In response to the "personnal experience" proof about transdermal ...

Controversial & Unproven Methods Transdermal/Transcutaneous Patches
#1

I wanted to post this message in response to the one of R.T. …

I have experimented “Finally Free” system, and at first I tought it was working … In fact I wanted it so bad to work ! … My “objective” mind was a little off … I guess we are all in that state of mind at the beginning … We want to be free ! (they really know how to choose their product name !) :roll_eyes:

I understand that we may feel that those system (E-Pen is similar) seem to work, because after a little time of current, the hair comes out easily (put with the patches, they never came off for me!)… But after a while, the trill turn off … they came back those little stubborn black hairs ! …

Of course I didn’t knew at this time, that hair should be treated at their “anagen phase”, so I will try back the system (since I have this system, why not experiement on it once more but this time with a scientific openess of mind)… At least on one hair to see, if I’ll get to kill him and in how long ! :grin:

I agree that it is absolutely shamefull for companies to claim something without serious experimentation on the long term … those PERMANENT claims have to be proven, it is so unfair to make people dream when what they sell is not what they say … When you realise that those people care about money and not truth, it oblige us to reseach deeply on subject before making impulsive choices …

So after dreaming of facility, I might now turn my effort on traditionnal electrolysis, even if needle is something I would have prefer to avoid … I saw that IGIA have electrolysis units, but since they also sell scams, my counsciousness tells me to look for some other company with a sense of values other they MONEY …

I am pleased to have found this website …
I big thanks to Andrea

#2

Do those transdermal/transcutaneus patches remove hair, without all the irrtation of shaving, or waxing? I don’t realy care if it is permanant, just that it doesn’t give me razor burn, or leave my kitchen coated with wax.

#3

The devices that use an electrified Q-Tip can only treat a dime-sized area every minute or two. The hand-held devices like ePen use less energy, so they make take longer.
The devices that use patches take about the same amount of time, but they can treat an area the size of the patch.

Do they remove hair? This is a tough question, since they haven’t been tested under controlled clinical conditions with peer-reviewed published medical data.
Some users find that hairs may fall out a few days or weeks later. Others have to tweeze all the hairs out after using the device. In that case, has the device actually removed hair?

More importantly, is the energy enough to cause permanent hair removal as they claim, or is it just a weak effect that’s enough to temporarily disable hairs?

Because there has been no medcial data published, and because they have not submitted data to FDA for evaluation, there is no acceptable evidence that these devices can achieve permanent hair removal. As far as temporary removal, it’s hard to say if they are causing anything more than the kind of mild disruption of hair growth that can come from chemical or energy sources. For instance, some lasers have been shown to be temporary under controlled clinical conditions, even though the energy level is enough to cause some hairs to fall out.

As far as irritation, you may have redness that lasts from an hour or so to a few days. Most heavier irritation occurs when people try to achieve permanent results by treating an area for a long time. It appears this causes redness for some, but there’s no definitive answer on whether this causes more effective treatment.

Some consumers have been pleased with these at the onset, but I’m not aware of anyone who has been pleased in the long term with their results. I like to discourage people from supporting companies that make unsubstantiated and misleading claims about permanent hair removal. It only encourages them to do more of it.

So to sum up: it may remove some hair, but you may have to supplement treatment with plucking. Some believe it makes plucking easier after you treat an area for a minute or so. Others find it slow and tedious.

You will definitely not have wax all over your kitchen, but you will have a lot of gel, used Q-Tips or patches, and paper towels in your kitchen after.

#4

Thanks for sharing your comment, Julie! :relaxed:

#5

Hi all!
Just a quick note to point you to my previous post in Home electro. I think pads have worked for me. :roll_eyes:

#6

Stardawn, we need more specifics before your comment carries any weight.

What areas do you treat?
When was your first treatment?
When was your final treatment?

