How easily should hair release (Q for pros)

Hair Removal Methods Do-It-Yourself Electrolysis
#1

Back to the forums after a five year hiatus! Good to see you folks are still doing good work helping people understand hair removal.

Anyway, I am back, this time with a question: How easily should the hair release post epilation?

I did quite a bit of work using a Uniprobe Autoblend. It certainly seemed to be a decent machine, and using local anesthetic I was able to get treatment times down to a couple of seconds a hair. The hairs slid out easily, and that was often my barometer for effective treatment. I achieved excellent long-term results: About three passes on a given area, and it was hair free forever. I did the entire pelvic area, armpits, upper lip and eyebrows, so I have a fair amount of experience.

Now I am using an Apilus Senior II (thanks, Ebay: $1K!) and I have found that the machine seems to be a lot less aggressive than the Autoblend. I am having to subject the patient to multiple treatments on a given follicle to get release. I have tried the various blend programs, the Microflash, and so on. The results seem to be consistently mild. The patient uses no anesthetic and reports the sensation to be pretty mild, certainly much less than I recall from the Autoblend epilation.

All self diagnostics on the Apilus check out. I used Ballet insulated F3 and Pro-Tec insulated #3 needles. I am pretty comfortable with the insertions, having quite a bit of experience previously. I tweezed a hair and found the follicle base to be about 3-4 mm below the surface, and that is where I set the insertion depth.

Do you all have any suggestions? Was I over-treating previously? Should the treatment be aggressive enough to make the hairs slide out easily? Is it likely there is something wrong with the machine? I can’t believe that as the Senior II is a tank and everything seems to function correctly. I’m stumped and would appreciate any insight.

Eric

#2

Welcome back, Eric. I don’t have time right now to respond, but wanted to say hello. Can someone help out with this question.

#3

Thanks!

By the way, I’d like to say to all you epilation newbies out there: This forum is a gold mine, and the people on here give advice worth far more than they charge.

Thanks to you all for getting me pointed in the right direction. And a big shout out to Michael Bono for his wisdom in The Blend Method.

Aside: I have G shank and K shank probe holders (BNC jack) plus a few Ballet needles for each. The latter not for commercial use as they are “expired”. Plus more different tweezers than I will ever use. I don’t need them anymore. PM me and I’ll send them to you for shipping cost.

#4

Having spent most of the past week with Kelly Morrisy-Stump, I have been given permission for quoting her Three Golden Rules for electrolysis. This is appropriate for professional treatments as well as DYI.

  1. You should not feel the insertion.
  2. You should not feel a tweeze.
  3. You should not hear the sound of sizzling bacon.

More…

The insertion should not feel like a poke, or cause a dent in the skin.

The extraction might have some traction, but it should not feel like the hair is being tweezed.

You might occasionally hear the sound of a high frequency blowout, but the electrologist should know that it means a technique evaluation on their part.

#5

Any pros willing to share more info about the ‘sound of sizzling bacon’ and the ‘high frequency blowout’, ie how to avoid these things =)

I have an SX-500 and when doing multiplex I have trouble getting hairs to release easily without a ‘high frequency blowout’ (ie turning down the HF energy stops the blowout sound but then the hairs don’t release easily)

Any pointers on how to modify my technique to avoid these?

EDIT-
I will note that one way I have found of getting hairs to release without the blowout sound is to use multiple pulses of lower energy at the end of the multiplex and slightly pull the probe out during the final pulse to target the upper follicle/bulge area, but so far I have not achieved consistency with this.

Also I should note that I am working on very coarse beard hairs (my own)

#6

First of all, you should NOT be working on yourself, especially on the face. Get a buddy, and trade work on each other!

Next up, since you insist on working on yourself, you should be using galvanic alone, or, when you have achieved a good amount of skill at galvanic, you should then, move up to working on yourself in blend.

the reason you can’t do this well on yourself, aside from the fact that you should not be doing work on your own face in the fist place, is that you don’t have the skill at marrying a good insertion to the correct amount of treatment energy.

My advise, back off and do galvanic for now. It will be slower, but much more sure. If you insist on not working your way up to blend, then at least back off from thermolysis/multiplex and use blend. Your treatments will be about 7 seconds per hair, and you will have a little more feedback on getting your insertions correct. A mistake made in thermolysis gives you zero time to adjust and save yourself from harm.

#7

I know working on ones own face is risky, but my hairs are very coarse which makes the follicles rather easy to see. Also because I have had laser treatments my hairs are rather sparse already which also aids visibility. I have already cleared my upper lip, part of my chin and some areas on my chest and legs using galvanic and blend, with no problems.

Now I am looking to increase speed with multiplex/microflash but I am having trouble finding the right settings or the right technique. Any tips/tricks you can recommend?

Maybe I need a different probe size? I have been using F3 probes mostly, I know that smaller probe size is more intense with HF…

#8

This is why I strongly advise use of BLEND if you insist on working on yourself. I have done this myself, and I would never use thermolysis, PicoFlash, MicroFlash, MultiPlex, or Syncro in self administered work. There is just too much that can go wrong in that fraction of a second when the current is active, and your insertion angle is compromised.

The problem is certainly an insertion that is not in the right angle, or depth, and multiplex works best when it can be used in a similar fashion to syncro, with a bit of live probing as one slides the probe down the follicle shaft. Problem with that being, if you are working on yourself, you can’t do that well, without risking a cutting effect that slices the skin, or blanches the skin.

For all that is sane, just suck up the extra seconds it will take to do each hair in Blend, and protect your skin from pitting and scaring.

#9

Thanks, I think I figured it out… I was inserting too deep and not getting enough energy at the bulge area. Shallower insertion and probing around some helps a ton.

I will heed your advice though and stick with blend on my face, you are right the risk of cutting/scarring is too high when probing around.

#10

I once heard sizzling bacon with James, turned out his wife was making us breakfast! not really, we went out for breakfast