too many variables!

Hair Removal Methods Do-It-Yourself Electrolysis
#1

ok. its all really confusing. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

ive read the Hinkel book now and am envisioning doing this (i dont have a machine yet). i imagined i would learn on my legs since i can see that surface best. I only have leg and pubic available for removal as my face is the sole job of my pro! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

but there is so much to this! deciding on current, deciding on time (if using blend), calculating units of lye right, deciding on insertion depth… and if its not going well (if indeed i can even tell that), which variable to tweak… is it the wrong depth? wrong calculation? wrong to try this on yourself, haha? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

im waiting on my next books and will keep reading until it gets clearer, but i have to say Hinkel isnt the best explainer ive ever come across. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

any advice on starting to learn this stuff? start purely with galvanic? or just start by inserting over and over with nothing until you “get a feel?” can one feel the depth of a follicle manually or do you have to, as Hinkel implies, wing it? ok, he didnt say that, but he certainly talks about how often you have insertion mistakes and how choosing blend covers that because of the heating pattern and travel of the lye, etc. made it almost sound really common. i dont think he ever mentioned feeling the end of the follicle, as my electrologist says she feels…

sigh. is this just the newbie jitters? how did you all do your first hairs? especially those of you who are doing your body hair as opposed to your face (which i am going to let my electrologist finish herself)? the body hairs are pretty dang fine (though long and red)… does everyone use a huge magnifying glass?

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

amy

#2

You are right, it is not something that any trained monkey can do.

This is why no two electrologists will give you the same treatment. Where one would adjust the current, the other would adjust the timing, and still another would change modalities.

I have always said that the best book for a beginner to learn from is the Mike Bono Book, but Mike is not co-operating at the moment, because he is not selling new editions of the book at the moment, and he proposes to sell a new CONDENSED version as the new edition when and if he ever sells the book again.

If you can’t get a copy of Bono’s book, or even a zerox copy of someone else’s Bono Book, then the next book in line for ease of use is Meharg and Richard’s “Cosmetic and Medical Electrology”

When you have the right feel, you will be holding the probe in such a way that when you hit the bottom of the probe, the probe will slide past your fingers instead of puncturing the bottom. There is also a feel to hitting bottom that a pro knows when he or she feels it. To practice this, insert on your leg slowly and see what you feel when you go too far. You will be feeling what your leg feels on the insertion, in addition to what your hand feels on the insertion. This is the best way I know to teach an insertion. It is an easy place to insert, and one can feel it going too far really quick.

Good Luck,
Maybe you will graduate to become another HairTell inspired electrologist and bring happiness to many, as you end their struggle with unwanted hair.

#3

which variable to tweak… is it the wrong depth? wrong calculation? wrong to try this on yourself, haha? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

We’ve had a fair amount of discussion of lighting and magnification in these forums. I won’t repeat those comments here except to say - don’t shortchange this part of the equipment set.

There’s a lot of latitude in the treatment settings. You can epilate hairs with pure thermo, pure galvanic, and the entire range in between. I was really precise about my treatment settings, and as I’ve gotten better at monitoring the skin effects, I’ve simply cranked both the DC and RF on my blend machine up to the maximum.

The one area in which you’ll risk damage is with too-shallow insertions. My solution for this is to put a 90 degree bend in the needle from 3 to 5 mm from the tip, and insert up to the bend. I have a set of needles at different lengths and change them depending on the hair. Big pubes take 5 mm, female facial hairs take 3 mm.

Another mistake newbies make is to not understand the difference between anagen and telogen hairs. Telogen hairs are frustrating because you can’t tell whether you are doing the insertion wrong and catching the edge of the follicle, or are hitting the telogen root ball. Anagen follicles are far easier to to correct insertion on, because the sheath is soft and the follicle typically straight.

