I’m researching hair removal and the sheer amount of options as well as the range in price just seems daunting. Why are there $30 devices and also $300 devices? And why would people chose to pay more for a single session than the device costs on its own?
I haven’t looked into it closely but here’s what I’d suggest:
Get yourself some proper protective glasses to ensure that you don’t damage your vision.
Note that IPL works better the darker the hair and the fairer the skin. Set your expectations accordingly.
There’s probably plenty of junk brand IPL devices that don’t actually emit enough light in the right spectrum to do much/anything at all. Avoid those generic brands.
My guess is that domestic IPL devices aren’t as powerful as what a professional as access to. There’s also a degree of skill that they bring to the equation. They’re almost certainly going to be more efficient and probably more effective than a home IPL job. Just like how you can style your hair at home (and you can even do a really good job of it too) most people go to hairdressers because they are more skilled, it’s much less effort, the hairdresser has access to all the right tools for the job, and the results are consistent.
But honestly, if you want semi-permanent hair removal then I don’t see a good reason not to do it at home.