Hi, I’m transfem, new to electrolysis and I made a basic galvanic electrolysis device after coming across a post on Lena’s site and seeing how simple it was.
I’m using a 12V battery (3S Li-Ion), 20kΩ potentiometer, foot switch, conductive foam/adhesive gel electrode and Ballet F4 gold needles. I don’t’ have a needle holder yet so I’ve just soldered the needle to a flexible silicone wire. It was very difficult finding a place in NZ that would sell needles to me (as I’m not a student/professional), I could only find one place that didn’t have much range available. If I want a holder I’ll have to import it from overseas.
I started with removing all the 40-50 hairs on one of my big toes. Mostly 0.5mA *10s = 50 UL (Units of Lye). I did some test patches on my stomach and upper thighs as well. I found that when I had a bad insertion, the lye and other products would cause a visible raised bump under the skin rather than bubbling out the follicle. There were a couple of spots on my toe that were over treated (because of bad insertions) but overall it’s fine. It took a couple of days for the swelling to go down and the redness to go away.
On my stomach and thighs I got some red dots - in hindsight I think the insertions were too shallow. No general redness of the area or swelling though. I did get a little bit of what looked like folliculitis around my stomach. I also get that every time I shave or epilate as well, although maybe in those cases it’s pseudofolliculitis. After a few days the marks on my thighs have almost gone away and the ones on my stomach look fine, just some very tiny scabs. I did a couple of hairs around my nipples which worked great with pretty much no marks cause I did a better insertion there.
Thighs after about a day:
For a second session I worked on my lips. I managed to remove almost all the dark hairs on my upper lip and all terminal hairs on my lower lip in just a few hours. I was quite surprised how little time it took, my facial hair has never been super dense though. It’s quite relaxing doing it and listening to music. I just lay on my back in my bed holding a large wall mirror with my left leg (using foot pedal with my right) and wearing a head torch. No magnification and I didn’t find it was really necessary, though it might be useful for smaller hairs. I started with 0.8mA * 10s = 80 UL, but the current kept increasing over the session and I didn’t adjust it, so at the end I was using around 1.5mA * 5-6s (75-90UL). Not much pain and I could tolerate it indefinitely. I tend to be able to actively ignore sharp pains quite easily, although the “on” period could be a lot softer. My time estimates might actually be a little off since was just counting in my head and tend to count fast. I noticed that it was a little difficult (but still possible) getting the size 4 needle into some of my smaller follicles like just under my nose. I probably could have used a little less time or current for some of the finer hairs.
I think it went pretty well because I was inserting to the proper depth most times and the hairs all came out pretty easily. Especially with the faster times I found it was best to treat a few follicles at once, then go back and pull out the hairs so that the lye has time to work and spread. Sort of like how a battery cell takes a while to equalize after being charged or discharged fast. I got some minor redness afterwards, and a bit of soft swelling. It actually looked like I had lip fillers!. After a day the general redness has gone away and most of the swelling has reduced, and I’m just left with some minor blotchy redness.
This photo was after maybe six hours. There is a bit of stuff coming out of the follicles and very minor folliculitis(?) but no fluid leaking. The round red mark on my upper lip is from cystic acne, not electrolysis. I haven’t shaved for a few days so you can see my hair isn’t that dense, though some of it is a lighter colour now.
What do you think? Is this a typical amount of redness? I’m not really too concerned about scarring as I already have a lot from chronic acne and my face doesn’t tend to pit either.
I’m thinking of improving my device a little, adding a proper probe holder, constant current, higher voltage, soft start, timer and other features. I’ve wondered a little about whether adding a small amount of low frequency ac (to heat the lye) would work well, or if a little reverse current at the end with the longer treatment times of a multi needle unit would reduce redness a little and promote healing by neutralising any remaining lye after it’s done it’s job.
One question I have is whether galvanic electrolysis is suitable for mucosal tissue, such as inside the nose. Or if not, why?
Another is whether it’s easy to insert too deep. In most hairs on my face I inserted the needle up to around the tapered part. This seemed a little deeper than the length of the hairs, but I got the lye soap bubbling out of the follicles, so I think maybe the follicles just stretched. But in some cases I didn’t get that, and I’m wondering if it might be easy to puncture the bottom of the follicle? (going through the side doesn’t seem to be an issue). There was never any pain and especially after starting the galvanic process, the needle slid very easily that far in so I’m thinking it’s probably unlikely?
I noticed I was getting what I assume are “root sheaths” with almost every hair. It looked like these were possibly longer than when just plucking a hair - does that sound right? Where can I find info on how to determine the growth stage of each hair? I did notice a few ones with a larger black bulb at the end - are these the club hairs?