#4

There’s a lot of latitude in the treatment settings. You can epilate hairs with pure thermo, pure galvanic, and the entire range in between. I was really precise about my treatment settings, and as I’ve gotten better at monitoring the skin effects, I’ve simply cranked both the DC and RF on my blend machine up to the maximum.

wow, really? i have so much to learn. do you not worry about where the taper of the needle is? do you not have to recalculate all the time for units of lye for the different depths? what about when it hurts (the book talks about pain tolerance a lot)? you’d have to adjust something for that… do you reduce time and then therefore DC too in some ratio that makes sense?

and what about these computerized machines with their pre-set settings? im totally curious about what they are set at, since Hinkel didnt have them to go into.

i was also surprised at just how much he disliked flash. never said a positive word about it. im assuming the understanding has moved on since then, or that he was of a minority opinion. he just doesnt seem to think there is any way to kill hairs with it, which cant be accurate. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The one area in which you’ll risk damage is with too-shallow insertions. My solution for this is to put a 90 degree bend in the needle from 3 to 5 mm from the tip, and insert up to the bend. I have a set of needles at different lengths and change them depending on the hair. Big pubes take 5 mm, female facial hairs take 3 mm.

yeah, im pretty worried about insertions. i say that having done none of them yet. maybe it will all become clear in the first few minutes of trying.

i think i understand the risk of the too-shallow insertion from reading, but i also think i would tend to err on that side anyway since one that is too deep is piercing the skin totally, is it not? is that really ok to do? would there be blood or would that self-cauterize? or would there be a different sort of pain?

Another mistake newbies make is to not understand the difference between anagen and telogen hairs. Telogen hairs are frustrating because you can’t tell whether you are doing the insertion wrong and catching the edge of the follicle, or are hitting the telogen root ball. Anagen follicles are far easier to to correct insertion on, because the sheath is soft and the follicle typically straight.

yeah, i can see that as well, at least from the reading ive done so far. any advice? for someone trying to learn to tell the difference between these hairs… what would you say? and anagen hairs may be straight and soft-sheathed, but arent they at different depths depending on how long they have been growing? does that mess with your insertions?

i plan to shave so that ill at least have growing hairs to start with. does that do enough to simplify things? can you actually tell what stage an unshaved body hair is in just by looking at it?

i cant wait to get good enough to be able to do my husband’s beard hair. they are so huge and uniform and non-mysterious-seeming! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

thanks everybody!

amy

#5

do you not have to recalculate all the time for units of lye for the different depths? what about when it hurts (the book talks about pain tolerance a lot)? you’d have to adjust something for that… do you reduce time and then therefore DC too in some ratio that makes sense?

…

i was also surprised at just how much he disliked flash. …

i think i understand the risk of the too-shallow insertion from reading, but i also think i would tend to err on that side anyway since one that is too deep is piercing the skin totally, is it not? is that really ok to do? would there be blood or would that self-cauterize? or would there be a different sort of pain?

i plan to shave so that ill at least have growing hairs to start with. does that do enough to simplify things? can you actually tell what stage an unshaved body hair is in just by looking at it?

I’m not sure, but I think the main problem with too much DC is that the area around the needle becomes too conductive and so the RF becomes conducted away from the needle and dispersed. The RF treatment area becomes too large.

The classic blend method is to set the RF for the patient’s pain tolerance, and then add DC appropriate for that resulting epilation time. However, we found that settings much higher than that initially found tolerable were preferable because they were for so much shorter a time. So at the end we basically set blend theory aside.

The blend method is perfectionism on a per insertion basis. The epilations are highly effective. But even if flash is less effective on a per insertion basis, the epilation times are so much shorter that in many cases the net effect is more hairs permanently killed per minute. For example, say you can do insertions in five seconds. If you do ten second blend, you are doing one hair every fifteen seconds. If, instead, you are doing flash, you still are taking five seconds to do the insertion, but the epilation is over in, say, one second. That’s one hair every six seconds. However, if your efficacy is only 50% with flash, you still are permanently removing one hair every twelve seconds, or 20% faster than blend. The shorter your insertion times, and the more skilled you are at getting the insertions correctly, the more the balance is tipped in favor of flash. If you’re a cosmetologist who does an hour of electrolysis a week, and spends a long time on each insertion, the time savings from flash are lost.

