I want to ask the experienced electrolgists in this forum a question about hair density:
I read in the scientific publications that human hair density can be up to 500 hairs per cm2 in the upper lip area. Is this true also for women? If so, it must take many many hours to treat the upper lip by electyrolysis…
Does anyone have any information about the actual hair density of the most commonly treated areas for women?
Thanks!
Whether you are a man or a woman, you are born with the total number of hair follicles you will ever have. The total amount of hair follicles is just about equal in men and women. It is amazing (and scarry) how many hair follicles we all have per square centimeter in certain areas, and I’ll give some numbers in a minute. The important thing to realize is, don’t be concerned with the amount of hair follicles in an area, but do be concerned with the potential for hormones to stimulate those follicles to grow. So, we have a huge number of follicles that are sleeping and they can only wake up if there is a stimulus. Some classes of drugs and certain hormones, for example, can awaken the beasty hair follicle.
Now for some information you asked about.
Number of follicles per square centimeter for certain areas:
Cheeks: 880
Chin : 500
Upper Lip : 500
Underarms: 65
Arms : 80
Legs : 60
I pulled these numbers from a hair growth chart in an electrolysis text.
So, if one is having their upper lip treated, the electrologist is not faced with treating every hair follicle in the area, but rather is treating only the hairs that are active and bothersome. Amount of time to clear and maintain an upper lip varies from person to person, but it is not unusual to acheive permanent hair removal within 9-12 months with about 8-15 treatments for the average woman that actually shows up, following a schedule where the electrologist treats anagen hairs as they first appear.
Dee
Whereas men and women have the same number of follicles per square inch, a woman would usually only have 10 to 30 hairs per square centimeter in need of permanent hair removal via electrolysis. This means that the avearage female cookie duster would achieve first clearance with 75 to 225 epilations. If your electrologist is working at 100 hairs per hour, that is an hour or two to first clearance. If your electrologist will only do 15 minutes per session on the upper lip, that will mean 4 to 8 sessions to first clearance. If your operator can work faster, and has the equipment that allows more than 15 minutes on the upper lip, you win first clearance in an hour, possibly less.
So, is it realistic to ammend your follicle chart with an estimate of hairs needing treatment for each sex? If you offer that a female would have 10 - 30 h/cm2 for upper lip, can such a guideline be made for the other skin regions for both typical males and females? This information might not tell us what our individual needs are, but it would offer a comparison to the “normnal” and to the opposite sex, would it not?
The problem with that is defining “normal” for either sex. Since women with hair have that hair due to an imbalance, and the amount of hair is actually a barometer of how long that imbalance has existed any number we would have would have more to do with at what point does a woman seek out help with her problem.
As for men, a similar situation would be in effect, as what practitioners see is the amount of hairs present on the average man seeking to have his hair removed. To that effect, my text books said that the average mature male has 100 hairs per square inch, and my average client has about 250 hairs per square inch. At the same time, I have treated clients with more than 500 hairs per square inch.
Hi James,
As you indicated in your post:
As for men, a similar situation would be in effect, as what practitioners see is the amount of hairs present on the average man seeking to have his hair removed. To that effect, my text books said that the average mature male has 100 hairs per square inch, and my average client has about 250 hairs per square inch. At the same time, I have treated clients with more than 500 hairs per square inch.
One of the critical considerations that I have encountered with trying to define an “average” hair density is both the age and gender of the person seeking removal of unwanted hairs.
In the case of a male, the older the person becomes, short of the age where hairs start failing to recycle from age-related causes, the greater the number of hormonally-stimulated follicles will be present per sq. cm of skin.
From what I’ve been able to glean from reading up on the subject, is that a “normal male” will not reach the maximum number of terminal hairs in the facial and body areas until approximately age 30 or older, even though the vast majority of these hairs will be in terminal growth by approximately age 25.
I have seen several references to this in articles pertaining to both electrology and laser hair removal. While significant hair reduction is possible prior to age 25, unless the production of testosterone is significantly reduced by some process, like antiandrogen therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria, some hold with the opinion that beginning treatments prior to age 25 will generally take longer to get to a significant over-all hair free condition.
I was wondering if you have run across any more specific information with regards to this concept? Personally, I do not feel that starting earlier than age 25 is necessarily a waste as what ever number of terminal hairs are present can still be treated at earlier ages and result in shorter, less frequent treatments later on. Is there an error in this thinking or is it better, overall, to wait until a later date?
I also realize that anyone undergoing MtF gender transition will of necessity be using both antiandrogens and HRT to effect both the elimination of testosterone and achieve feminization. For this group, I can not see where waiting would be of any benefit as the hormonal stimulation would be extremely inhibited by the androgen blockers and further offset by the introduction of estradiol as a hormonal replacement. Ultimately, given GRS as the logical end process in the therapy, it would appear that the earlier one starts on permanent hair removal, the fewer number of hairs that would ultimately need to be treated.
This is something that I have heard a lot of debate on and I was interested on what your take on the situation would be in this area.
Thank you and all the best,
Joanie <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
In my opinion, the day that a male finds he has ingrown hairs, or for any other reason wants hair removal, that is a great day to start the process. If nothing else, once the first clearance is done, the hairs that are there can be removed easily with ever shorter and less frequent appointments. Even a male who got hair removal at 17 would be in the situation where subsequent maintenance of the hair free condition would be just periodic appointments with hair free living in between.
I know the focus is often on my work with MtF’s but I treat men who are just in jobs like UPS delivery guy, and Police officer as well. They just want to make appearance standad without infections, and burning painful ingrown hairs.