Hi everyone! So I have been doing electrolysis on myself for some time now using thermolysis which I know is a bit crazy I have indeed burned myself and left tiny marks here and there. However I saw for myself that thermolysis worked best and is easiest to demonstrate on arm hair I removed patches on my leg as well but the insertions are a bit tricky. I have been waxing the hair for over 9 years now… I’ve done the same for my arm hair as well… Waxing for years… Now I’m thinking it could be the needle size making the hairs not epilate easily. I’m using ballet F shank size 3. Any idea about what size I should use for thick leg hairs?
On thick legs hairs you should go with a F5 or better yet F6.
But thicker probes can be a challenge to do insertions with especially if you’re working on yourself. Are you having any trouble seeing the hair now when you work with your size 3 probes?
Do you mean i can see where a single hair goes under the skin? I can see only few of them if that’s what you mean but the majority I pretty much have to judge from the direction of the majority of the hairs in one area
I’ m going to disagree with your probe size assessment fenix.
In general Dona, you want the probe size to roughly equal to or slightly larger than the diameter of hair.Larger probes do give more even heat distribution, but if you cant insert the probe they arent of much use.I have yet to see female leg hair that would necessitate a large probe than an f4.I do a lot of my leg cases with f3’s.
I dont want you to take offense when I suggest this, but is insertion accuracy or energy intensity an issue?LEg hairs tend to be shallow on the lower leg, and deeper upper thighs toward the bikini area. By getting the insertion as close to the papillae as possible and delivering the right amount of energy I get perfect smooth releases every time. On the platinum pure, often I have to use synchro 3 or 4 , or pico 4 on finer hairs.I get full intact bulbs and easy releases, in fact legs are one of my favourites to work on.
I will say however that on arms and legs, if the angle of insertion isnt right then you will see more scabbing and probably angiogenesis.When working on a client I make sure to rotate the leg often to keep the area I am working on the top in order to acheive these accurate insertions. I’m not sure how well that would work out in DIY.
Seana
Hi Seana! When I first started treating my leg the hairs were shallower and they would slide out of the follicle with ease without any resistance and I’m clearing the area from any new growth in the mean time … On my arm I did only one treatment about two months ago til now no hairs except for few sprouting here and there. Now I’m back to treat the other leg and the hairs are deeper and seem to differ from the ones I treated on my left leg some time ago. I am also facing a problem with my inner thighs it’s almost impossible for me to treat inner thighs. I would say yes it is possible my insertions are not as accurate as they should be and I’m struggling to understand how to precisely insert the probe for certain hairs I usually have to do multiple insertions before a hair would come out it is truly frustrating
Whenever one attacks an area for the first time, it can be very tough to budge some hairs. The “end of life” hairs can be obstinate and the “new baby hairs” can easily slide. Once an area gets cleared, it gets a little easier to work on. At least, that is what I have observed over the years.
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Hi Dona,
Sorry I meant to get back to this, but unfortunately the last 2 days spent most of working in the office. I’m a bit exhausted, but, I’ll manage partof reply.
As a DIY’er, you will have to accept that it isnt safe to do thermolysis in places that you cant get a good insertion. Yes, you’ll nick yourself. For these areas, slow as it may be, I recommend blend.Better a dead hair and perfect skin than a slit or nick.
Regarding your insertions, it will come with practise.If you removed all the hair from an area, I wouldnt expect much regrowth in that are a for 8-12 weeks or so. As Dee alluded to, older hairs can be diffiult to insert past the desicated root sheath on telogen hairs and to get them to release, and you will find a lot of catogen and telogen hairs in the legs., Sometimes it might take 2-3 tried to insert. It’s perfectly acceptable to do multiple pulses at varying depths, the idea is to destroy the lower 2/3 of the follicle.Positining however is key. If you cant do an insertion on an area, dont use thermolysis for that. Blend will be much more forgiving of poor insertions.Do everything you can to make th insertions better.Take depth guides to guide you to the right depth.
Take care
Seana
Depth gauge is very helpful. I’m glad you mentioned that, Seana. Did I read somewhere that if one does something 10,000, they become an expert?
I think it takes at least 10000 times.Then it takes another 100000 to get efficient at it.
Yal, I think The Beatles proved that. They spent every waking hour playing their music in Hamburg, Germany before they became really famous.
Thank you guys thank you Seana! Yes I am considering doing the blend instead of thermolysis. The feeling that I’m frying my skin is kinda terrifying for me as a DIYer. I’ve never tried using the blend on my machine but I’m reading the book by Hinkel and I am learning so much about the skin and hair structure and the modalities. Right now I am learning about the blend and I’m planning to start treating me leg hair using it because my goal is to treat chin hair and I don’t want to do that unless I have some experience with the modality I’m using.