#7

Hi Andrea,
in response to your post,
I treated underarms sporadically for six months (probably around 5-6 treatments in this time) and a small area on my left shin once approx. five months ago.
In the area on my shin there is definately less hair that there was pre-treatment, I agree that not all the hair was affected but there is a definate difference between the right and left shin, when before there was not. :wink:
Underarm area has been thinned of hairs, both in the actual area (amonut of hairs that were there) and the actual individual hair width. Although i experienced no hairs falling out of their own accord and had to pluck/epilate them out (which is the same as standard electrolysis where the treated hair must be removed after treatment) the result is still the same. I’m not saying that the patches completely cleared the areas i treated, just that i was and am pleased with the effect. (I have also plucked/epilated other areas without treating with the patches and have experienced no difference in hair growth). I am still using the treatment as, like i said, the areas are not completely hair free yet but they are getting there!! :grin:
Andrea, I agree with most of the things you said in your previuos post/s but i feel that this particular transdermal treatment has decreased the amount of regrowing hairs i used it on. Surely enough time has passed for this to be so?
I am going to contine using the product as i feel i have had some results ( which is better that none!) and i will add future posts on my progress.

p.s. was considering getting a one-touch type electro system but can’t find on in UK and am unwilling to pay hefty shipping charges.Plus not too keen on whole needle/hygene aspect as products are “unrecommended” in medical journals in UK. Also, was wondering if you ever used the free e-pen that you were sent (if it arrived!) and what you thought of it?

#8

I have a heavy growth of dark hair in my bikini line area that looks very unsightly when I wear a bathing suit. I have waxed, tweezed and shaved to get rid of it. Shaving results in red bumps that take forever to go away and waxing and tweezing is painful and time-consuming. I finally decided to let a “professional” get rid of it for me. I called a couple of places in the phone book and decided on a hair salon that offered “needleless electrolysis”. The technician assured me that it would take about 5 treatments done every two weeks over a ten week period and then a few follow-ups every 3 to 6 months after that. The treatments were $1 a minute and would be approx. 60 minutes each. Sounded reasonable to me.
Well four treatments later and over $240 spent has gotten me nothing! I still have the same amount of hair there that I had before the treatments.
At the first treatment, the tech told me that I would need to purchase her depilatory cream ($10)to help the “killed hairs to fall out faster”. She also told me that I would need to come every week instead of every two weeks to get rid of the hair faster. So like a lamb to slaughter, I bought in hook, line and sinker. I used the cream as she told me to and noticed that it only removed most of the hair above the surface of my skin. I still had nubs and no fewer hairs. I did not see any hairs fall out with or without the cream. I went back the next week for the second treatment and told the tech about my experience. She was perplexed and suggested that my hair was extra stubborn and that I just needed more treatments. At home I tried plucking the hairs on one side and using the cream on the other side. The plucked side stayed hair free longer, so I mentioned this to the tech on my third visit. She told me to go ahead and pluck the hairs instead of using the cream after the “treatments”. I did this and the hair stayed away longer and at first seemed to come back thinner. I waited a couple of weeks before going back because at that point there was no hair for them to treat. I went back the fourth time a couple weeks later and told the tech that I couldn’t afford to keep coming every week and that I wasn’t really sure about the results I was getting. She asked me if I was going to try laser and I replied that I would look into it. She has not called me back to schedule another appointment since then.
I found your website and have been reading through it. I am so glad to finally get some information on this whole process. I am really angry at the tech for ripping me off and at myself for being so gullible.

#9

could these patches work after waxing or mechanical epilation?

Can someone post a link with some kind of info and pictures of those patches?

thanks

#10

Scientist, these patches are the exact same kind used when they do an EKG heart monitor. Fine for that, worthless for hair removal. Ask any heart patient to see the spots on their chest where no hair grew back. Oh wait, that doesn’t happen.

Patch hair removal devices are as useless for cosmetic purposes as those things people hook to their faces that make your face muscles twitch for a “face lift.”

Save your money. They have no published proof they work as claimed.

#11

I assume that the patches used for heart monitoring does not use the same electric curent as the electrolysis patches.

There is not even a single person that had any success?

#12

You will not find a single person who purchased an electric patch hair removal device who is pleased with the results one year after treatment. Every single one of them will have switched to another method by then. The only people who claim it works are selling it or are still using it. Once they stop, they learn any effect is temporary.

#13

I see…
Do you have any link with info on that “fake” electrolysis method?

#14

https://www.hairfacts.com/scams.html

You will find lots of info on these devices at that link. Of course, if you looked at the information offered by the makers and sellers of these devices, a scientist would most likely figure it out as a scam because they are purporting to destroy hair, which is stronger than skin, by placing a patch on the surface of the skin, and directing the “treatment energy” down through the skin to get to the hair. It is sort of like saying you can melt string cheese sticking out of butter, by passing heat through the butter. This in addition to their willingness to sell to the general public should make one suspicious at least.

