Electrolysis/Laser Feet, opinion - pic attached

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#121

the following is an excerpt from a blog I had here on hairtell when I did my removal, called “seeing the forest for the trees”

I want you to note, what I’m saying in this blog, the timings are particularly relevant.

So who turned off the switch?

Alright, to be fair, I had noted reductions in the amount of hair for quite some time.It was slow, imperceptable, but while it used to take me week to get around to all the areas on my face with daily work, it started to take less and less over the last couple months. finally culminating ain total clearance of my working areas in about an hour.And I started to notice tombstones. Lots of them. In fact I am still getting lots of them. Little blackhead like things that if squeezed will pop out a small piece of partial hair. I’ve noticed them for a while but especially recently there has been a lot of them.
So this has been a busy week. I was helping nightfrost to build a new computer ( broke the cpu too, I didnt need that expense!) and I had a couple of my regular transgirls in for treatment. . As a result I didnt get to treat myself in about a week and a half.Last night I look in the mirror expecting the worst.Nope! Maybe at best a dozen spread out hairs that will tke no more than 10 minutes to treat. It’s as if someone turned off a switch and the hairs stopped growing.
Now I’m confused. Yes I had heard of tombstones but didnt immediately identify them as such. But what bothers me? The TIMING. I finally got my memory card for my machine the first week of October. That’s when I started treating, and even then I did my arm only for a week or so. So lets count…October, November , December, January , February, March. Six months! From all the reading I do, and all the advice given on these forums, I did in no way expect to reach this point in treatment for at LEAST a year.Six months doesn�t sound reasonable. How is it that a rank amateur, can somehow break the laws of hair growth, and reach a point in treatment that is so near completion, in half the time it takes a professional to treat a client???

#122

I see, so that actually means the beard has an EXTREMELY low amount of hairs showing up at any time, much less than the body (since I’m able to see a reduction after 1,5 month on my chest, unlike the face). Always had a feeling it was low, but never thought it’d be THAT low… very eye opening!

Now onto the ‘‘2 clearance on a male beard’’ example by Josefa. Finally found the damn post: http://www.hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/109925/Results_of_2_clearances_in_man.html

The first full clearance throughout the beard, upper and lower lip, ears, and neck from the base to the chin (March 2012) took 28 hours, divided into 1, 2 or sometimes 3 hours a day for a period of two weeks. The third week of his stay in Spain served to allow the skin to recover, as it went, and to work in other hidden areas. The guy returned home without anyone noticing that something had happened.

The second full clearance (October 2012) took about 18 hours to re-clean the same areas as the first time. Only this time, my client had not shaved for over a month (just trimmed)

A year later (October 2013), we had to wait a week to take photographs in order to see the remain hairs.

I do not know what you mean by “downtime”. I think the lapse of time between the first and second clearance (7 months) is a fairly reasonable time. [/quote]

Ok so, few hours a day for 2 weeks, 28h to remove the entire beard, makes sense. What I don’t get is how is it possible to get a reduction of 30% a year later (28h vs 18h) with just that one sweep?

Where are the new hairs like any electro treatment (or the tweezing experiment) demonstrates? New hairs pop and the same hair density is observed after only a month, least on my own face!

So how could there be this much of a reduction? Is this client a special case where most of the hair was showing up at that specific time (just like the foot example here)?

Hopefully you see why I find this a little contradicting! I’M NOT ACCUSING ANYONE OF LYING, I JUST WANNA UNDERSTAND CORRECTLY.

#123

For example, if 50% of the hairs were visible on the beard just before the first clearance, the other half (50%) would’ve been hidden, correct?

Following that logic, if she indeed killed all of those hairs, it would take THE SAME AMOUNT OF TIME (28h) to kill the remaining that were hidden, regardless of timing or clearances.

That seems to be the case if we look at her treatment time, 28h (1st clearance) versus 18h + 9h = 27h (2nd + 3rd clearance like she said it would take); about the same amount for both halves.

Wouldn’t that also mean that for this example, only half of the hair was hidden at any given time on the beard? From what we just discussed, I thought it was much higher…

That would also mean that if I see about the same density of hair on my face after an electro treatment (or my tweezing experiment) after a month, well… This is where things don’t seem to add up. I thought it could be my perception of hair density that was the issue, but I just compared my before/after pictures to be sure and it’s not.

