So far 10 replies and no one has actually said how much it cost. Come on, spill, how much did you pay?
Personally, I pay about $10/year for razors. This is without making any particular effort to buy cheap razors. So, if you start buying your own razors at 18 and stop at 65, you're looking at $470 over a lifetime. The total cost of laser hair removal would have to be less than that to justify it from a financial perspective. (Actually, even less because of the present value of money.) Of course, most of us aren't 18, so if you're considering it at 30, it would have to be less than $350.
Other fuzzier factors also come into play: how much does it bother you to spend 2 minutes once or twice a week shaving, versus how much would it bother you to spend x minutes times 4 sessions in (however much) pain?
I got it done soon after it started to be offered as a service, so it was so long ago that I honestly don't remember. I also suspect that it cost more in the beginning than it does now. If I had to guess, I'd say it was $1500 for the 3 small areas that I got done. Again, to repeat what I said earlier--nothing mustachian about it. I wasn't using any razors on my chin, I was plucking with tweezers. But I was extremely embarrassed because they's seemingly pop up out of nowhere and I couldn't always see all of them until I was out somewhere. This was in my late 20's, and I had dark hair and fair skin. Also, I would often avoid doing activities that involved swimsuits due to the painful razor burn/ingrown hairs that I experienced after dealing with my bikini line. The growth was expanding outward/upward, and embarrassing as well. I didn't have as many dark hairs on my upper lip, but threw that in with my chin because the deal from the doc was pay for 2 areas, get the 3rd free. That much I do remember.
So, none of those areas need too much razor use at all, but your price for razors is extremely cheap. I use the triple men's razor blades and they must be made of gold for as much as they cost these days. I've tried cheaper ones, but they don't work as well, so make up for it with more swipes, exacerbating razor burn as well as using up the razor that much quicker. I've tried all the alternatives to shaving cream that have been mentioned here, with various rashes as a result.
So, my opinion is that it probably won't save you money (unless maybe if you're paying for waxing all the time), but it could save you a ton of aggravation, depending on the state of body hair you wish to remove. Just consider yourself lucky if you only need to shave twice a week in the summer. I only do that by wearing long pants half the days.
