Anything that affects your hormones can affect your hair growth, but normal changes such as puberty, menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause, or glandular irregularities such as those affecting the thyroid or ovaries. Conditions such as anorexia, can temporarily cause hormonal changes. Also, certain medications and birth control pills can alter the hormonal balance resulting in superfluous hair. Some women are fine hormonally but are simply genetically predisposed to grow hair.

Unfortunately we live in a culture that determines for us what is considered "feminine" and what is not, and extra facial and body hair are not seen as feminine. Most of us unconsciously internalize these artificial norms, and as a result of having unwanted hair we may feel unfeminine and bad about ourselves. This can be a very personal and embarrassing problem. And we don't want anyone to know and so we resort to temporary methods of hair removal. Examples are:

• Cutting and Shaving - Hairs are naturally thicker at the base and then taper towards the ends. These methods cut off the tapered ends so the thicker portion of hair will continue to grow out resulting in a stiffer stubble, or may become ingrown with skin irritation.
• Depilatories - These dissolve the hair chemically and just as in shaving, leave a stubble and often irritate the skin.
• Bleaching - This does not remove the hair but rather lightens it. It can make the hair stiffen and reflect light, thus making the hair more obvious.
• Tweezing and Waxing - The hair is plucked out either individually (tweezers) or en mass (waxing). These methods distort the hair follicles and disrupt the hair growth cycle, thus exacerbating the problem by strengthening the hairs and making them grow faster, darker, and coarser.
• Laser - This can be costly and besides not being permanent, laser does not work on lighter pigmented hairs or hairs on darker skin.
• Home Machines - These are inferior devices which are ineffective. It is very awkward to work on oneself, especially so when one untrained to begin with.

Myths

• Too Costly - Electrolysis is surprisingly affordable. Rates go by time intervals. It takes only a second or two to remove a hair and so quite a few hairs can be removed in a short amount of time.
• Too Painful - Most people tolerate the process quite well. Some areas are more sensitive than others. Mild topical anesthetics may be applied to lesson the sensation.