Electrolysis - "You have to be patient"

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#1

A lesson in patience

PCOS case:

Before first session. Start date: 6/12/2013.

First full clearance was obtained July 10, 2013.
First Clearance took 6 hours and 26 minutes and required 3,941 insertions.

2 Clearance obtained November 1, 2013

12 hours and 47 minutes so far
7,975 insertions total to date

#3 Clearance obtained November 15, 2013
14 hours and 14 minutes to date
8,767 insertions to date

#4 Clearance obtained December 20, 2013
15 hours and 31 minutes invested so far
9,482 insertions accomplished so far

Here are her pictures before the 4th clearance:

Immediately after 4th Clearance. Tea tree oil and cold aloe vera gel was applied. Totally cleared in 77 minutes for the 4th clearance.

Picture with auto- enhancer enabled:

Same pose with auto enhancer disabled on the IPhone

15 hours 31 minutes invested to date
9,482 insertions accomplished
Amount spent to date: $1,163.75

I will do another clearance in one month. Things are getting easier for her. She cried many tears in the beginning, but she now knows that much good has been accomplished in the last 6 months. The next 6 months will be easier and will show a 95% removal result. A few months after that, she will be finished.

This is what I mean when I constantly say that you have got to be patient. Electrolysis works, but with all honesty, the first six months are not easy.

Electrolysis: Estimates of Time for Various Areas of the Body
#2

Dee,
That chin looks like it recieved a lot more treatment than the few visible hairs. Was there a lot of finer hairs that got washed out by the flash in the photo’s?

Seana

#3

Brilliant work, as always Dee.

Thanks so much for posting your photos. Clients love to see the real workings of this procedure … and the successes of electrolysis.

BRAVO!

The “tears of joy” DO come later on … and these are good ones too!

#4

She has fine hairs, but not many. It is hard to see the fine hairs with my surgical magnification , so that means they are inconsequential. On her side burn area, she has some accelerated hair, but it looks natural compared to what she had before.

In this picture, you can see those sideburn hairs better:

That goopy stuff is cold aloe on her chin and neck.

The chin and neck were mostly void of vellus hair.

I’m sorry Seana, I didn’t understand your first sentence, so I can’t comment. If you wish to re-phrase that, maybe that will help my tired mind to comprehend better.

Thanks for your kind compliments, Michael. Coming from you, that means a lot. I love cases like this. These PCOS clients and my dear transwomen are most grateful for the help. They are devastated by their beards as anyone can imagine by seeing the pictures.

#5

This is an excellent example of the progress of treatment in skilled hands. Great work and documentation Dee.

#6

Wow Dee that looks amazing! Good on you! As you know I am new to this whole process, so can you please clarify to me what one means when they say clearance? Cause right now I go in weakly for sessions, and have been for the last 4 weeks, but have never had a full clearance like that. How come this lady came in after a few months in relation to her 1st and 2nd treatment? What does a full clearance require?

#7

Haylo,

I like to clear hair each time a person comes in for a session. That means, if I see bothersome hair, any hair that is not short, thin and light in color, it goes! People need relief and this client didn’t have to shave for almost three weeks before the next group of hairs came through.

She shaves in between treatments, which is fine with me. Either way, she will be 95% finished 12 months after she started. Looking at her pre-electrolysis picture, she said that investing 15 hours and a little over a thousand dollars has been sooooooo worth it for what she is seeing now.

#8

Thanks for the response dee. Another quick question why is it that I find within a week I get growth again, just in time for the next appointment, however others find they can go 3 weeks as in your clients case without experiencing growth.

#9

Dee, I just meant that it looked like more electrolysis had been performed than was warranted by the visible hair, and reasoned that there was likely a fair bit that was visible to the electrologist ( you) but not to the camera, that’s all . From your answer, that appears to be the case. Thanks! I’m having trouble seeing at the moment ( even normal stuff) as I seem to have misplaced my glasses for a few days. It’s got me quite out of sorts.

I COMPLETELY agree with the method of getting the most visible hairs first. It’s what I do as well.

Seana

#10

I had two emails about the “excessive redness” in Dee Dee’s photo … but, it’s ALL a matter of the digital cameras we all use. In nearly all cases, these wonderful cameras boost the color saturation WAY beyond realistic levels. This is even more excessive when there is predominantly one color in the photo (in this case the reds were boosted).

I absolutely know that NO electrolysis treatment EVER looks as florid as Dee Dee’s original photo! Never!

What’s I’ve done here is to tone-down the “saturation,” and fiddle with the “mid-tones.” I’m guessing that this newer photo is probably a much better version of what the skin actually looked like after Dee Dee’s treatment.

(BTW, Dee Dee is “the real deal!” And brave too! YEP!)

#11

Tip: If you can get a blue, or dark blue, background … the reds usually come out looking more realistic.

Notice that in most of my photos, the patient is standing in front of a “mostly blue” painting. My walls are very pale green, so there is more for the camera to “get right.”

If you look at Dee Dee’s first photo (black background), the client looks pretty normal. The very next photo, the camera boosted the yellows (probably from some background color ?).

#12

I know how difficult it is to accurately capture skin tone and hair density on photo. I don’t know about professional DSLR photography, but my 2 Canon point and shoot camera $300 range always produce different looking photos. Sometimes I come out looking white like a Norwegian and sometimes I look Latino/Middle Eastern… Warm halogen lighting v. cool florescent lighting creates totally different skin tones in addition to other factors.

#13

I used an IPhone 5 camera. I just checked and found that I had the auto enhancer on when I took the photo. When I disabled the auto enhancer, this is what it looks like:

I will change that in the post above as well. Indeed, she didn’t look that red and I didn’t know why the picture looked different than reality. The halogen light is shining down on the area, too. Hmmm. Thanks all for helping me out. I might be able to pull more details about the picture from Exit wizard if anyone is interested.

#14

Thanks Michael for the photo tips. I need all the help I can get!

#15

On the auto- enhanced photo here is the information:

Translated EXIF
Scroll Down ↓ ↓ ↓

ColorSpace: sRGB
ComponentsConfiguration: YCbCr
ExifVersion: 2.2.1
FlashPixVersion: 1.0
PixelXDimension: 1024
PixelYDimension: 768
SceneCaptureType: Standard
Orientation: Up
ResolutionUnit: Inches
XResolution: 72
YResolution: 72
PixelWidth: 1024
PixelHeight: 768
FileSize: 146.936 kB
(file) DateTime: 2013:12:20 20:10:13

Does this mean anything to anybody about the color?

#16

Were you tweezing? Are you seeing full bulbs when the hairs are treated?

In a case like this, my client experiences the new group of hair coming forth in about two to three weeks. We treat at four weeks because she doesn’t want to clip or shave the new hairs cycling in.

#17

Is there a picture of the client prior to latest treatment? Wasn’t sure if that was posted. Can’t see some of the pix.

#18

Yes, here it is:

This was taken 12/20/2013