As for depth guides I know how to use a hair as a guide for my insertion after treating it and measuring it against my probe however it’s kinda difficult for me to tell in which stage the hair is unless I can exactly see where the hair goes under the skin.
I think thermolysis is great for shallow hair and hairs that haven’t been removed before to treat these tricky hairs you got to be a professional and I don’t think I reached the point where I can trust myself with thermolysis yet. I’m trying to put my hands on every possible book concerning electrolysis. Before I started DIY I used to think mastering electrolysis would be an easy task but now I know why you should know everything you could about it before experimenting on yourself!
Galvanic would be even safer for a DIYer. You perhaps can disable the thermolysis side of your unit and do pure galvanic. The margin of error is even less when doing galvanic as opposed to blend. Yes, thermolysis requires the most skill.
Just remember, you can still scar yourself with ANY MODALITY if used improperly.
Thanks Dee! Yes I’m looking for the modality with least side effects as a starter and I think I will start with galvanic for now and then move to blend. My sister is also helping me working on myself! I was looking at my unit today after reading about galvanic electrolysis and I have noticed that the time on my unit ranges from 1-20 seconds for the galvanic! From what I know that the treatment of a hair follicle with galvanic takes more than 20 sec per follicle!
So yesterday I tried to treat couple hairs using galvanic with the help of my sister -she was working on me this time- the hairs perfectly slid after 20 seconds and with intensity of .3 mA, the reaction was much less harsh than with thermolysis my unit also gives how many units of lye is produced I was working with 60-70 units of lye but in some follicles the lye was coming out of the hair follicle. Today much of the redness and swelling subsided except for these usual pink and kinda hard dots they don’t seem to have a crust as in scabs they’re also hard to touch! I don’t know if I’m on the right path. I’m ordering probes F4 today hopfuly they will do better than smaller F3. Any thoughts on how possibly I could make the best out come of this treatment?
Those red dots are normal healing skin. Angiogenesis is taking place.
The white frothy foam that you see pouring forth from the follicles are the by products of lye production. All good. If your hairs are small, you may not need 60-70 units of lye? It is good that they are releasing without traction. Gold 4’s are great for blend.
Yes the reaction wasn’t that bad however, my skin still looks irritated! Possibly because my unit doesn’t have more than 20 seconds of treatment duration per hair I had to increase the DC intensity to compensate maybe. Today we tried to experiment with blend a little. We tried some of the programs we have in the unit. Honestly I don’t quite understand how possibly i could set a balanced proportion between galvanic and HF yet without having to work with any of these programs.So I’m just reading about it for now and also watching my skin heals from my last pure galvanic treatment maybe that would tell me something about a new less intense setting I could use to treat thick leg hair.
So today my skin looks so much better in the patch where I did galvanic. But I’m still puzzled about the time of the treatment as I’m using DC intensity of .2 or .3 milliamperes for almost 20 sec -this is the max my unit has- but everywhere I read it says each hair requires at least 30 to 1 minute and a half of treatment with intensity of .2 or .3 this is too much lye in the follicle??
Hello guys! I always come back to here with more questions It seems like the more I read the more I get puzzled. So here’s a little summary of what I have been doing. I started DIY with thermolysis and I was using flash all the time - high intensity and hundredths of a second- and it worked just fine… Biggest struggle is with the insertions so I got my sister to work on me and we trade working on each other. I have been trying to understand how the other modalities of electrolysis work and apply my understanding to real life but many things don’t make sense especially when the books starts talking about settings duration of insertion and the practical method in general. For example right now I understand how the blend works and the steps to set it up, but everything becomes foggy once I look at my machine… The settings are different and I don’t seem to find an equivalent for what is stated in a book! I have been trying to find a modern guide for electrolysis that simplify the procedure or one that has a thorough explanation! How could one find such books/ texts … I’m asking for recommendations
You could order Michael Bono’s books at http://texaselectrolysisstore.com/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=Michael+Bono&x=0&y=0
You may find that your questions will be answered. His books are excellent.
Thanks Dee for spending time to read my post! I have already read a summary of the blend by Michael -it was a free pdf on his website- but there were couple things that I couldn’t understand. The first thing was that he recommended using a machine that one can manually control hf and dc so when you work you know when to step and on which pedal! Correct me if I’m wrong. Another thing that I counldn’t understand is finding the working point… For some hairs we have to keep the hf current flowing inside the follicle for up to 20 seconds… My machine does not allow more than 8 seconds!
I looked up some of the already programmed settings on the machine, I also think the original owner reprogrammed or ultered the settings. Anyhow I have found that they used for hf same settings one would use for flash thermolysis. I know how the procedure may be done, I just don’t seem to be able to understand how to follow up with the unit I have. I know many people here have done DIY using blend maybe they can share some of the steps they followed or tips on this subject.
So far I have read two books in addition to the free PDFs by Michael and I am going to buy the complete blend book by him as well.
Thanks for any input.