Thanks for this wonderful website. I have been following this website and bought the braun epilator and tend skin along with aloe gel and Kiss my face alpha-aloe moisturizer.

I was just wondering if I need to wear a glove when I use tend skin. I am generally not very sensitive to products but after reading the instruction booklet I am a little scared of getting a chemical burn or get dry flaky hands. Also, after epilating, is it ok to exfoliate? Or should I wait for a couple of days before I do so.

Looking forward to your advice.

Thanks,
Daffodil

Tend Skin is alchohol, water, and aspirin. Not being a doctor or pharmacist, I'm only guessing, but I think the reason for the test is for aspirin sensitivity. Some people are very allergic to aspirin. My guess in the aspirin acts as an anti-inflamitory agent to reduce or eliminate redness and bumps.

I also wonder why the stuff is so damn expensive giving the simple ingredients it's made of. There's a similar product on the market and the ingredient order is water, alchohol instead of alchohol, water (FDA requires that they're listed in order of the percentage of the total, most to least) so I suspect the ratio of water to alchohol is just about the same. I'm going to mix some 50/50 and try and dissolve some aspirin tablets to see if I can replicate it. It also has some glycerin and glycol. Maybe a chemist on the board can add some insight to why they're there? Keep the asprin dissolved maybe?

I don't see any reason to wear gloves. Stuff burns if used as an after shave I can tell you.

Actually you should either wear gloves, or apply the product with a cotton swab (home mixed, or store bought) because your fingers will peal constantly if you don't. After just one application of this product with your finger tips, they will start to turn white. In a few days, your fingerprint will start to lift off. Don't worry, however, you have a spare set just underneath.

I have told people for years that they can just mix up their own tend skin at home. It even works just fine with nothing more than alcohol and aspirin.

James,

Why does it make your skin peel?

FWIW, I've been using straight rubbing alchohol as an aftershave on my face for years without problem. Can the aspirin make that much difference?

Yes Fred, the aspirin DOES make that much of a difference. The scientific name for common aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid. We all know what acid does right? Many wart removers and acne medications have salicylic acid as their active ingredient. Basically, put this on every day and burn off unwanted skin is what the directions say. Acetylsalicylic acid is much stronger than citric acid, so it is not the same as getting a little lemon juice on your fingers. That will only make your more likely to have a sunburn. This stuff will eat your skin. That is why it is used in tend skin after all. It eats away the skin that covers the trapped hairs, thus freeing them. The alcohol helps dissolve the aspirin and helps it to be absorbed by the skin. Now you know why one should not rub one's eyes after taking an aspirin without washing one's hands very well.

[ August 28, 2003, 07:36 AM: Message edited by: James W. Walker VII, CPE ]

Everything you wanted to know about acetylsalicylic acid: http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/pharm/aspirin.htm#PartTitle:1.%20NAME.

The article does describe it as a weak acid: [URL=http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/pharm/aspirin.htm#SectionTitle:6.1 Absorption by route of exposure]http://www.inchem.org/documents/pims/pharm/aspirin.htm#SectionTitle:6.1 Absorption by route of exposure[/URL]
My concern was that I've been applying it with gauze and it gets on my fingers. Applying it daily, I've noticed no side effects on my finger tips.

Typically, one starts by seeing white lines on the fingers. As time goes by, more and more of the finger print becomes white, and then it begins to separate from the finger tip. At that point, you can start the process all over again with the new skin under the layer you have already burned off. This process can take longer for some, or be speeded up on others.

I love tendskin. But get it in contact w/ your fingers and this 9% aceta..acid will burn right through it. Just try applying it on any random bumps you have on any part of the body or face, and watch it eat right through 'em in a matter of days. A great side effect if anything starts growing on you. I *heart* tendskin.

[ September 15, 2003, 08:55 PM: Message edited by: Tonic2 ]

Hi.

I really like this idea of home-made TendSkin.

What are the ratio's again? How much aspirin do you use?

Hook me up!

~saltz

Thank goodness for Hairtell, I really appreciate this thread on Tendskin. Andrea recommended it so I just picked up a bottle at my haircutter today. She speaks with an asian accent so when she went to ring up the price it pretty much sounded like she said '$16.00' for the big bottle. I handed her a twenty and she looked at me and said "$60! $60!" I was appalled at this price. I just got the little four ounce bottle for $15.00 which just smells and works like what you guys say, alcohol, water and aspirin. The Propylene Glycol and Glycerin I think are just stabilizers for the weak acid family that aspirin is. As for the Cyclomethicone, that's a silicone oil used in a whole bunch of things from makeup to deoderant to create a silky feeling. It's an inert ingrediant that has nothing to do with getting rid of bumps or redness. It could probably added in to a homemade mix by adding a dab of some skin moisterizer that contains a bunch of it, but if you're going to put lotion on afterwords, it's completely unnecessary. I just bought this bottle to read the ingredients and get a good sense of what it's effect is. After this, I'll be making my own, and yes, it works and making your own is recommended highly.

