Okay - so i've decided......

Hair Removal Methods Do-It-Yourself Electrolysis
#1

to buy a home unit, but am not sure which one!! :eek:

My problem: i have excessive hair :frowning: , so i’ve been electrolysising (not sure about the word lol) it, The thing is i’ve just realised I’ve spent £800ish pounds on getting electrolysis done professionally and i was like :o!!
(from last 6 months)
I’ve also been using my One Touch Unit at home-which i have spent hours & hours using and have done a good job, but i still have loads of hair to work on and i know it would cost me at least another £1000 to eliminate most of them…
and i’ve decided to do my legs also, (because if i wax i get too many ingrowns and it hurts & bleed when the hairs are growing underneath… :frowning: ), and slowly move on to do my arm hair etc., and it’ll take thousands and thousands if i get them done pro!! :crazy:

I’m quite good at doing electrolysis myself, and i guess more practise would make me better & better, so i decided to get my own machine - one touch is good but its too slow, so can somebody help me out here please??

my electrologist used a blend unit, I’m not sure which make, but i know she used sterex needles, i dont know how good/old it was but it did the job alright, she used to click once or twice then remove the hairs - i’m looking for this kind of machine, just something simple(i don’t understand ‘loads’ of buttons you get on some machines :frowning: )

Since one touch is Galvanic, i understand what that is…
but i’m not sure whats the difference between blend, thermo or flash/micro, which is more effective?, and more importantly what is blend, thermo and flash?!?

It’ll be great if somebody can recommend a machine £500 or under if poss, and one similar to the one i mentioned my electrologist used(i can’t ask her, she’s not working at the same place anymore), and one with needles widely available…
because am clueless at what to get, and where to get it from!! :blush:

Thankyou :slight_smile:

#2

Six months of electrolysis is not enough time, even so, a slow electrologist is frequently the cause of a client giving up because they see the money pile going down. How long did you think this was going to take with a professional? I’m not clear on what areas you were concentrating on.

Are you thinking of doing any self hair removal on your face? Don’t even consider it! PLEASE.

Many electrologists in the UK appear to use Sterex epilators??? Call around and see if any electrologists have a second machine that they are willing to sell. Many electrologists keep an extra one or two epilators around as backups. A One Touch is too fragile for using on more than a couple hairs and it is very difficult to use, thus many unis are throw in the drawer never to see the light of day again.

Dee

#3

In the do it yourself section of the forum, we have a thread called “Legitimate Machines On Ebay” or something like that. Check it out, and any of the machines in that section are good ones to have. You may even find yourself owning a better machine than your current practitioner.

Just be sure to get a blend machine, as those can do galvanic, thermolysis and blend, whereas a thermolysis only (diathermy to you) would not allow you to do blend, or galvanic.

This brings me to your question of what is the better style of electrolysis to use. The answer is, “What ever you are best at doing.” The reason we tell people to start with galvanic is because that is the easiest thing to get good at. Once you get good at that, you can move on to blend, and when you get good at that, you can start working on your thermolysis/diathermy skills. A word of caution here; diathermy is the style of treatment that is MOST DEPENDENT UPON YOUR INSERTION SKILLS. If you have the perfect treatment setting and yet you insert the probe shallow, break the side of the follicle wall, or go through the bottom of the follicle the treatment will fail. This is the source of the falacious belief that thermolysis is the least effective style of hair removal. The less skill the person doing it has, the less effective the treatments will be.

As far as work on the face goes, please get a friend and trade work on each other. It is much easier to work on another person’s face. If nothing else, being able to see and move straight forward is a MAJOR plus. Self work on the face requires looking at a reversed image in a mirror, and working backwards, and in many cases, you can’t even see the area one is trying to work on in the mirror, while making that area available to the hands.

#4

Thanks for your opinions…

Dee - do you recommend Sterex epilators then?? I was considering getting one of their machines, but i weren’t sure if they were any good, but browsing on the net i’ve learnt that some salons use them…so i guess they do work - I’ve seen the Sterex Blend machine, SX-B on Ebay quite a few times, i think i’ll get that (brand new’s £750, so thats still not too bad :slight_smile: ) , so i can practice with galvanic first… - One question though, what exactly is microflash?-can you do microflash with blend units?
…and, er yes, i was considering doing my face, but i now think thats a foolish thing to do when i have exp. only with a One Touch… but since i was also thinking of doing my legs, i think that’s where i should start!