#124

My brain hurts from trying to read and understand all that.

so, the first thing I have to tell you, is that none of the hair cycles for any of the hairs are “synched up”. You’ll never get two follicles to show hairs at precisely the same time. And there is no way to measure the cycles of an individual hair follicle.I’s all statistics based on results. This is the biggest problem with your “number crunching”
I can obtain statistics from my machine on the number of hairs treated and settings used, and a million other things, but i generally dont bother. Why? Because I’m only there to kill hair!Not enough is known about the exact nature and timing of hair growth cycles.
for any given result, ( including Josepha’s) there a dozen or more ways to interpret that result.And they will all come up with different answers.
One thing Michael has said, for many years, is the following phrase:
"Forget about it! " and I would agree with that advice. It’s not worth trying to psychoanalyse the process to that extent.
In fact the only thing that truly is important here is …drumroll please…Total Treatment Time! Can a practitioner deliver what they say they can and in what amount of treatment time. The timing and length of thoseindividual treatments, frankly is immaterial.The total Treatment time, is material.
Understanding the process and timing of hair cycles can drive you to drink ( in fact, I think I’ll have one ! And I never drink!) but the best you can get from that is to plan your treatments accordingly. As electrologists we also use this as a tool to help clients budget for hair removal.
But figuring out who can kill hairs in the least number of clearances, and why, is not all that importnat in the grand scheme on things.You have to keep the bigger picture in mind (The total treatment time).

Just get the dang hair off sir!

#125

Smiles here.

I looked at the beard example that was recently shown here (Josefa’s client). I would categorize this as a very sparse beard (with the customary protocol and predictions). My nephew Eric’s beard is similarly sparse, and I could probably remove the entire thing (TTT) in … drum-roll … 25 hours. Other beards? Right to the 100 hour mark and beyond. 'CAUSE IT’S THICKER!

I have treated men in the same age and ethnic group. One man (mid-20s) presented more than 80% of his back hairs in anagen. Another guy (same age) presented almost 90% in telogen. Neither had ever shaved the area. But if they had it would have looked insanely different. (Seana will understand this point.)

Nobody is going to figure this out as an absolute. The bean-counters, hairs-per-minute people? … All of this attempted calculation is silly and absolutely ludicrous to somebody who’s been doing this shit for 40 years. I could do an hour lecture on variables that would blow any attempt to “calculate” right to hell.

Can’t spend your time on this Seana … get to the REALLY important stuff like “brown spots,” swollen lips and … gulp … scabs! Oh yeah, creams too.

#126

There is only one issue: What has to be done to permanently disable a hair follicle the FIRST time! Once that’s settled it’s just a matter of zapping them until they’re gone.

Okay, I have been a bit hard on you, and I realize you have nothing else to go on except what you can see and count. You can’t speak to operator skill. However, operator skill is the ONLY issue and the only reason there is such an appalling difference in results.

I know it, Josefa/Dee/Seana knows it and so do half of us out there in “Zap-land.” The difference in operator skill is abysmal and will probably not change any time soon.

What can a client do? Learn to ask the right questions. Counting hairs, figuring how many clearances, etc., everything that you have been sweating, are futile and meaningless. Your “million dollar question,” poised as it is, has no value. Maybe $1.00? You’re on the wrong track.

I’m OCD and so is Seana, but DAMN you have taken this to new heights!

#127

I think I pulled that 30% reduction out of nowhere, not sure where it came from, but the rest was well calculated though (at least I hope so).

To simplify my math novel up there, if anyone is still reading, the main question was how 2 clearances had such a great impact in hair reduction on Josefa’s client when 2 clearances on my beard has barely no effect (I’m sure it has however it’s not really visible). The difference is staggering.

I guess the answer is simply ‘‘operator’s skill’’, but I thought maybe hidden hairs percentages or a few other factors could be also taken from that example.

Out of curiosity, is my beard similarly sparse too?