Thanks all!

Mantaray

Yeah, with Saltie, I'd like to know how much aspirin to use. I want it kind of strong, 4 aspirins per one cup alcohol + one cup water? Deionized water perhaps? maybe ten aspirin? Has anybody tried putting on Tendskin *before* epilating? As a pain reducer? Thanks.

Mantaray

Okay, after doing some looking up and dusting off my old Chemistry minor, I came up with a self-tried brew here that can act a lot like tend skin. Note, these guys watch their patent closely, and I don't offer this advice so that people can bottle this and sell it, that would be wrong. But so that those that can't afford the real deal, can at least enjoy some smooth skin. After all, these are readily available ingredients, so you do have a right to mix this up at home for your own use. And also, the Tend Skin people wouldn't have to deal with people trying to make a version themselves if they just charged a more reasonable price for it. $16.00 for a 4 oz. bottle isn't a good marketing strategy even here in San Diego where everything costs an arm and a leg. They are based in Florida where wages are depressed, I wonder about the price there. Well, enough of my bandstanding.

What you should know:

Aspirin, the active chemical itself, not the whole tablet, is soluble and stable in alcohol. The more alcohol, the longer the shelf life, of a home brew, I'm guessing weeks? I want to experiment with this later.

Aspirin is unstable in water, and will form acetic acid as a buy product, vinegar. The more water you have in your solution, the more vinegar-y it will start smelling as time goes buy. Aspirin will decay by 20% in about four days in water, but this is a fact I'm not really clear on.

Any water in your solution is only easing the sensation of the alcohol for you, but makes the solution less potent, more like vinegar and easier to detiorate. Water listed in commercial mixes are only due to the fact that they are using 90% or 70% alcohol and the balance of these percentages are made up with water. The other ingerdients listed are more for consistancy, texture/feel as you smoothe it on, and longer term shelf life (years)


Generic Walmart aspirin, which I use, contain about 325 milligrams of aspirin. The rest of the tablet is calcium phosphates, starches, and talcs. These are to just bulk up the pill, to aid against air moisture, and to buffer as the pill sits in the high acid environment of your stomach.

If you want to make a purely water solution and leave out alcohol altogether (you can, and it'll work so so), remember that aspirin is only soluble in water to the extent of about three of these tablets per 100 millilitres, so in a pint of water, anything more than about 15 tablets is going to be useless waste. But as you add more alcohol, the solution will be able to hold more aspirin in solution. In mixing up water containing solutions, you will notice more heat and pressure being created, remember to vent upon shaking! this is the aspirin already starting to degrade into acetic acid, this is the heat given off from bonds of the aspirin chemical being broken apart (hydrolysis).

Okay, here's what I do:

Take twenty generic aspirins, crush them up well, into fine dust in a dry vessel or on paper. Take an empty one-pint alchol bottle, make sure it's completely dry on the inside, fill it halfway with 70% rubbing alcohol. Add the aspirin. Shake well for at least four minutes. Notice with pure alcohol you don't get the heat, because of no hydrolysis, that's a good thing. After shaking, let the solution sit still while you do your epilating, waxing, or whatever. After all the chalks, talcs and calcium phosphates have settled to the bottom in a white dust, carefully "decant", that is, pour off without disturbing the sediment on the bottom of the bottle the clear alcohol layer into another dry bottle. Viola, there's your solution. It works fabulous and you can pour it in a squirt-type bottle just for ease of dispensing. Of course I'd use gloves when applying it and I'd use lotion right after it dries, and don't use anymore than you would a commercial, off the shelf mix, remember aspirin *is* an biologically active ingredient, you don't want to over do it. If you get chalk on your skin, then you didn't seperate out all the sediment chalk carefully enough. Try again.

I'm going to start experimenting with adding a little witch hazel and dispensing it into a spray bottle for ease of application. But that's me. Good luck, and make sure you don't have any allergies to aspirin or alcohol before trying this.

Mantaray

mantaray:

Interesting, do keep us informed

I'm not sure of the exact amount that your using.

So your used 300 grams of aspirn in about a .25 L bottle but how many mls of alcohol and how many mls of water in the same bottle?