James - Thanks for explaining the diffs between the different methods…it makes alot more sense now! So basically blend is better than galvanic time-wise - Blend is better because it only takes 5-10 secs?? is this the advantage of it?
(My electologist took like 1-2 seconds to remove hair…she SAID she was using blend - i didn’t think it took that less time… :confused: )
Theres a electrode thing i’ve seen on the Sterex blend machine(i suppose all galvanic/blend machines have them??), but could you explain to me how that is used?? is it used when doing galvanic treatments? another thing, i understand that to complete the circuit in the One Touch machine, you have to have salted fingers to hold the probe with…does the galvanic mode on professional machines work like this also??

One more question please!! Sterex provide ‘one piece’ and ‘two piece’ needles, but what is the difference between them?? I’m not sure if other pro machines have these two types of needles…but it’ll be great if anyone could enlighten me about this - thankyou!!

#5

Sterex Electrolysis Machines are good, competent items, but there are many better machines available in excellent working condition on eBay that would cost less. They may be used, but they would be more versitile, and deliver more comfortable treatments. Anything by Fischer would be one that I would gun for if I were you. For that matter, there is an Apilus Junior on eBay right now that is in your price range as well.

MircoFlash would only be available on a very recent computerized machine, like the Apilus products, the later models of the Silhouet-Tone machines (like the VMC) and the most recent offerings from the Unified Fischer/Hinkel company and our good friends at Instantron.

Now, taking the blend thing… someone can be using both currents, which would be called a blended treatment, but if you are getting a release of the hairs in 2 seconds or less on thicker terminal hairs, that is technically a Diathermy/Thermolysis treatment, with the galvanic current on to keep the probe/needle clean.

The inactive pole, that chunk of metal, is there to complet the circut, and is used with galvanic, and blend. Without it, you can’t do the treatment. With thermolysis/diathermy, the metal would be used with the sensor function so that the practitioner does not have to tap the foot pedal, or press the finger switches, in order to activate the treatment currents.

One piece probes are made from a single piece of metal and are formed into the electrolysis shank with insertion probe on the end. The two piece ones are a shank with a wire tied in place to be used for insertion into follicles.

#6

In terms of treatment time per modality, think of it this way. This is just a very very rough approximation, but imagine a hair that takes 60 seconds with galvanic, the same hair may take with other modalities:

Galvanic 60s
Blend 6s
Thermolysis 2s
Microflash 0.040s

These are times for the hair to be treated once the needle is in the follicle, it doesn’t include insertion and hair extraction time. Over time, as your skill improves in one modality you can move up to the next faster modality.

#7

WHAT A HODGE-PODGE ASSORTMENT OF GIBBERISH. I invented ULTRALYSIS. I could have called it SUPERLYSIS or a number of other good sounding names. It was my idea to pick up speed while still doing thermolysis. It saves some time but I doubt if anyone can move their hands fast enough to remove a single hair at the speed of 0.04 seconds. That is 4 hundredths of of a second. BE REAL!! IT CANNOT BE DONE THAT FAST. It takes longer than that to depress the switch and wait for the response. It takes longer than that to decide which follicle you are going to attack. That speed, if it could be accomplished, would be very fatiguing for your hands and could not be sustained.

I guess you believe it can be done so there is no point in continuing this discussion.

#8

You really are CLUELESS. There are too many TRAINED electrologists that are not very effective. You are not trained. This is not do-it-yourself surgery. There are areas you can not reach yourself. The face would have to be done in reverse using a mirror. You would give it up pretty fast. In UK electrolysis is covered by national health insurance. Why not have a professional do it?

Did you ever think that you might have a medical problem? How old are you? You mentioned arms. Do you have hair in areas where men usually have hair and women do not have hair? Any on the sideburns, belly, breasts, upper thighs, butt, lower back, chest or any other places? You can not do anything until the medical problem is corrected as you could still be growing new hair in places between the hairs you already have. Do not sell yourself short.

#9

lefty, not sure what your issue is, but you seem more of an attacker than a helper. Hopefully you are just having a bad day, and this it not the normal you.

#10

I think this is has just been his personality for years and years. He probably will ignore you.

#11

F6Hawk & dfahey, thanks for posting for me… :slight_smile:

i thought it was just me who thought there’s something wrong with this guy - thats why i didn’t say anything…
and I’m glad theres people like you and James on this forum who ACTUALLY help out… :grin:

Have a nice day!

#12

You’re fine alisha. Don’t be concerned.

Dee

#13

Actually, I thought it might have been something I said. :confused: (Did I say anything that was just outrageously off target? If I did, I would like to know so I can learn and improve.)