[Album] Imgur

[Album] Imgur

P.S. Believe it or not Michael, but I’d rather MAKE all electrologists learn all this stuff than having to ‘‘shop’’ myself by asking the right questions, if that makes any sense. I know it’s completely ridiculous, delusional and unrealistic but it’s sadly a very strong feeling that can rarely be tamed. ‘‘Thinking about other people’’ and ‘‘trying to make the world a better place’’ is always at the back of my mind, and honestly it has caused me more harm than good over the years. When I push so much, it’s not only for myself, but mostly for everyone to understand it too (at least that’s how my mind sees it), but I guess in reality I just sound way too ‘‘OCD’’ and/or insane.

#128

You know what the first thing I notice in that picture is?

The cheeks! And can you guess why? because they 100% prove beyond the shadow of a doubt, that your electrologist who was working on you was killing hair.
Looking at your beard, it looks thinned out in places, the hairs are course ( what I recently referred to as my “gravy” but if you look at the cheeks they are almost bare. a few sparse hairs, that’s it. They didnt start out that way did they? Would you care to take a guess as to why they seem to have done so well?

The cheeks have the fewest number of hair growth cycles on the face, the chin, the most.If your electrologist was not killing hair ( and in a serious way too) then these would not look like this! So when we are doing full clearances on the face, the cheeks are the FIRST area we see progress.

Your beard DOES in fact look thinned out whether from treatment or young age ( they thicken and get denser as you get older, sorry!). If you look carefully there are small “gaps” where there seems to be no hair growing. They didnt start out like that either.

In quebec, as in ontario, there is no “licensing” of electrologists. So unfortunately you cant “make” all the electrologists do …anything. They and they alone can make the decision to learn more.

I can understandyour desire to “help other people” in fact, it’s one of the major reasons I took up electrology. I was convinced I wasnt the only person with this problem , and I wasnt. But let me tell you a secret about that, you have to keep the " big picture" in mind at the same time.
As I right this, my autistic son , who I love more than anything in the world, is playing a game of 2048 a few feet from me. He hasnt spent a night in my home since march until last night. He was taken from my home because I was working too much, trying to run a business , support my family . That is the “big picture” that I was missing.The really important bit, was MY TIME. He’s leaving in about 30 minutes and I wont see him again until tues. I dont intend to waste another second of this precious time on this matter.

That passion, that wanting to help others, is the hardest thing to instill in anyone. It is one of the reasons I pegged you as someone likely to take up this profession, and do so with great passion. It’s true I am in fact looking for another electrologist for my clinic eventually. The best fit, is someone who has that passion. But dont worry about it I am not recruiting you. Just noting to you that that passion to help others, to excel at this very difficult profession, is the hardest thing to find.When it pops up (every few years) you have to nurture it and gently nudge it in the right direction. Just as you cant make “all electrologist learn this stuff” we cant make you do it either.

Seana

#129

I’d say the cheeks have more “cycles” than the chin and, in my experience, the chin is first to “go” and cheeks/lower neck/upper lip, the last. Never mind, we are both looking at good work. Wanting to “uplift/educate” the entire profession? Humm, interesting concept … can’t speak to that … I know nothing about it. (I have a Hinkel quote on this; too “rich” to share?)

#130

alright, then “why” is this always the first area completdd, across all my cases? The chin is always the first one started, and the last to finish. Very consistently.And they are generally half the time investment ( despite more surface area) that the chin is.
I’m not saying you’re wron, just that the results you are stating are not commencerate with my experience. And there
s NOTHING wrong with that ( many ways to interpret results each coming out with a different “true” answer).

Seana

#131

According to my calculations, if we look at the time factor used in each clearance, the reduction that occurred in the first clearing was 35.8%. Does this mean that 64.2% of the hairs were hidden?

Since this first clearance occurred about 2 weeks after the last shave. And since this time frame is insufficient for most of the telogenic hairs (20% according to some experts in trichology) to be visible / treatable, it seems plausible that more than 60% of the hairs of this male beard were not present at the beginning of the treatments.

#132

That pic was taken just before my first real clearance on that side. I wanted to see how long it would take to clear the area similar to the other side that had previously been done weekly over 8 months, but now… in a short window of time (full clearance in the same week then wait months to see the regrowth, then another full clearance etc, instead of weekly bit by bit).

