They have different blades for long and short hair and they need practice. Some girls find they can't get a close enough shave and legs are still stubbly. But it even takes men some time to get used to an electric razor. So try to borrow one first to see how you get on before buying a electric shaver they are rather expensive just to keep in a drawer.

Plucking out individual hairs is usually reserved for eyebrows, hair on the upper lip and chin, or for removing the odd hair from around the nipples. But that apocryphal story about Princess Luciana Pignatelli being so bored one holiday that she removed the hairs from her legs one by one with tweezers, is in fact true. It's not true that plucking increases the growth of superfluous hair. It's a cheap if rather time consuming occupation and many women find that it serves the purpose very well.

Electrolysists are against it, however, saying that plucking stimulates the hair to grow again because every time you yank it out, blood flows in and nourishes the area. Certainly, it is easier to get quicker, better results with electrolysis on 'virgin' hair that has not been plucked, shaved or creamed away.

On the other hand, advocates of waxing (which is really wholesale plucking) say that eventually the root will give up the unequal struggle and go out of business. You can get evidence for both sides ... the dark coarse chin hair which seems to grow stronger than ever no matter how many times you pluck them out; and the coarse, thick, heavy growth on your legs which grow back sparsely after waxing.