Hello everyone,
I am a 22 year old male and I have a problem with the hair on my arms and hands. I do not have too much but it is somewhat thick and dark compared to my skin. I have been trimming for about 2 years and suddenly feel like it looks bad but no one has said anything. Maybe I have Body Dismorphic Disorder or something but I get this depression and anxiety because of this issue. Im going nuts. My goal later on is to have these hair thinner or finer, any suggestions about my post?
Have you taken any action yet, speaking to any hair removal professionals in electrolysis?
No, I do not want to go for the full naked arms/hands look but I would love to have lighter hair without patchiness. I dont know what to do? Please HELP!
You will get lighter/finer hair with a good laser. Although you may have some patchiness.
I plan to get my arms done very soon actully!
Checkout ‘vulpes’ profile. He has a website that tracked his arm treatments.
You have to make your own decisions. Think about this… if you want to lighten all hairs just do a bleach job. It is much cheaper and fewer side effects. There is no way to remove hair in a fine random way so that it looks like a natural sparse distribution.
I keep track of time lines and numbers for certain cases so as to help clients understand what is required to reach their goals for permanent hair removal. People naturally want answers to the how long? and how much? questions. We cant be precise, but we can give examples of what other cases look like.
Here is the profile of one of my female arm cases, defined as hair removal with MicroFlash (Silhouet-Tone VMC) and now PicoFlash thermolysis (Apilus Platinum), from the fingers, hands, forearms and upper arms in a 48 year woman.
She has had 21 treatments since August 30, 2007. She saw me 2 times in Sept. 2007, 3X in Oct., 2007, 2X in Nov., 2007,2X in Dec., 2007, 2X in Jan., 2008, 2X in Feb., 2008, 2X in March, 2008, 1X in April, 2008. She skipped May, June, July, August of 2008. She re-started treatment in Sept., 2008 and had 2 treatments, skipped October, had 1 treatment in Nov., 2008, skipped Dec., 2008 and just recently saw me January 12, 2009.
Her totals to date:
She has invested 31 hours of her time so far, but she was cleared of hair on both arms after five sessions totaling 9 hours. For the next 16 appointments, up to the present time, she was cleared of hair everytime she left the office. We have done 20,747 insertions since August 30, 2007. She is finished by all definitions, and really has been since November of 2008. Last appointment consisted of getting sporadic hairs on both extremities that she wanted removed, but were really of no consequence to the human eye. Barely noticable. She has invested $2,085.64 to have permanent hair REMOVAL on both arms from fingers to shoulders. I would describe her hair as medium to fine long, dark hair when she presented for that first appointment. Her arms are bare and the skin looks fabulous. The sensation factor was nothing of consequence, didn’t hurt very much.
She had no other recourse but to remove this hair permanently with electrolysis, as laser would not have fully accomplished the job because her hairs were not the coarse, dark variety. It was electrolysis, or nothing. The decision was easy.
This project would have been completed in about year or 14 months, if she had not taken the summer off from May 2008 - August 2008. Many people say it would take forever to have electrolysis on large areas, to which I ask, is a year to 18 months forever?
Her average session was about 1.5- 2 hours for each arm and then as we neared the end, both arms could be fully cleared in the SAME amount of time.
When the faster forms of thermolysis, such as MicroFlash and PicoFlash are performed with a complient client that follows advice, then permanent hair removal is obtained. Those are the numbers for THIS client’s hair thumbprint. If someone has less active follicles or only wants the forearms thinned, the numbers may be less. If someone has more hair follicles than this client, then the numbers go up, of course. Electrolysis can handle large areas if it performed with the better computerized epilator’s, quality surgical magnification and lighting. Tools used DO MATTER. Last bit of information is, there must be the willingness on the part of the client and the practitioner to go forward and get the job done within a year to year and a half. The concept of getting a first, full clearance and keeping the area cleared by regularly spaced appointments can not be emphasized enough. Fifteen and thirty minute appointments just won’t do it and it ends up costing the client more in the end.
Dee
Oh, and there is [size:20pt]NO[/size] patchiness worries.
The emphasis on micro flash and pico flash seems to be a great promotional claim by the machine makers as it has been picked up by electrologists who seem to believe it has some bearing on our work. I’m waiting for Super flash or Ultra flash. Micro and Pico are prefixes that relate to size. Small flash or smaller flash mean nothing. Regardless of what you call it… treatment results depend on adequate heat delivered to the right location for an adequate amount of time. That takes TRAINING and EXPERIENCE. If either is lacking there will be poor results. Unfortunately, that is not all there is to it. If the patient is young or in the menopause her hormonal problems may just be starting. She can grow hair faster than you can remove it unless she comes in 3 times a week for 30 minutes each.
I have found the opposite to be true with the newer generation of epilators. Those that do use old technology have to limit their appointment time to 30 minutes so as not to overtreat the skin. That’s a real disadvantage to the weary client who wants the hair of as fast as possible. I don’t think you understand the advantages of using epilators that offer the faster forms of thermolysis. You are being critical of something really great and letting trademark names throw you and drive you crazy :crazy:. I’ve decided that you aren’t convincible.
