolysis, or laser already, it really isn't that bad. The negative side is that it really is time consuming for large areas like the legs. If you overlap like you're supposed to, it would take 3 charges to do 1 lower leg (sometimes I cheat and get 1 lower leg done in 2 charges). What happens is that after so many pulses the battery needs to be recharged. So because you have to treat the area every other week for the 1st three months, if you do a large area of your body, like the legs, expect to need to stick around home on those weekends and invest a lot of time into doing the Tria. It really takes the whole weekend plus say monday and tuesday after work to get my full legs and bikini done. However, its not like you're spending this entire amount of time doing tria. It takes about 20-30 minutes for each treatment and then 3 hours in between treatments to charge the battery. The other pro is that it is REALLY easy to use. It is pretty much fool proof. So far I am impressed, but unfortunately won't know 100% for sure until probably a few more months if the Tria really does provide permanent hair removal. However, because its been recommended by Good Housekeeping and countless other magazines, I am fairly confident that it will be worth it. UPDATE: 3/17/12: Well my Tria (first generation) died the other day. I had stopped using it for about a year because I got so tired of it. I tried using it for my legs, and although I did see some improvement, the laser head is just too small to do large areas. And the battery only lasted about 20 minutes of use on highest setting (which you need to do to make a difference) and then I had to charge it for 2-3 hours before I could use it again. So just doing my lower legs was a full weekend project. I ended up just getting so tired of it that I stopped using it for a year. Then I just recently started using it again for chin area, and the other day it died. I was hoping for at least one part of my body to be hair free from buying this thing (paid about $600 for it at the time) but no such luck. Although there are patches that are less hairy on my legs, I still have to shave just as much. I have purchased a Remington i-light pro because I could not deal anymore with using something that needs to be charged after 20 minutes of use. So far using the Remington is a lot easier because you can use it for like an hour at a time (at least!) but I don't know what the results will be yet. I would only advise getting a Tria for use on face, but for that price, you can probably get treatments at a salon, so overall probably not worth it. I downgraded my review to 2 stars, b/c it does work somewhat, but overall if it is just for use on really small areas, then I think it may not be financially worth it especially with all the pro laser hair removal deals I've seen on Groupon and Living Social (if you live in a major city). It is not really great obviously for your full body like they try to make you believe. Obviously the thing has died before I could even attempt getting rid of all leg hair with it, and I got so fed up with how time consuming it is for legs that I stopped using it for a while. Overall I'm really disapointed in the $$$ we spent on this, as well as the COUNTLESS hours of time I wasted. Hoping the Remington product I purchased will be better. Update to my review: in case I wasn't clear in the above post, I did use it as instructed for a very very very long time, thats all i did every weekend for months and months. it just didn't produce results that it promised, and overall was not worth it. Again, if this is something they want to market for small areas, then fine, but they should not be marketing this as something to use for your whole body, or even your legs. Too large of areas for such a tiny treatment head for a machine with such a short battery life. Also, to give you an update on my progress with the Remington I-light, I used it twice on my legs and then found out I was pregnant so I had to stop, BUT after only TWO treatments I noticed much more hair loss than the Tria and it was much faster to use. Since then however everything that has ever been treated (including professionally) has grown back in in spades due to my pregnancy. Just making the Tria seem an even bigger waste of time. After I have the baby in November I will be getting my Remington I-light up and running again and will update my review of that product. I still regret all those wasted weekends of Tria-ing! And I do like how the Remington only promises results for 6 months, that is much more honest, since in reality I have learned that even professional laser hair removal is NOT permanent....unless you are lucky. For the rest of us, it is something you need to keep up with, whether you do it at home or get it professionally done. And if you are like me and have to keep up with it, the Tria, given how time consuming it is, is not a great purchase to make. Take it or leave it.