I won’t go into too much detail but the sideburns have a few zaps on them (from different electrologists), and the cheeks even less. I agree that some treatments probably have slightly reduced the density there; I never said it wasn’t working! My ‘’obsession’’ from the start has always been about efficiency.

However I’d like to point out that my beard was always relatively dense on the bottom (neck, chin), but the cheeks and top sides have always looked similarly sparse like that (kinda weird, I know).

That said, this is where the regrowth is at now, 2 months after the the full clearance (it took 4h):

https://imgur.com/a/NJkCuJS (treatment was on the left of that yellow line)

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I don’t see much of a visible difference, but obviously I’m sure several hairs were effectively killed. The difference with Josefa’s example was simply the amount of reduction (high for her vs low for me). Her full clearances took 28h, then 18h, then probably 9h to finish off as she estimated.

On my side, it will be 4h, then 3h50, 3h40, 3h30, etc for that area, which I always thought was the norm. If we did the entire face, I think it would take 20 something hours too for a full clearance, then 19h, 18h, 17h, etc. And I know all this because the other side of my face was done by the same electrologist (over 8 months), so I’d say the estimates are pretty realistic.

P.S. Seana, I agree with the ‘‘big picture’’, I actually HATE those feelings of ‘‘having to help people’’ and to always think about them, like you sometimes I’m sure it has caused more harm than good. Sadly those feelings are always present even if we don’t want them to be, and this isn’t PsychoTell so let’s not even try to get into it lol.

#133

According to my calculations, if we look at the time factor used in each clearance, the reduction that occurred in the first clearing was 35.8%. Does this mean that 64.2% of the hairs were hidden?

Since this first clearance occurred about 2 weeks after the last shave. And since this time frame is insufficient for most of the telogenic hairs (20% according to some experts in trichology) to be visible / treatable, it seems plausible that more than 60% of the hairs of this male beard were not present at the beginning of the treatments.

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Probably, it makes sense! This also assumes that your kill rate is somewhere close to 100%, and the same speed and settings were used throughout all treatments. I’m VERY close to being satisfied with all the answers in this thread (thank you everyone, it’s been though but we got there lol), I guess the remaining step to reach complete fulfillment and understanding would be to experience it myself. Now that I think about all this math and try to read my posts again, this quote from Seana comes to mind:

LOL, I TYPE SO MUCH!

#134

Drama and arguments aside, I’m a young(ish) hopeful waiting for my financial situation to change so I can go to school and start myself. I don’t post a lot but I have quietly read this forum for years and just want to say how much I appreciate all of you taking the time to be here educating me.

#135

mmm well that’s one of the nice things about electrolysis deenglow. Though it can cost a few dollars to get certified, you can learn all you can ahead and practise practise practise .I’ve listed off a bunch of reading material lately, and just about all of it can be had on the cheap.Even epilators to practise with are getting to be less expensive used.Pretty much exactly what I’ve suggested to zapmyface can be used as resources for anyone to learn. Knowing all you can can help you sail though electrolysis school and in your career too and all it really costs you, is your effort. When you do run into questions, hairtell is a pretty good sounding board to get advice from experts.

#136

I’ve got plenty of my own body hair I’d love to practice on and asked some different companies selling refurb units about prices and they never get back to me. Currently torn between countries (in the us now, and uk, which is home) and sitting on my hands while my dad is in hospice. If I was able to find an instantron for relatively cheap here in the us does anyone suppose I’d be able to just pack it in a suitcase and swap out a cord?

#137

I’ll ask skip Mahler if the instantrons have switchable power upply.They likely do. I know apilus mostly do ( at leasst both models I own do) and thye can be had inexpensively on kijiji quebec ( a few hundren bucks to aaround 2000) .

The problem with Instantrons ( as much as I love them) is that in general, practioners will let you have them from their cold dead hands! So they dont tend to come up used nearly as often.

#138

Just heard from Skip ( gosh he’s quick to get back to me) :

Yes, she would be able to switch back and forth between 110 and 220 voltage. We do the service for $100 extra

#139

Very cool. I’ve watched them in use on YouTube but I’ve only had an apilus platinum used on me which was surprisingly pretty painful. When he says “do the service” does he mean I’d have to ship it off?

#140

I dont know.Perhaps youshould email instantron directly? I’m certain Skip will answer you.