Depilatory products have been used for hair removal for several hundred years.  TRI Princeton offers a method for testing the efficacy of these products for hair removal through a fully customizable skin-like model with embedded hair fibers.

The skin model consists of fully cured, 8 mm thick silicone.  Hairs are embedded individually using a punch needle technique with 6.34 mm of exposed hair left showing, although the exact length of exposed hair can be adjusted for consumer needs.  The skin models are heated at 40 degrees elsius for 1 hour to mimic natural body heat before application of a depilatory product.  After product removal, the number of lost hairs is recorded, including partial losses.

This model allows for the repeated testing of depilatory products without the need for human subjects. It can be customized by skin model size, hair density, hair length, and product application/removal.