How many hours for first clearance of upper lip?

Average hours, I mean. I have fair skin (Irish) and a medium-to-average beard, thinner in some spots than others. A picture is attached. I’m just trying to get a reasonable expectation without having to ask my personal electrologist and putting her on the spot for an answer.

It depends on the skill of your electrologist. Calculate the number of hairs and estimate that they can remove 5-10 hairs per minute using thermolysis method.

Personally, I could strip most of the hairs on your upper lip in about 90 minutes using PicoFlash thermolysis. The trade off would be a swollen upper lip for three days or less. You would probably want a topical numbing cream for the middle part under the nose. You can also choose to strip the hair away toward first, full clearance by having a couple of thinnings over 2-4 weeks. Not all electrologists are comfortable with a plan like this because they don’t have the set up or the strategy down. That’s okay, we all have different paths that lead to permanent hair removal. If one is doing blend electrolysis, it will take more time as the probe is in the follicle for several seconds and you can not strip all the hair off in one to four sessions, most likely.

I am with Dee on this one. Give me 3 hours and I could remove both your upper and lower lip hairs. You might look like a duck for a little while, and then like the lion man Ron Pearlman played in The Beauty & The Beast TV show for a day or so, but you would have bare skin, and be presentable to the public in no time.

If your practitioner likes to spread it out more, and, or uses blend or galvanic, you could spend many hours, and many weeks thinning this out.

Thank you everyone for your responses. My electrologist is reasonably well-skilled, and required only 30 minutes to treat both the upper and lower lip lines last week, with very little inflammation or swelling. She uses an Apilus SX-500 and easily treats 10 to 15 hairs per minute. I estimated it might require three to four hours, especially because of the sensitivity in this area. I’ll accept the trade-off between paying for more hours and experiencing less swelling. For the initial treatment last weekend, I took one Benadryl (diphenhydramine/antihistamine) and half a Vicodin before the appointment. She also used numbing gel, and the worst I felt was very minor discomfort at each follicle, not really pain at all.

All sounds good for you! Keep moving forward.

As long as the hair slides out without resistance, you are on your way.

It seems the follicles in my upper lip are coarser and deeper than expected, and also slightly curved/bent. :frowning: Fortunately, they’re not so dense. :slight_smile: After a slow start Saturday morning, things began to move more quickly and the outer 1/3 of each side is now clear. I advised the electrologist my pain/discomfort level was a maximum 2 of 10 at most, and if she was having any issues getting the whiskers to release, she was welcome to raise the settings. She did, but I still have almost ZERO swelling or inflammation afterward. Either the Benadryl is working a lot better than I expected, or the Apilus machine is just that damned good, as is the electrologist. At the least, I expected more redness and I’ve been very pleasantly surprised. :smiley:

It takes both - [color:#6633FF]great[/color] skill coupled with [color:#6633FF]great[/color] equipment equals [color:#6633FF]great[/color] outcome. All sounds [color:#6633FF]GREAT[/color] for you Caith.

FYI, the two largest issues I had after last Saturday’s treatment were bruising in one tiny spot on my lower lip, and razor burn when I shaved two days after treatment. I don’t consider either of those a real problem. My tendency towards occasional razor burn is one of the primary reasons I’m having this hair removed.

Hopefully, you’re also using witch hazel during the day and tea tree oil at night.

I cleanse my face twice daily (except on treatment days, when I skip the nightly wash) using a liquid detergent wash containing salicylic acid for bacterial control. I also apply Neosporin cream (not ointment) to the treated areas twice daily for three days following treatment. So far everything has stayed amazingly clear, clean, and free of any inflammation or irritation. :slight_smile:

I had a two-hour session Thursday evening to complete the remaining 2/3 of my upper lip. The electrologist found these hairs to be deeper rooted than all previous, and requiring more energy to release them. As before, I experienced very minor inflammation afterward. Unlike previous treatments, the skin between my nostrils and upper lip is more swollen, even the morning after. I accept this as normal, and I expected it. The electrologist was truly driven to complete my upper lip last night, but it took extra time initially to find settings and insertion depths that worked well without over-treating. This level of caution and expertise is something I truly appreciate in my electrologist. She’d rather use the absolute least energy necessary while still achieving the desired result.

Caith, You are pretty lucky that the beard of especially Your upper lip is not very dense.

And hopefully You asked a physician before doing this, especially concerning Vicodin (Hydrocodon, a fairly strong morphin derivative with a significant potential of a dependency, not legally available in Germany).
Anyway, this medication, especially the morphin, might be the main reason for the comfort of the treatment.

Although i am occasionally using topical fenistil (Tripelennamin, another antihistaminicum) or applying topical ibuprofen after treatment (on my own skin!) we must be very careful giving this our customers.

BTW: is there any other experience in using systemic antihistaminica before treatment to prevent swelling? (Mhmm, my own: the Cetirizin i have to use some weeks during summer does not have a noticable effect).

