A hand-held depilating device capable of masking the pain of plucking the hairs. A plucking head has a plurality of pinching elements which arrange along a horizontal axis in a closely adjacent relation and are driven to close and open gaps between the pinching elements for pinching the hairs between the adjacent elements and release the hairs therefrom. A cycler or turning mechanism is included to cyclically move the plucking head in a direction crossing with the horizontal axis so as to define, in combination with the movement of closing and opening the pinching elements, repeated depilating cycles of introducing the hairs between the adjacent pinching elements, pinching the hairs therebetween, plucking the hairs from the skin, and releasing the hairs from between the pinching elements. Mounted to the top of the housing adjacent to the plucking head is a simulator which applies stimuli to the skin independently of the plucking head. The device includes a synchronous mechanism for synchronizing a timing of applying the stimuli with the depilating cycle. Thus, the stimuli can be made at an optimum timing or timings within the depilating cycle, thereby masking the hair plucking pain.