I have been having electrolysis on my chest and just about all that’s left are very fine white hairs. They are almost impossible to see when they are a few mm long. If I let them grow out they itch and eventually are visible. My electrologist says she can see them just fine. Is there any thing I can do to make them more visible so they are more easily targeted? I want them all gone!I have a nice dark suntan now so that should help make the (vellus) white hairs more visible. I was wondering if there were any other tricks of the trade to make them more visible to expedite treatment. I’m letting them grow longer to see if that makes them more visible.It is definitely true that the more hair you have removed, the more you notice what little bit is left. But…the end is in sight!RJC2001
Hi there RJC2001.
So your electrologist says she can see the hairs just fine, but you don’t really think she can and want some ideas so they are more visible??? It’s true that one can whiz along faster if the hairs are more visible and are contrasted against the skin. Valuable time can be wasted trying to adjust the client and the light so the hairs are highlighted using the shadowing technique.
Now I don’t claim this to be a pearl of electrolysis, but the closest I can come to a suggestion for you is to buy some Miss Clairol (or something similar) in a medium to dark brown tone and dye the hair on a small area of your chest and see what happens. Being that you have had laser to your chest area (I’m thinking back to your earlier posts) it occurred to me that maybe the dye won’t take to a previously lasered hair??? This last statement maybe completely wackey, so please excuse me for my ignorance if this is not true and please feel free to correct me. I just don’t know.
Another thought, which maybe impractical for such a large area as your chest, is to buy an eyebrow pencil and put dots on individual hairs that you can see that maybe your electrologist misses. When my ladies with fine blond facial hair come back and say I missed a couple of bothersome hairs that are driving them crazy, I suggest they get their mirror out prior to coming to my office and put dots on these hairs with the eyebrow pencil. If my light doesn’t hit those hairs just right, it’s hard to choose the two hairs out of five hundred hairs that are bothering them.
The electrolysis suppliers have pore enhancer stuff that you can order and try. I’ve never used it as the technique of shadowing with light seems to help me more. Check out prestige electrolysis, texas electrolysis or instantron sites online or call them for more information.
In my wild imagination, I was thinking about how to make a black talcum powder to highlight the pores. Or, maybe a product like this already exists.
Thanks for your challenging question, RJC.
Dee
I’ve tried the pore inhancer. It’s a pain and a mess to use. I’ve never had anyone want fine blonde body hair removed, but I do like the idea of trying the hair dye.
Dee, thanks for the tips! Either one seems like it would help considerably. I particularly like the idea of the eyebrow pencil. With the relatively small amount of hair I have left, I think that is a workable solution. Some hairs are extremely fine and look dark only from certain angles so the eyebrow pencil may work better than dye for those hairs.
I have no idea if lasered hair is less likely to accept dye or not. I’ll have to ask my practitioner. The laser certainly made hairs that it didn’t kill finer.
The shadowing with light technique is what my practitioner is using now for the finer white hairs. Your suggestions could make the process go faster.
Thanks again for the great ideas.
RJC2001
I tried the eyebrow pencil and it did help. I marked the white hairs in the morning with black dots at the base. The only problem was that some of the dots wore off by the time of my afternoon appointment. I also enhanced the light and shadowing technique. I got a 5W white LED flashlight and brought it to my appointment. I held it almost parallel to my chest and at a 90° angle to my practitioners view. It did a nice job of illuminating the white hairs. She was able to get the white hairs more quickly because she didn’t have change her view as often. I was a human flashlight holder. This definitely improved the speed of white hair removal.My chest is now devoid of white hair. Any new ones that appear are because of a new growth cycle, and they will be destroyed in the same manner! RJC2001
That flashlight idea is truly inventive. Glad it helped you and thanks for sharing that information.
I guess eyebrow pencil needs to be applied just prior to a visit so the clothes don’t have a chance to rub it away.
If you don’t like being a human flashlight holder, maybe you could try a fine point marker pen to flag hairs. At least it wouldn’t disappear on your shirt, unless you perspire a lot. I’d have try it on myself and see if 70% alcohol or acetone (nail polish remover) would remove the ink after a treatment before suggesting that one to any of my clients.
Dee
Some of those inks are hard to remove from skin. Alcohol seems to be the best way to remove ink. The flashlight worked amazingly well.I saw a small battery powered ultraviolet (UV) fluorescent lamp in a catalog yesterday. I wonder how well that would work in lighting up the white hairs. It is a portable black light. Black lights are known for making some white objects glow. I may have to consider trying that.I don’t sweat nearly as much now that the hair is gone. That is one of the reasons I pursued permanent hair removal.Having a hairy chest, back and shoulders is like wearing a heavy wool sweater in the summer, plus a T-shirt on top of that.RJC2001
As I have stated in other places here, if the electrologist has a stereo microscope with halogen light source, non of this is needed, as the view of the hair is good enough that one can see vellus hairs.
I know most electrologists don’t have one of these, and you will need all these tricks at most offices, but if one is lucky enough to have someone with a stereo microscope, or maybe even just a halogen light source, you won’t have to do the things mentioned in the rest of this thread.
A little trick we have used for years is a mascara brush. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
It works!
I was wondering about the stereo microscope. I know James mentioned those a few times. How much do they cost? Is there anywhere online where I can see one? Do the halogen lamps light the hairs from the side?RJC2001