If you are working fast with an old machine you can not work faster with a new machine. You may be working SMARTER and you have more experience with this patient. Your hands can not work so much faster with a new machine that it makes a significant difference. If it takes 1 second per hair with the new machine (that is super fast that nobody can do) that is 60 hairs per/minute. With an old machine(if it makes a difference…I do not believe it does) and you take 1.2 seconds per hair with an old machine (I doubt if that is possible either) the difference is negligible. I have developed another way to speed up the work.
Suppose you treat an area like a leg. You have perfect settings and kill a hair on each insertion. If everything has gone right there is no resistance when you release a hair. However, you know some of these hairs are in anagen but not all. Suppose, instead of releasing each hair one by one, you just wipe the area with the grain using a terry cloth and the treated hairs will slide out with the friction of the towel. Treat a few and wipe all. Treat a few and wipe. You will not have to release one at a time. Just wipe the area with the grain and get a bunch of them. When you treat a hair and it is in telogen and it will not release you go on to the next hair. Leave all treated hairs alone they will fall out in a few days or get rubbed off when the patient takes a shower just as they do when they are lasered. Patients will not complain about the pain of tweezing a telogen hair. How is that? I call it ULTRALYSIS. Anyone who wants to use the name can. It is in the public domain. I trade marked it many years ago and did not renew it. Now anybody can use it. It saves the time of releasing them singly. You can treat any amount you want. I have done twenty at one time and had no problem. Do not make little circles or you may have circular bald spots. It all depends on how far apart the treated hairs are. It works great on large areas like a back or legs. Just make sure you do not work in a line or tight circle.
I would think that the teacher of Ultralysis would understand the point that each thing that saves a practitioner wasted motion, and increases the speed at which one can move from one hair to the next, would naturally increase number of hairs removed per hour. This is the case with the newer machines for a few reasons.
Compare old machine to new machine:
Old machines, one must select hair, insert probe, tap pedal, retract probe, remove hair. Alternately, one selects hairs, inserts probe, taps pedal(some are taping more times than others, or holding down the pedal longer than others) retract probe, insert into additional hairs, repeat as desired, then remove hairs.
New machines, Insert, using auto sensor set to discharge preselected treatment energy as quickly as 0.1 second after insertion, retract and repeat as desired.
One must assume that what ever insertion delay one can safely work at, reflects the speed at which one can safely insert, and withdraw. This means, that a person who can get good work done at 0.1 seconds is actually inserting and withdrawing in 0.2 or maybe 0.3 seconds. Add one more tenth of a second to shift to the next hair, and one could remove 150 hairs per minute, or 9,000 hairs per hour.
Now, I don’t know anyone who can insert and withdraw that fast, but the machine is able to make that possible for the person who could move and co-ordinate that fast.
In the end, it allows a person to gain an advantage over the speed at which that person would be treating hairs, and that value is passed on to the paying customer.
Of course, if you don’t believe that going from 1.2 seconds per hair, to even 0.7 seconds per hair (with a possibility to work your way up to 0.3 seconds per hair) makes any difference, then who can convince you.
This is the post that started this discussion. I have heard that you are retired now Harvey, but if you can locate a skilled electrologist that has an Apilus Platinum or Pure and receive treatment, you will feel the difference and understand why electrolysis with the faster forms of thermolysis DOES make a difference in regard to comfort of the client and electrologist, speed of getting to first clearance, longer appointment times, good skin outcome and best of all sensation. There is nothing that can come close to this, but to really understand this, you have to stop talking theory and opinion based on theory and actually get engaged by physically practicing electrolysis this way with the better epilators, which I contend are the ones that offer 27 MHz technology. I would never say something is more than it is without actually being involved with the product over a period of time. I watch my clients charts closely and I’m observing some very good things since I made the switch several months ago.
Dfahey I love how you kept track of the treatments. Have you treated female upper back, and neck area , if so do you have data like the one above that can be shared on this fourm??
Hi roma,
I have no data for a female upper back and I assume you mean the back of the neck, as that is not an area that is typically requested. I wish I could help out on that one, but I do plan to present other areas as a very general guide to help show the consumer what a good schedule looks like in order to get from point A to point Z. To get this data, one needs a reliable client who stays close to the electrologist for about a year to year and a half.
Keep in mind, that this is what I CAN DO. Someone in New York may be able to go faster, while someone in Arizona may remove hair slower. As I continue to repeat here on hairtell, I am a true believer (a convert, if you will) in the better epilators that offer MicroFlash and Picoflash thermolysis. Enable the auto sensor mode, put on the surgical loupes or set the stereo microscope accordingly, position the light and client correctly and then your OFF! The paying client is not going to hold out for 2?, 3?, 4?, 5? years to have a large area completed with the slower methods of electrolysis, even though they work just as well. We live in a fast paced world and electrolysis needs to reflect that truth and it certainly can if all the right behaviors and equipment is in place. Any electrologist that can insert well, can remove hair well with the faster forms of thermolysis. The client still needs to be patient as we battle through those hair growth cycles, but all looks great within 9-18 months of regularly spaced appointments. If 9-18 months is defined as ‘Forever’ for some consumers, then electrolysis is not for you. Neither is laser hair reduction, because it takes a year to a year and half to complete as well because a laser specialist has to deal with the same hair growth cycles that the electrologist does.