However, if you’re working on, say, the eyebrows, where there are few hairs and appearances are most important, I’d be inclined to work slowly and carefully. Elsewhere, where appearances matter little, I’d be highly inclined to work as fast as possible with flash.

Definitely shave repeatedly during the treatments. To the extent possible, you always want to be working on telogen hairs. The ideal is to start with a shaved (ideally, waxed!) area and continuously epilate hairs as they emerge, maintaining clearance. For a large area, or a slow electrologist, this is not practical, so interim shaving is a decent compromise.

Often telogen hairs are at odd angles. They often have less coloration than the neighboring anagen hairs. The main way to tell, though, is that the insertions just don’t work the way you’d like!

In my thousands of insertions, I’ve drawn blood a couple of times. My wife is prone to superficial veins, and I accidentally punctured a couple. In general, though, any punctured capillary quickly closes up again as the needle is so narrow. Don’t worry about too-deep insertions, except to the extent they will slow down your epilations and cause an unnecessary amount of (thankfully hidden) skin damage.

#6

The classic blend method is to set the RF for the patient’s pain tolerance, and then add DC appropriate for that resulting epilation time. However, we found that settings much higher than that initially found tolerable were preferable because they were for so much shorter a time. So at the end we basically set blend theory aside.

thanks for all the info, diy. ill do my best to keep it all in mind.

i think i must have misunderstood something about setting the blend, though.

from what i read so far, im supposed to do the DC to tolerance to determine the time, and then decide from there on the RF for the units of lye necessary to kill the follicle.

the added benefit is supposed to be (as i understood it) that the DC provides some nerve-killing which goes a long way in providing the pain tolerance needed for higher settings of RF. you cant feel it at first, so you have a window in which to treat.

so, do i have it backwards? i should set the RF for tolerance and then just add the DC that can be done in that time without causing damage?

hmm.

amy

#7

i think i must have misunderstood something about setting the blend, though.

from what i read so far, im supposed to do the DC to tolerance to determine the time, and then decide from there on the RF for the units of lye necessary to kill the follicle.

so, do i have it backwards? i should set the RF for tolerance and then just add the DC that can be done in that time without causing damage?

Yes, you just interchanged “RF” and “DC”.

“RF” = radio frequency = heats like a microwave

“DC” = direct current = like a battery

Bono does a super job of explaining this stuff in his Blend Method text.

#8

amy,
I am glad that DIY’er got you corrected on the question of RF vs DC. I, like you, started by reading the Hinkel. I am sure that the Bono book is better, but for $10 used on eBay the Hinkel information is better than nothing. Overall, I think the book implies that blend electrolysis is much more scientific than the “art” it really is. This is OK if it helps a beginner gain more confidence, but in the end, many of the skilled practitioners on this board would agree that experience is what counts.
I followed the Hinkel instructions to the letter and found that, given my high pain tolerance and tough terminal beard hairs, I now pretty much max out the RF setting on the older Gentronic machine I am using. I also set the DC quite high and am using almost twice the units-of-lye that Hinkel calls for. Even with these rock and roll power settings, I still spend about 14 seconds on each hair to get a smooth removal. I arrived at these settings through experimentation, starting from the Hinkel recommended settings and working up. I would like to get the same effect from a 6 or 8 second blast but my old machine won’t do it and I am sure pain and possible skin damage would re-enter the picture.

I am just sharing my experience so you will understand that this is not a precise science. Careful trial and error, always erring on the side of lower settings and time are the only way to establish what is right for you.

Also, doing better insertions will come with time. I am embarassed to admit that I use a cheap drafting lamp and a 5X cosmetic mirror. I just added a little 10X suction cup mirror that is only 3 inches round. Relative to the fine optics recommended by many practitioners here this stuff is stone age. However, I have progressed to the point where even with these cheap mirrors (they don’t even quality as optics) I can do reasonably well. As a matter of fact, I don’t know how I would use real optics for DIY beard work as it is so focused (pun intented) on working on somebody else.

Yes, there are a lot of variables, but is doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Just “do no harm”, you can always treat a hair again.
Good luck,
Ceecee