Beate, I am fortunate that in Spring 2010 I had surgery to remove my gall bladder. After this surgery, I received a much higher quantity of hydrocodone than I required. I have a high threshhold of pain, and I discontinued taking the vicodin only two days after my surgery. I keep it refrigerated, and only use it for pain when absolutely necessary. It causes horrible problems like constipation and depression when taken too frequently or for too long a time. I ordinarily take one half a tablet (250 mg) for treating most areas, but this session was longer (two hours) and in such a sensitive area, I took an entire tablet (500 mg).

Some people have concerns an antihistamine causes too much drying of the skin for electrolysis to be effective. In my case, without using it I would experience extreme swelling for many hours following electrolysis. I consume large quantities of water for several hours before treatment, and keep a warm, wet wash cloth against the areas to be treated until only minutes before my appointment. Until this two-hour session for my upper lip, I’ve experienced only very minor swelling that typically resolves in 60 to 90 minutes. The swelling persisted overnight and for several hours the next day, but I believe 50% of this swelling was due to the electrologist pinching the upper lip to obtain better insertions.

I have three distinct types of hair in my beard and mustache: black, red, and white. The follicles and hairs are rooted in varying directions, rather than following any general trend or pattern. Finally, these hairs have very deep curved roots, and my electrologist is to be congratulated for her skill and expertise in treating me with good speed. I have absolutely no complaints regarding any work performed in the last few weeks.

I’m looking forward to next Tuesday, when we’ll remove the final 50 to 100 hairs from my upper lip, providing first clearance there. There has been some very fine secondary growth in the areas already treated, but nothing like the original hairs. In fact, those may only be finer hairs that have never been treated yet, only visible now after the coarse hair has been removed.

We started doing my wife’s underarms about a month ago. Turns out she has something called uticaria. Her skin gets red and very sensitive from the needle insertions. She can also get a reaction sometimes from just touching metals so its no specific to electrolysis. Our solution has been to use both systemic and topical antihistimines. My research on uticaria showed that the H1 blockers like diphenhydramine (Benedryl) and chlorpheniramine (Chlor- Trimeton) both OTC are the most effective. You can also combine the H1 blockers with an H2 blocker like Famotidine (Pepcid). Note that the H2 blockers are commonly sold as antacids. Since the best H1 blockers also make you sleepy, we also use loratadine (Claritin). So on the day we are going to zap some hairs, she will take a Claritin in the morning. About an hour before we start, she will take a pepcid and sometimes a benedryl. We also put on some topical benedryl and some LMX5 for numbing. She can go much longer this way but still gets sensitive after about an hour.

She may be allergic to the nickel in the steel probes, if that is what you are using. You can switch to ballet gold and see if that helps. Gold just glides so easily into follicles so it would not be wasted money to purchase a box even if that does not solve the urticaria problem.

Took a picture tonight similar to the first, to show the progress. Swelling is 90% gone, some inflammation remains in certain areas (but there’s always some redness, anyway.)

Looks pretty good. What are you doing for aftercare? Two hour session? I would not have another session until you are completely back to normal and then try not to extend it beyond 45 minutes. Be careful with too much pain relief as it is easy to push the skin beyond what is best. James may not agree, but my conservative tendencies are blooming now. Those remaining hairs are very coarse and will not be hard to clear. Do let your skin recover fully and just clip those hairs for a better visual appearance until it’s time to go back.

Thanks for the picture.

Aftercare the day of treatment is Neosporin triple antibiotic cream in the evening, and I skip the evening wash so as not to irritate and dry out the treated area. Otherwise, I cleanse daily morning and evening with an antibiotic detergent wash containing salicylic acid, followed by Neosporin cream on the treated pores, then moisturize the entire face a few minutes later.

Dee, I sincerely appreciate your conservative tendencies. I’m very cautious regarding the amount of pain relief I use. I only have all these tablets remaining because I didn’t want to continue taking them too long after surgery earlier this year. For a typical weekly one-hour session, I take half a tablet (250 mg) fifteen minutes before treatment, plus one diphenhydramine (Benadryl / antihistamine) to limit reactive swelling. This is only a once weekly thing, and only for the electrolysis work.

My electrologist is also very conservative, always starting with a lower energy setting and duration. She slowly increases the energy and/or the number of pulses from her normal two to three and sometimes four, as necessary to obtain release. She last treated the outside 1/3 of the upper lip several weeks ago, only just returning to it for this two-hour session. I have a follow-up one hour session Tuesday evening, primarily for maintenance and also to complete clearing those last few hairs beneath my nostrils.

So, I have a new question for the experts following my treatment here. Is it possible or advisable to treat the coarse hairs growing just within the perimiter of the nostrils? I’d seriously like to nuke these and eliminate the need to trim them weekly. Thanks!