If you're using a generic type aspirin tablet with about 325 milligrams of acetylsalicyclic acid as the active ingredient, then about 20 aspirin tablets crushed will give you about 6.5 grams of dissolved active acetylsalicylic acid in your solution after all the chalk settles out on the bottom.

The volume to add the aspirin powder to is half a pint. A pint is 473 milliliters (.473 liters), so you're adding to about 236 milliliters (.236 liters).

A weaker solution will be adding 15 aspirin tablets, that will yield about 4.875 grams of actylsalicylic acid in the 236 ml's of 70% rubbing alcohol. But this will still work fine. The main thing is to look on the back of the aspirin package and see how mnay milligrams Acetylsalicylic acid (or acetylsalicylate) each tablet contains, divide 6500 by that amount, and that gives you how many tablets to use. ie:

6500 / 325 = 20 tablets

For an aspirin tablet contain 400 active milligrams of salicylate: 6500 / 400 = 16 tablets

People here should feel encouraged to ask if they are in doubt.

**** Andrea! If Aguila feels I've answered his question and he doesn't mind, maybe you should delete or abridge his post above mentioning 300 grams, that was never implied. It would be downright dangerous to anything like this, or anywhere near this. Thanks. Feel free to delete this footnote as well.

...And to clarify, I would use only straight 70% rubbing alcohol. No water. Water doesn't help the solution at all, it only lessens the sting sensation. It's better to just put less on your skin if you don't like the discomfort of having alcohol on your skin. Also, adding water is like a chain reaction to destroy/ degrade your mixture. Because water + aspirin causes heat, and that heat in turn helps to destroy more aspirin. Aspirin in an aqueous solution is very vulnerable to heat damage. Actually, you might want to store your homemade mixture in the fridge when your done.

Thanks for a great post string.

I have told people for years to just mix up aspirin and alcohol.

Applying the product without contact with skin you don't wish to treat is a problem, but I would caution against the spray bottle thing however, because you don't want to inhale this mixture, and you surely would not want anyone to make a mistake and use this spray bottle for any other purpose. As a clear liquid, it could be mistaken for water in a spray bottle. You may be best off sticking to dipping a cotton swab into the solution, or wearing gloves and using a cotton ball.

I recommend a glass bottle with metal top with a good seal, since any plastic or vinyl container will be dissolved by this mixture over time. Even the commerical product eats its way through the cap if the product is stored on its side or upside down.

Many a purse, gymbag and medicine cabinet has seen the wrath of Tend Skin.

I'm allergic to aspirin when i take it orally. it burns wholes in my stomach, but then ai guess it does htat to everyone, no?

do you guys think that it will burn my skin if i use tend skin or a home made brew??

As with any allergy, if you have an allergy and suffer adverse reactions to aspirin, I wouldn't go near it. I would stay away from aspirin and aspirin containing products.

Hi,

This is my first post, so be gentle. I'm a 22 year old male with quite a lot of body hair, and I am very self-conscious about it (so I won't even go to the beach so that no one wonders why I won't take my shirt off). Because of this, I bought a Braun 3370 yesterday and tried it out last night. I just used it a little on the top of my chest so the hair wouldn't stick out of my shirt, and then followed up with some homemade tend skin. I also did it on my hands and feet. After a little bit, I also used some moisturizer to help the skin. When I woke up this morning, I had red bumps all over my chest where I used it. I didn't even go to work today because it looks so bad. My hands and feet are great, but not my chest. I expected some redness like the manual said I would have, but that sleeping might help with that. I did not expect all these red bumps.

What is this from? It's almost like razor burn I believe, but I did not use a razor. I have not noticed any positive (or negative) effects from the tend skin, and I couldn't feel anything when I put it on. Does that mean I made it wrong? I crushed up 20 asprin pills and put them in half a bottle of 70% alcohol. They were also the 325 mg variety with starch in them, so I figured that was the right amount. Is there any other way to get rid of these bumps? What can I do about them? What about next time, how could I prevent them? I would like to do more of my body, but definately not if I get these bumps. They don't hurt or itch, and I can barely even feel them, but they look awful.

Please help if you can, I'm not even going to leave my house until they disappear or unless I'm wearing a turtle neck.

Also, does using this homemade tend skin replace exfoliating or will I need to start doing that in a couple days?

If you have more than the usual amount of hair, and you have just had your first experience with an epilator then 1) Congratulations on your exceedingly high pain tolerance, the chest is a b**ch for guys, and 2) Your're gonna have some red bumps the first time out. Put the solution on twice a day. What you're going through, from what I read, is normal. But, keep us posted if the bumps don't start fading at the four day mark.