The problem with at home devices is that even the ones that work can’t work as quickly, or have the range that a professional unit has, because the company must make something that either can’t hurt the user enough to qualify for a million dollar settlement/judgement, or they must be made so that it would take so long to reach the point of disfigurement that no reasonable jury would hold them responceable for the user watching themselves get slowcooked before their eyes and do nothing. The unit discussed here could be placed on the tongue and although one would get the tingle of a few 9 volt batteries, no damage would result. Besides, how long does the average person keep their tongu on a 9 volt battery? The thrill is usually over in a few seconds :wink:

These devices are made the same way the units that purport to allow you to “Exercise by electro-stimulation while watching TV” You can get some skin irritation from extended use, but the damage won’t go deep enough to kill a hair follicle. Ah, shucks! Electro-chemical burns and still not the desired result. :frowning:

[ March 10, 2004, 06:26 AM: Message edited by: James W. Walker VII, CPE ]

#15

From what you say and from what i read it seems the problem wich makes this method hard to work is that the Conductive gel is impossible to penetrate the hair follicle because of its high viscocity (spelling). Maybe it could work “partialy” with a contactive liquid close to water viscocity. This liquid could penetrate better at the bottom of the follicle. The sodium hydroxide produced would destroy also some cells on top of the skin.

#16

Energy needs to reach the growth matrices at levels high enough to cause the chemical reaction that makes sodium hydroxide. This cannot happen from the skin’s surface bacause electricity takes the path of least resistance and dissipates across the skin. The only way to get enough energy into those areas is with a metal wire in the immediate vicinity.

http://www.hairfacts.com/medpubs/etweez/cole.html

This shows why permanent is not painless:

http://www.hairfacts.com/medpubs/hairgen/nerve.html

The amount of energy needed to damage the growth matrix is going to stimulate the bundle of nerves around the root.

As a scientist, you should rely on published peer-reviewed data on matters of efficacy. There is no data of this sort that supports their claims.

#17

If you think a little bit about the structure of the hair and follicle, it becomes obvious the transdermal methods cannot work.

In the upper portion of the follicle, just below the sweat gland, the hair sheath surrounds the hair and anchors it to the follicle. The upper part of the sheath is tough and solid. That’s why it takes so much force to tweeze a hair. The upper portion of the follicle is a very effective plug, protecting the growing portion from the outside world.

The portion one needs to kill is the lower third below the anchor. Therefore, to kill hairs, needle electrolysis penetrates the anchor and applies destructive heat and lye to the lower third.

Even if the conductive solution were not viscous, it would not penetrate the anchoring sheath. The currents dissipate into all the skin. If enough voltage were applied at the patch, the follicle would be killed, but only along with all the surrounding skin. You’d have a patch-shaped scar.

The reason the tweezer devices don’t work is because hair is an insulator: It doesn’t conduct electricity. If you apply voltage - RF or DC - to an insulator, nothing happens. The RF tweezers just broadcast radio frequency waves in the general area. Some are absorbed by your body, but only warm it up a tiny bit. If the hair could be made highly conductive all the way down to the lower third of the follicle, you’d be in business, but no one has figured out a way to do that. It would be a weird technology: Somehow, the keratin would have to be replaced by metal?

When you do needle electrolysis, you find out how hard it is to kill a follicle. You need to cook a bit of tissue about 4 mm long and 2 mm wide; when the body replaces it with non follicle tissue, the hair does not regrow. A similar process is done with laser, but it is less effective because it discriminates less between the upper and lower portions of the follicles. Even when electrolysis is done correctly, sometimes hair regrows. In that context, it becomes obvious that non needle electrolysis simply doesn’t work.

  • Eric
#18

Just courious. When the hair is pulled from the root (like mecanical epilating) does the folicle still stays protected or it is open?

#19

Pluck a few hairs under a magnifying glass and see for yourself. The infundibulum stays small. The use of products that supposedly penetrate the full follicle have not met with success.

More scientific evidence the “gel in the open follicle” concept doesn’t work:

http://www.hairfacts.com/medpubs/etweez/schuster.html

#20

I thought that vaniqa used after waxing because it enters the hair free folicles while they are still open to create the hair retard effect.

Also STARDAWN claims that have worked. Well this could mean nothing but i would like to hear it again from her.

[ March 28, 2004, 10:37 AM: Message edited by: Scientist ]