from laser to electrolysis for large areas

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#1

Hi Everyone,

I’m fairly new to this site (discovered it about a week ago)and am finding it such a helpful resource!

I started off posting on the laser forum because the treatments I’ve been getting on my thighs and bottom don’t seem to be making any difference at all. It turns out the hairs there are probably too fine, and that I will need to change to electrolysis instead.

I’m in London, so have already received lots of good tips for electrologist options here from stoppit&tidyup. It sounds like thermolysis will probably be the best route because that’s the quickest for larger areas, right?

Does anyone know how many times a hair needs to be treated with thermolysis for it to work? Also, will there be any advantage to the fact that the hairs have been treated by laser already? For example, might they be weaker and easier to get rid of? (she says hopefully!) And what will happen to all my pepper spots when I stop lasering - are they all going to grow into new hairs that will have to be treated by electrolysis? (god forbid!)

Any advice / tips for treating larger body areas with finer hair, post unsuccessful laser welcome.

#2

If the hair is in anagen, it only needs to be treated once. However, unless you’ve been waxing, hairs are in different phases when you first start. The best plan of action would be to schedule long treatments up front and get the entire area cleared ASAP. Then, you only come in every 3-4 weeks or so to clear the area again. This way you make sure you’re only treating hair in anagen each time and have the best chance of killing it the first time around.

Pepperspots are dead hairs. They’ll fall out.

Yes, hair that was previously lasered can be finer and easier to treat.

#3

I’m having a bit of trouble working out the approx. time scale for treating these areas with electrolysis…

I used a pen to mark 35 hairs growing next to each other on my bottom - an estimation of how many hairs could be treated by a good electrologist in about 5 minutes (5 x 7 hairs per minute). I was quite pleased that the marked area was about the size of my thumbnail, and thought 12 thumbnails in an hour would be pretty good going (Plus, I don’t think I will bother treating short or fairer hairs on my own areas - just the very obvious ones).

But then I’m reading posts by other people getting electrolysis who say that their upper lip (for example) is now nearly clear after A YEAR! Why would that be after my very scientific estimation of clearance speed? Is it because hair on one’s upper lip is quite dense maybe, or am is my guessing technique all wrong?

#4

Hi Tealight, there are different ways to tackle an area.

Let me give you an example with my upper lip. First off, my electrologist did not recommend more than 20mins at a time for me, so that an hour later all the redness and swelling would be gone and it would not interrupt my life. Now, from my side, I did not get to go more than about once every 3 weeks. My electrologist also spread the work out all over the area so I wouldn’t have bald spots. So it was a gradual thinning of the hairs. Over time, there would be regrowth of ‘false regrowth’ (I love this term from Mike and Josefa - it means previously untreated hairs that come through), so this would be treated too. It probably took about a year before my upper lip actually looked properly ‘clear’. I still have hairs but they are small, fine and barely noticeable. So I just kept going until I reached a point I was happy with. From the 12-18month point, I would still have a few minutes of electrolysis every 3-4 when I’d go for any hairs I found bothersome.

It’s good that you have established a goal and know what you wanted treated - just the obvious one. Now, you can get the area cleared asap. You may have 1hr long appointments on a weekly basis for a 4,5,6 weeks until your bottom is clear. Then you can leave that alone for a while and start working on your thighs. There are two things you can do then, you can either leave the bottom alone for 3 months until all the next stage of growth comes through, and tackle it all again like the first time (should require a lot less time though, as there should be less hairs) OR you can maintain it as you go alone i.e. a short amount of time every week to catch new hairs, whilst going for your thigh appointments.

The advantage of speedy electrolysis means the electrologist is able to and up for doing 6,7,8hours in one go. Meaning you can clear most of it at once.

#5

My modus operendi is to clear asap. That means get all bothersome hair on an area, like the lip for example, the first time,even if it takes an hour. There will be swelling for up to 3 days, but it is more noticeable for the first day. There are no scabs or maybe a couple at best. If the client wants to clear over the next 2-3-4 smaller treatments to avoid swelling, that is fine, too. I WOULD NEVER ATTEMPT THIS with certain epilators, but feel very confident with what I use now, the Apilus Platinum, or my spare , the Sil-Tone VMC. It works out great for me and mine!

This all boils down to the comfort, style and skill of the electrologist, so go with your practitioners recommendations. You will still get there.

#6

Upper lip is different because it’s a sensitive area and most people don’t treat it for more than 20 mins at a time to avoid swelling.

Also, not everyone goes at electrolysis full force and focuses on getting complete clearances from the start. It depends on how much time and money you have. If you have the time and money to do it for long periods of time up front to get a clearance and then maintain it, your results will be relatively quick.

Regardless, it will take 12-18 months of treatments because the hair grows in cycles. What you currently see is only at MOST 25-30% of all the hair you actually have.

#7

So I’m just wondering how I should time the start of my electrolysis treatments, after the last laser treatment?

Usually, my hair cycles seem to be as follows: about 8 weeks after a laser treatment, I would say most of the hair has started to grow. The hairs are still short, and not that obvious, but definitely longer than ‘stubble’ - I would be able to grab them with a pair of tweezers if I tried.

After 12 weeks, they’re a good bit longer, and probably a little bit denser too, but by 16 weeks I think they’re pretty much fully grown. And long. (I think by 12 weeks the growth is more or less as dense as it gets though)

The other issue is the pepper spots - even after 16 weeks, I still have some in between the long hairs. I know they’re supposed to be dead hairs that will fall out, but sometimes I squeeze them and a dead hair comes out, but I can see a new hair underneath, still in the follicle. Am I supposed to wait for all of these to grow out too before starting the electrolysis?

I’m sorry I can’t post any pictures, but I’m currently only at about 3 weeks since the last laser job, so I don’t think a photo would really work.

Lastly, I am now of course completely disillusioned with trying to treat these areas with laser, but I still have one treatment left because I paid for a course. Should I abandon it completely and just get on with the electrolysis as soon as possible? I might be able to use the laser treatment time on my underarms or something instead.

#8

With electrolysis, you don’t need to wait. Go in whenever you see hair. You can wait about 3-4 weeks in between as long as you can clear the area in one sitting. Just clip in between. Hair is easiest killed when it’s new and weak when it comes to electrolysis.

#9

[color:#FF0000]What you currently see is only at MOST 25-30% of all the hair you actually have.[/color]

You mean 25-30% of hair is in the growing phase. The hair we see is containing allso catagen and telogen hair…

#10

No, some hair is dormant and not visible at all and others recently shed.

#11

Maybe than you can answer what means this:

Richards/Meharg, page 39:
Body part: % Telogen / % Anagen

Scalp: 13/85
Eyebrows: 90/10
Ear: 85/15
Cheeks: 30-50/50-70
Beard(chin): 30/70
Moustache (upper lip): 35/65
Armpits: 70/30
Pubic area: 70/30
Arms: 80/20
Legs/thighs: 80/20
Breasts: 70/30

I dont think that all of the telogen hairs all fallen off :wink:

#12

The problem with this table Miro, is that it lacks of the percentage of hairs in exogenous phase (shedding phase). This percentage almost never exceed 10/15% of total hairs in the area and they are the ones that the electrologist can not treat the first time. If this phase did not exist, Electrolysis would kill 100% of all the hairs in the first clearance.