...Seriously though? Save your money any way you can, take it out of your food budget, entertainment bugdet, pizza budget, and go for an electrolysis or lazer treatment. Even just a hair reduction and not a whole complete clearing. Just make up your mind to do it, and find a way to get it done. Either that, or you and that epilator are going to be very good friends for years to come. If permanent hair removal is in your future, don't waste time or try getting a quick fix. As much as I think so highly of the two Brauns (2170 & 3370, their heads and all parts are interchangeable) I use, I still think of them as quickfix that doesn't address the problem, just as shaving or waxing are quickfixes too. That's what I've came to terms with, spend the $350 or so for your back, and be done with it. Epilating is far more cost effective, conveneint, cleaner, and quicker than waxing. But do you realize what's it going to be like to do this for years? That's why I'm now shopping around and checking out the San Diego area hair removal clinics. There's a lot to know, so I'd get started now.

Mantaray

The alcohol/aspirin solution does exfoliate by killing the top layer of cells, but you need to help it along. You need to take a good firm brush with you in the shower. That will remove the dead cells. If not, then you get a scale-y, peeling type look, like your skin is dry. This is just the cells still hanging on. The red bumps diminish as you get used to it. The first generation hairs are always anchored in the strongest, they've had awhile to brace themselves in the follical. Plucking these first generation hairs always irritates the skin leaving the red bumps.

Mantaray

I'm interested in trying the homemade TendSkin. However, I live in the UK, and it seems that rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl alcohol) is not available to consumers. It seems as if 'surgical spirit' is the closest alternative. From what I understand, surgical spirit is ethanol (which is essentially alcohol) with a small amount of methanol added to make it unpalatable to drink (!). Has anyone in the UK tried making the homemade TendSkin with surgical spirit? Does the addition of methanol effect the absorbtion of the aspirin or the action of the solution?

At least I won't be tempted to DRINK the solution!

thanks!

-kate

It sounds like you just had a reaction to your moisturizer.

Stick to the Aloe and Tea Tree Oil.

Moisturizers and lotions contain many ingredients that are skin irritants. Lanolin, and FD&C colors for an example, cause many people to have negative reactions. FD&C colors contain pine tar!

Tell us what your results are the next time you clear the area.

well, it's winter so a turtleneck is not hard to pull off

but seriouly, are you that self concious about some red bumps.

I use an epilator for my arm pits and I have never had issues like that (or i don't remember) but instead of the tend skin right away why don't you try something more soothing like vitamn E oil or any other natural oil, even baby oil.

Other than that i think that you made the tend skin well. i would say it's even not that strong, so that's good.

The Ol' Bumparoo

is the Braun 3370 an epilator?
if it is the most probable cause of the bumps is a reaction to having the hair ripped out of your chest. this is a really common reaction to a first hair removal on the chest especially if you did not trip it first. if your hands and feet are fine i would guess that the homemade tend skin is not the problem.

If Tend Skin is too costly for you, look into Follique. It is just as good (if not better) and you get more ounces per bottle for about the same price.

How are the chemists doing with their home made versions?

i have scars and pitting caused by long-term tweezing and also plucking to remove ingrown hairs which keep coming back. does tend skin (homemade or commercial) affect these scars & pitting or make them worse? also, can tend skin be applied on the underarm and facial area? would appreciate anyone's kind help asap as this problem of ingrown hair and scarring has been causing grief for a long time. thanks!

hi!
This is my first post here.. I'm very interested in home made tend skin, but it seems that where i live (italy) isopropyl alcohol isn't sold to normal people..
i believe it's because you can use it to make bombs or something like this..
so.. what can i use instead of it? please tell me there's something else i can use! maybe some other type of alcohol?
ok.. sorry for my bad english =)

Hi, you can buy rubbing alcohol in the UK from E-bay. However, it is rather more expensive than it should be. The cheapest I found was a 5 litre container for £18.00 (including postage). Just type 'rubbing alcohol' into the search box.
Regards
Kirsten

I've heard that in the UK, 'Surgical Spirits' are the same thing as Isopropyl alcohol in the US. I don't know what percentage of iso it contains though.

Outside of that, I might suggest a bottle of Amber-190 or Everclear. I haven't seen Everclear myself, but I know for a fact that I've gotten a bottle of Amber-190 vodka - it's 95% alcohol. I've read on this forum somewhere that it might be bad to put on skin if it's over a certain percentage of alcohol, but here in the US, they sell bottles of 91% iso-alc which I'm quite sure is ok to put on the skin..
If getting Amber-190 I would add some water before putting it on the skin. If adding it in combination with aspirin to make your own 'tend skin', just err on the side of more water.

You may want to check into the actual percentage that's safe for the skin though, as I'm no doctor.

Hope this helps.