Newbie - full beard / face hair removal question

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
1

Hi,

I’m a 35 yr-old male, in the Seattle area. This is my first post here - thanks in advance for everyone’s help.

I have a fairly coarse beard, coupled with a sensitive skin. I have always suffered ingrown hair and bumps, especially at the basis of the neck, but occasionally anywhere on my face (well, where I shave). As a consequence, I am seeking information on options to permanently remove my facial hair. My understanding is that electrolysis offers the best prospects both in terms of permanent results and safety.

I’m of euro descent and have a light skin (though not completely white / pink), and a brown beard (turning grey in some areas, I’m afraid).

I’m a professional in a corporate environment, and my goal is to maintain a good general appearance. Right now I shave every other day to limit burns, etc, which isn’t a great option.

So I’d like to know a few things:

1 - Is electrolysis OK for my purpose (beard, light skin, brown coarse hair)?
2 - Is it feasable to have a full beard removed (neck, chin, upper lip, cheeks up to side burns)? Is that often done, or is it exceptional?
3 - What results can I reasonably expect? Would I get a smooth skin, say, like my forehead? :slight_smile:
4 - What prices should I expect from a good quality, safe & clean practitioner? A range is fine.

Thank you very much!

JD

2

I have conducted a search, and I see reccurent questions showing up, so to “preempt” them:

  • I have a high pain threshold, so I’m not worried about the pain issue.
  • I’m not worried if the project in its entirety would take a couple of years or more, though I’m interested in knowing if there’s a recommended interval of time between each session.
  • Needless to say I want to prevent any permanent damage to my skin…
3

You got here on a good day. I just posted a photo progression that you would be very interested in.

The speed at which you could get totally bare has everything to do with how quickly you get to first clearance, and how well you keep up with your treatments.

If you are able to get full clearances, you can have the majority of the work done in 9 months and polish off the rest in the months that follow. Nine to 24 months is a good range for someone who is seriously working at a total beard removal.

My clients have smooth skin that looks like they never grew hair there when we are done, and during the process, they enjoy a diminishing shaving schedule that soon drops to once every 3 or 4 days before they leave all hair removal to me.

Price can be as low as $5,000 and as high as $20,000 depending on many factors, not the least of which are the speed of your practitioner, the number of hours you do up front in the beginning, and the frequency you do your follow up maintenance.

Here is the link to the other question today that caused me to post pictures.

Large Clearances with gaps in between.

…And by the way, lots of Straight men get their beards thinned, or totally removed so that they can meet appearance standards, end skin irritation from razor burn and ingrown hairs. I just don’t have a client like that who has given permission for me to use their pictures. Lots of celebrity men have done it as well. We once had a whole discussion here just about that. Some celebrity initials WS OB LLCJ, Now if I could only convince my friend JLM to let me at his ingrown hairs, I would not wince everytime I watch L&O <img src=“/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif” alt=“” />

4

James,

Thanks for your post, this is useful. My beard is similar to his (her?), density wise, except at the base of the throat where I’m rather less hairy. My hair is darker and maybe a tad coarser.

A few follow ups:

  • Is the 2nd pic an accurate description of how much hair I should have on the first appointment?
  • Would it be possible to start with the throat / neck? Or is there a set progression?
  • How long did the first clearance take?
5

Another post that is good to link to this thread is:

Electrolysis Costs

I find that I work best with 3 days or more worth of growth to allow me to work my fastest on a face.

We start where the client has the most urgency. If a person has horrible ingown hairs on the throat, that would be where we start. Most Transsexuals start in what we call The Mask Area, as it is much easier to get by with baby soft skin on the chin and cheeks and upper lip, while still shaving the area under the chin and the neck, as those are not well lit, and go largely unnoticed.

(Most Trans Women suggest that you refer to them as she, and her, even as they may be presenting male during the transition period. Only those who are early in transformation and have a job they believe they could lose go by male pronouns when presenting male. You gotta believe that it confused my 60 year old mom when I introduced her to a lean 6 foot bald guy in a t-shirt by the name of Jennifer. Then she realized that she had met Jennifer before, on a day when she had not come directly from work to get her treatment. Mom had never read Jennifer as being “one of those clients” of mine.)

Keep in mind that the client pictured in that photo set had at least twice the normal amount of hair for an average male, covering twice the average area of skin. We did the first clearance in about 20 hours. Since your job is at least less skin area, and maybe less density, I might be able to do you in 10 hours, but there is no easy way to say that without seeing you in person. The variables are just too many.

