Quality loupes

Hair Removal Methods Do-It-Yourself Electrolysis
#1

What are YOUR requirements that needed to be met when you selected this oh-so-critical and oh-so-expensive piece of the electrolysis puzzle?

I have been looking, but cannot seem to find loupes that have individual focus (for eyes that are of differing strength). Are they made, or are they even necessary?

What power? I seem to recall Dee uses 4X. Others?

What focal length (working distance)? 13" seems a tad close, but 21" seems a bit far, just guessing here.

Clip-on, or hard-molded to a frame?

The Med-lite 350 is only $269, has anyone used these and can comment? 3.5X, and (I was thinking) 17" WD. http://www.med-lite.com/e-store/

Thanks in advance for your insight!
Dave

P.S. Here’s another pair to compare by: 6X Loupes
They offer:
420mm WD (about 16")
25mm depth of field (1")
40mm FOV (1.5") (DOF & FOV seem mighty small to me, are they actually?)

#2

The frame and general physical characteristic of the 6X loupes in your second link are similar enough to the 4X ones we have at work that I’d venture they were probably made by the same company. Through them a coarse hair (or an electrology needle) would appear about the size of a sewing needle.

I’ve used the 4X loupes to repair printed circuit boards built with surface-mounted components, and the optical quality is good enough that I can wear them for several hours without getting tired.

Depth and field of view will always get smaller as magnification increases. (Our maximum magnification 3D microscope has a DOF of less than a millimeter and a FOV of about 3 mm.) With increased magnification the eyes have to work much harder to focus on items closer or farther than the ideal focal point.

That said, in a previous thread dfahey indicated that medical grade magnification optics are built to provide better resolution, field, depth and ergonomics than their scientific counterparts. Accordingly, since the item is listed as dental/medical it must be even better than the ones we have. (Our supplier is strictly scientific, and carries no medical equipment.)

Perhaps I should also buy a pair - since the manufacturer probably is the same it would be quite interesting to find out the difference. The price certainly seems quite reasonable…

#3

Upon closer examination, I am not so sure about many of the Ebay loupes. Most sellers seem to be based in Hong Kong, and I am leery of those auctions, lots of scams from over there I think. Also, the item location is HK, but the text in the auction says they are in UK. Hmmmmm…

As I suspected, something smells like 3-day old tuna:

Auction: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=330291791247]
Click on feedback # (3855 now)
Click on name of feedback from forestfan91 (290*) on 10 Dec
Brings you to: http://myworld.ebay.com/forestfan91
Click on View all feedback, this seller has not left feedback since 12 Sep. Ergo, I can say with confidence this is a scam seller!

Did the same thing with lemonbanzai (143*) and see feedback left on 9 Dec, but not to that seller. Another thing to note is that this seller from “Hong Kong” lists auctions in English as well as Spanish & French. Not impossible, by any means, but realistic? I wonder…

At any rate, I personally won’t be buying any optics from Hong Kong, thank you very much!

#4

I called Orascoptic research and they sent a field representative to my office. Several things were measured and I received my custom glasses in about three weeks. Their service is excellent. Cost of my glasses were close to $2,000, but you should think of something for under $800, since electrolysis is not your livihood. Not sure where you are living right now, but if you are in the states, there are a lot of optical possibilites for you.

#5

Yeah, I have a hard time buying a loupe that costs more than my epilator! I was thinking more abour $200-300, hopefully.

I am temporarily in CA, and will be visiting the Santa Ana office of Dectro this Friday, and hope to be able to try on whatever loupes they carry, just to get an idea of the power I will need. I plan on getting needles & cords as well to go with my Senior II.

#6

Have fun “shopping” in Santa Ana. The Dectro people can guide you, hopefully. The vision part of electrolysis is a very personal thing. I went through a couple of vision options before I hit the jackpot.

#7

Why the quotes around shopping? Am I missing something here?

#8

Well, you are not really shopping technically, more like you are on a mission to get supplies needed that will set you up for hair removal.

#9

Oh, ok. I thought maybe you knew something about the store that I should beware of. Whew!

Besides, this is a guy’s idea of shopping, ya know? Know what you want, go get it, go home.

As opposed to a woman’s method… know what you want, go out and look for it at 30 different stores, come home with eleventeen different things than what you went out for, and come home and complain about how you couldn’t find that perfect something! :smiley: :smiley:

Well, that may not be all women, but m wife surely does love to shop!

#10

You’ve nailed it, Hawk! I shop more like a man. :grin:

#11

If I can be so rude as to betray a personal confidence, I can tell you that sometimes, I have to remind my friend Dee what other women are like. Her husband is a lucky man. When they go shopping, Dee wants to “Bag It & Drag It” just like he does. No hours spent looking through stores you don’t have a specific item you are looking for in that store. “Get 'Er Done!” :grin:

#12

God bless a woman like that! I second the emotion of her husband being so lucky!!

