Sometimes it just plain sucks to be a girl

So, the whole Hair Removal thing has me in a bit of a quandary lately. You would think, at 35 years old, that I would have figured it out by now. Not so much.

First, I go swimming at least twice a week and am getting very tired of removing that pesky bit of hair that needs to be tamed EVERY SINGLE TIME I go to the pool. A while back I bought a cordless "trimmer" that seems to take care of this area pretty well. Except for those times that I knick my skin (ouch!) and then instead of having embarrassing hair down there, I now have a tiny but obvious scab. I know, real attractive.

So, against my better judgment, I decided to buy one of those Epilady style hair removers. It's a knockoff brand from Walmart which was probably my second mistake. I dutifully read all of the instructions before letting the thing touch my skin. Here's an excerpt from the instruction booklet .....

*The Emjol Sin Dolor is an amazing painless epilator that removes hair from the root leaving your skin smooth for up to 6 weeks. The epilation head features 21 (!) tweezers that quickly and comfortably removes hair on all your sensitive areas including individual facial hairs on the upper lip and chin, legs, bikini line and underarms.

I'm not sure who tested these out and filled in the space that said "painless", but the small quarter-sized area that I tested it on my leg feels like it's on fire. I can't even imagine trying to use this thing anywhere in the vicinity of my crotch. I'm not sure why I thought this thing would work. It's like a little torture device with a hot pink plastic casing.

My question is: Have any of you tried electrolysis as a permanent option to this rather annoying chore? If so, what was your experience?