I had two clients once who had the same hair counts, spread out over the same area of skin, and yet, the one was getting faster clearances than the other. They were comparing notes. (I think they were “racing” each other to completion) The one came to me upset because the other was ahead of her, and pointedly asked me why I was “giving her more hairs per hour.” I had to explain that although all their other numbers were identical, their hairs per minute would not be the same, as the angles of insertion were different, and the one whizzing along at speeds close to 1200 per hour was blessed with hairs that seemed to be set up by an anal retentive angel making a perfect hair grid, while the reason that we could only get 300 to 600 hairs per hour had to do with the angel who set up this hair having A.D.D. <img src=“/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif” alt=“” /> None of the hairs grew in the same direction, they criss-crossed each other. Some were curly, others were straight, there was just no easy way to do multiple hairs with a pivot of the wrist or fingers.

As is stated in the link to the “Electrolysis Costs” post sting, there is not much an electrologist can tell you over the phone that really pertains to your personal situation. Without seeing you, we know nothing about what your journey will be.

6

JDelage,

You also would need to take into the account how much redness and/or irritation would be ok with you when you’re still going to work every day while you’re aggressively trying to get to that first clearance. Also, your progress might be a bit different since this particulat person is probably on hormones which starts preventing development of new hairs from growing. I personally think it might make sense to start with laser to get rid of a good amount of the most coarse and dark hair and then do electrolysis to complete the full clearance. However, there is a possibility of some patchiness that can occur in between treatments. So, you need to decide if you can deal with that. I think overall the results might be faster if you do do laser first on the coarse dark hairs.

There is another transsexual here who indicated that it took her 9 laser treatments and 120 hours of electrolysis to get to permanent removal or so. Average price is $60-70 per hour for electrolysis and about $200 per treatment for laser. So you can calculate an approximate cost.

7

lagirl,

Good point. I probably would want to schedule the first clearance on a Friday afternoon, and maybe take Monday off, or something of the sort. I’m lucky enough that my job allows this kind of things. A little bit of residual redness / puffiness wouldn’t be a problem.

8

My male clients who are not on hormones don’t look any different from these pics, I just don’t have one who has given permission to post any. Many non hormone taking males can complete in 150 hours or less.

Yes, if you did a clearance like this on a Friday, you would be ready for work Tuesday. You might still be a little ruddy, but no one would lose their lunch looking at you, or ask you if you are allergic to shellfish. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

9

James I am very impressed by your work.

If I lived nearby, I’m sure I would have a hundred little obsessive nitpicky areas done by you!

10

Thank You.

You know, the problem with being able to see better, is your clients feel free to ask you to do more. I sometimes find myself in the ridiculous position of trying to talk my clients out of paying me to do more work in an area that I believe to be in need of no further treatment, but they believe that they are confirmed when I am capable of doing more in that very area when they insist. I am left to say, “Remember, I am looking through a stereo scope. I can treat hairs you can’t see OR FEEL!”

I wish you luckc finding someone who can give you the level of clearance you desire.

11

Hi:

I get my electrolysis done on a friday too. If you take good care of it afterwards it will be in pretty good shape by monday.

You will have to see how your skin reacts to the treatments. Make sure you read up here on aftercare and what skin creams, etc. help promote healing and get rid of any scabbing. If you have swelling in an area, which I did at first you may want to put some ice on it right after treatment to bring down the swelling.

One important thing to note is that you will need several days of facial growth prior to each treatment, so the electrolygist has something they can see and work with.

Alicia

12

I will let you in on a secret. Some times, seeing the hairs is not the problem, but grasping the hairs is the larger issue. We can treat follicles with hairs we can’t extract, but if we did not extract the hairs, they would be left in the skin to be pushed out by the shedding process. The problem with this, is some of the hairs would trigger immune system responce (it would be necrotic tissue after all) and pustules might develop. It should also be stated that when the hairs are not easily grasped by the forceps, it slows down the process, lowering the number of hairs you could get removed per hour, and since hairs per hour effects the cost of the treatment, it just works out better for you to make sure the electrologist has enough hair length to get their hands on and remove them with the greatest of ease and speed.

Most practitioners have clippers in their office, and can cut down overly long hairs down to size if you show up with hair that is so long that isolating the hair one wants to work on lowers hair per minute time. We can’t, however, pull more hair out of the follicle if you cut it too short.

13

I can treat hairs you can’t see OR FEEL!"

Depending upon the area of the body, I think I’d want to keep the hairs I couldn’t see or feel–wouldn’t that minimize the icky clothes-sticking you get when a shaved area of your body gets sweaty (that doesn’t occur so much if there is some barrier of hair between the skin and the clothes)?

BTW, those photos show some very impressive work, James. It looks like she could have returned to work immediately after being treated!

14

Thank You for your kind words.

My point was only that I am capable of treating hairs you can’t see or feel. I don’t seek to do so on hairs that I find insignificant. I honestly find myself trying to talk some ladies out of having some hairs removed. I tell them to put down the 10x’s magnification mirrors, step into the rest room 3 to 4 feet from the mirror above the sink and see what those of us looking at them actually notice.

Depending on the stage of our treatment, and the area we are working on, most of my clients could get away with a lunch time appointment, and go back to work.