I’ve been meaning to come back and write about my success story for quite some time, but I needed time away from the whole hair obsession to gain a more positive outlook on life. If you read through some of my past posts you will see I had a lot of negative experiences with hair removal, which often times left me angry, scared, doubtful, and depressed. But rather than have everyone skim through a million past posts (probably a lot of them consisting of my tantrums), I will give a summary of the events that led me to hairtell, which has not only been a great site for educational reasons but also for support.
Growing up, I had always been a bit more on the hairier side for a female, but I always coined that with the fact that my father is a hairy beast and I take on quite a few of his physical characteristics. As a teenager, I was always self conscious about my belly because I had a “not-so-happy” trail that I would shave every day. I was always so frustrated, because although it would leave the area smooth, my skin would be littered with shaving bumps. During my later teen years, I started noticing the hair on the sides of my face more. It was light in color and thickness, but it bothered me because it was long, so I started shaving the sides of my face along with the mustache that I started shaving in my younger teen years. It was a bothersome chore and I hated the rough feeling that would come in the next morning, but at that point, it wasn’t bad enough to where I was self conscious about it.
It wasn’t until my earlier twenties that I noticed a big change and that came around the time that I decided to get off of birth control. Within about six months, I noticed some dark, thick hairs coming in around the ball of my skin. Being the hair obsessed person that I was/am, I started shaving and tweezing the area every day. Every day I tweezed roughly 10 hairs or so and although it took care of the problem, it was slowly starting to make my face look a mess.
That’s when my family doctor had suggested laser hair removal and I did some brief research on it and decided to go that route. A little nervous about allowing a laser to touch my face, I started on body areas to get an idea of what it was like. Overall, I had my arms done a handful of times along with my armpits, bikini line, and my happy trail. After about the second body treatment, I decided to let the laser touch my face without any immediate negative reaction. My skin would look a bit sunburned for the day but I was in all my glory that I didn’t have to shave for weeks and my skin was starting to look beautiful because it wasn’t getting beat up every day by razors and tweezers. That glory ended after about the third facial treatment and I started noticing more hair and thicker hair on every spot the laser touched. Dark hairs were sprouting out underneath my chin and by my neck, where dark hair had never been before! It wasn’t until after the fact that I’d discovered about laser stimulated hair growth and by that time, it was too late to turn back time. On the plus side, it worked wonderfully to reduce the amount of body hair on the other areas I had done. I no longer had a “not-so-happy” trail, which was wonderful, but I was “not-so-happy” about walking around with a prepubescent like teenage boy beard.
Not long after, I found hairtell and at first started lurking the forums to gain a better understanding of electrolysis, because I wanted to get rid of the carpet on my face. I started out with treatments with a local electrologist and I went to her for about a total of three months. In the beginning, the skin reactions were tolerable and redness would last about two days without scabbing. Gradually, my skin reactions worsened with each treatment although my aftercare remained the same. Although I’m not one that likes to bash another person, I overall didn’t care for my electrologists attitude and I began to doubt her work, but I stopped treatment a bit too late because the last treatment left me with bloody spots and weeping skin, which eventually left hyperpigmentation marks all over the treated area. After that, I had tried to pamper my skin into good health for a few weeks, but a bit of anxiety began to settle in when I noticed the discoloration was not fading and my overall skin texture wasn’t looking the same and I ended up creating more damage by using skin lightening creams that inflamed and infected the area, damaging the skin barrier and leaving my skin very dry.
But the biggest down fall, was that the same amount of hair was still there from when I had my first electrolysis treatment and I began feeling angry. Once my skin started settling down, I started my search for a new electrologist within my state and I went to a handful of people, all of whom were nice and professional. Some who worked out of their home and some who worked within a business building. But after many months of going every week or two and receiving a clearance each time, I was beginning to feel defeated because I was showing minimal to no progress and my skin had already been through so much that it couldn’t tolerate much at all and healing would take forever. I looked ridiculous, often cried myself to sleep, and hid behind coats of makeup and turtleneck shirts, in attempts to hide the problem and look somewhat normal.
I finally decided to give this hair removal journey one last shot and decided to make the commute to one of the electrologists on this board to see if I could find any success with their treatments. I chose to travel down to Ohio to see Dee, mostly because she was close and also because she appeared knowledgeable and caring about her work. I have to admit that I was quite doubtful in the beginning, but also determined to give it one last try. With the first treatment, she tested different areas with different settings and needles and had me report back to her with which area reacted the best. I won’t lie, the first treatment did not turn out pretty, but I expected that considering my skin had been through a lot and wasn’t in the healthiest condition either. We didn’t give up and we soon came to discover that blend was the key to saving me from a lot of grief. I still left with a bit of a reaction that lasted for a few days, but it was healing so much better and much more tolerable. But it wasn’t the treatment reaction that I was stunned with, it was the results I started seeing after only the second or third clearance. I don’t have any pictures to report the progress, but the machine she used reports the time and number of insertions and the numbers definitely reveal a good idea of the progress, so I will share.
November 12, 2011 – Treatment time 157 minutes, 1339 insertions
December 3, 2011 – Treatment time 139 minutes, 751 insertions
January 14, 2012 – Treatment time 173 minutes, 797 insertions
February 25, 2012 – Treatment time 159 minutes, 575 insertions
Now, these numbers aren’t completely accurate for just one area, because with the last few treatments extra time was added to the upper lip and eyebrow area. I tried to save all of my receipts but I can’t remember if I stopped after four or five treatments, but when I did stop, I did have a handful of dark hairs coming through that were bothersome, but I wanted to give my skin a long break along with myself a long break from the whole hair obsession. Since then, the handful of hairs that are left are about the same. If new hairs have started emerging, I have not been able to visually notice them. I can now confidently say that I believe electrolysis works. My hair removal journey has been a difficult and doubtful one, but it took a long time, patience, and finding the right person to get me to a more comfortable place in life. Thank you, Dee!
I’m sorry it took me so long to report back, but the New Year has brought me some ambition to start fresh. I do plan on eradicating those lasting bothersome hairs soon and I hope to be more active on the board again too, but in a more positive light. Also, for those that have suffered from any negative skin reactions, any areas that appeared discolored and/or questionable pitting from the beginning has filled in and lightened with a lot of time and patience. And as many people have stressed on this board, which I didn’t always follow, less is definitely more. I’ve discovered that even lotion can be damaging to the skin if used too much. But anyways, before this post turns into a book, I want to wish everyone luck on their journey and also I hope that my story provides some hope for those in search of it out there.
Love,
Chewy
P.S. If I get a chance I will try to post a picture soon of how the area looks now. The remaining hairs you will likely not be able to see, but to give an idea of how well my skin has cleared up.