#13

Oh, kind gentlemen, may I give you a word of womanly advice for your special women from the shopping side of things? NEVER! EVER! purchase cheap rose-scented cologne and a chimpanzee card from ODD LOTS for your ladies. My husband did that one year and I think I stared at him for about an hour, with no emotions (or hormones running through my body), thinking to myself, he doesn’t really know me… this stuff smells like a funeral home and he’s a real cheapskate.

Dee

#14

Thanks for the info… as for the guys’s point of view, he doesn’t know the difference between one perfume and another, and HE thought the chimpanzee card was cute. Remember, if noses were ears, most men would be deaf. That’s why you girls send us to take out the garbage.

#15

You are so right. He meant no harm and was confused as to why I wasn’t excited about such a gift. Oh, my…

#16

When I buy a woman perfume, it is always a scent that she already owns, or has owned, and ran out of.

My mother likes this discontinued scent that I have to search high and low to buy at Estate Sales, Auctions, and on Ebay. Funny thing is there are still brand new, unopened products left so far.

For the ladies who have held my own personal WWF Women’s/Diva’s Championship, they get what ever ridiculously priced thing they have been scrimping on, (you know, using it on only one pulse point to make it last longer) or something I have heard her swooning about when the commercial comes on.

These days it is easy. The current Champion and I both like Obsession.

#17

This is axually a topic for another forum (besides hair removal), but you just nailed the source of so MANY marital problems. As humans, we know what makes us happy, and by nature, we tend to do those things to our loved ones. Unfortunately, what makes men happy rarely makes the average woman happy, and vice versa. Often times, when we do that “special something” that we just know our SO is going to LOVE, we are confused or hurt by their reaction (or lack thereof).

In order to truly make another person happy, one must invest time & effort into discovering what makes him/her happy, not doing things that make YOU happy. It’s not hard, it just takes effort. Once it is learned, then one becomes more valuable to the SO, because their basic needs are being fulfilled.

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest, as I SO OFTEN see people making that mistake. In your husband’s defense, he most likely thought he was doing something that would put a smile on your face. Poor guy, I can imagine his feelings to your reaction… Bear in mind, teaching us guys how to please you women is a TOUGH job. But with patience, even the most daft of us can come around! At least he thought enough of you to get something for you. Here’s hoping it was a “just because” gift, and not a big holiday event.

#18

I probably need some counseling. He did buy me one of my favorites last year, Prada Infusion D’IRIS and I sat there thinking, Oh my… he spent too much.

#19

Hey, most forums have “Thread Jacking” in every thread. We can deal with the few we have here on HairTell.

I learned the perfume thing the hard way myself, although not in such a way as getting a gift tossed back in my face. Due to some research for some project, I had learned about perfumery and how the scents were made and categorized. I found that certain scents were in the same family, and therefore not all that easy for the male nose to tell apart.

A commercial came on TV advertising a certain perfume, and I commented out loud that it was an equal scent to a more expensive concoction. The women in the room HOWLED! They said that the advertised thing was a “Loud, obnoxious” version of that scent, and they would pelt anyone who gave that scent to them with the box, and the perfume bottle.

I noted this, and made a point to always buy the extortionist priced scent, or not at all.

I will now take this time out to point out that women do the same thing when they buy some tool set for their guy at a dollar store and hand it to him thinking they got it. He wants tools, I bought him tools. The guy looks at the thing and seeing that it doesn’t say Craftsman, or Black & Decker, and thinks, “Ok, I can lay this aside somewhere. Maybe let the kids use them and lose them. I know, I will hand these out when ever anyone asks me can they borrow a tool!” He knows that those bargan basement tools usually break right in your hands, just as you are doing something.

I will never forget trying to pry something off with a claw hammer, and the claws breaking right off, leaving the hammer with the hammer head, and a smooth shiny back, where the claws used to be.

#20

Ok, I can’t seem to find any Tommy Bahama locally, but I hear it smells great. Anyone want to comment on it?

I ended up getting some 5X loupes off Ebay, and let me tell you, they take some getting used to! It’s bad enough that my hands shake a bit as I am trying to find that perfect insertion angle, but my head does too!

My loupes have a working distance of 420 mm (~ 16.5")… so do I just have to get the right distance to have it all in focus, and then adjust my head in or out to maintain focus as I work? It seems contraindicative to have my head SO FAR away, when normally one would lean in to get closer for fine work like this.

I feel like the hair is huge, but I can’t really see the follicle as I expected to be able to.