I thought I had read a long time ago that one of the three methods was best to use on someone who has been a long time tweezer?
I am fairly certain the woman i am going to see for consultation does blend. i had thermal (?) done a few times but the woman moved away as did i, so we never got anywhere.
i need to take care of my chin and some randoms on the neck. i have a tweezing disorder that has been going on for probably 15 years. while i am at home alone there is a tweezer in my hand ALL the time, when i drive i have tweezer and use them when no other cars are around, i get very agitated when i am places where i can’t pull the hairs out (ex: boyfriends house for weekend etc).
my chin area is beaten up by doing this so long and i am always breaking out here probably from touching all day.
i pray to get rid of these hairs so i can function.
Any of the modalities will work for you. You just want to find someone close who is good!
Since you tweeze so frequently, this is the rare occastion that I break the rules and allow a client to have more than one treatment per week on one area. Since the tweezing you are doing is so very hard on your skin, having treatments (and no tweezing between, right?) a little closer together is easier on your skin than that constant picking and plucking!
It will be hard for you, but you MUST stop all tweezing and be consistent with your treatments.
I know I’m not the first to mention this to you, but after 15 years, it sounds like it’s beyond a hair issue. It sounds obsessive-compulsive, just from what you say in your short post. Being that tweezing will greatly stretch out your timeline, you need to focus on being able to tolerate having remaining hairs present so even the quality treatments will make good progress.
Feeling anxious/tense when you can’t fulfill a compulsion is a bit like an anxiety attack. You need to take care of these impulses in a priority fashion. Even if you were to get good hair treatments going, you may just transfer the anxiety and find yourself doing something like hyperventilating or counting some items in your surroundings. If you have a health plan, you need to schedule an appointment with your general practice doctor so a referral can be made to someone that is going to assist you in making positive steps towards tolerating a few hairs on your neck and chin.
Reading your posts, I don’t want to read too much into your situation, but if it’s along the lines of what kind of comes through, you need to recognize that it’s crossed over from being an aesthetic issue, to being a behavioral concern.
Aside from what I’ve already mentioned, shaving first thing in the morning, before you have a chance to fully become irritated by the hairs, will allow you to keep less distracted. If you start an electrolysis program, you will need to shave instead of pluck anyway, to get better clearance, so just start with it now. If you still find yourself trying to pluck out freshly shaved hairs (I know, I’ve been there), and can’t get of the tweezers altogether, then try to keep blunter, more round-tip point tweezers available and throw away the pointed ones, so you can’t damage your skin as easily.
Good luck, and keep yourself busy. It goes a long way towards keeping your mind off your hair.
Mantaray has a good point. This can be a disorder, a form of trichotillomania. You can research it online. You should look into getting treatment for it while you’re doing hair removal, so that you don’t hinder your progress. You cannot tweeze at all after you start electrolysis.
It might take a bit longer to complete the removal process if you have been tweezing the hair for a while as they become stronger and more resistant. But with consistent treatments, you will get it done. I had a similar issue with my eyebrows where I tweezed them a lot out of stress and got electrolysis on them. It did stop the tweezing problem since I didn’t want to waste the time and money I spent on electrolysis.
Blend is fine for you. It’s a bit slower than thermolysis, but it’s good on deep hair and stronger hairs that have been tweezed. It usually is a good choice for chin area.
I read above that you need to shave the area of electrolysis for clearance…if I do my best not to pluck or at least not as often can I get results without shaving? I want to do my under chin/ upper neck area and there are lots of vellus hairs. I don’t want to get rid of ALL of them but just the dark ones and blonde ones that stick out or are thicker and don’t nicely curve with the neck/chin close to the skin. I am only bothered by the ones that stick out straight and don’t “go with the flow”. I would be mortified to shave my whole under chin area/neck! That would be worse for me to handle. I totally understand the plucking everywhere obsession and in the car etc.
What does it mean if my state is listed under “no board department of health” ? Is this bad or does it mean they at least have a dept, just without a board? Sorry if this is a stupid question. I was looking under the info posted on this site for finding an electrologist in my area.
Thanks for any advice,
alli
You would be best served to go to an electrologist who can do a first clearance in one day and then keep you clear so you can stop thinking about plucking. I don’t know who that would be in your state, as you have not put that information in your profile.
you should not pluck at all. you will be wasting your money and going in forever if you do. please read my answer to this in your other thread.
for your situation, you should just got in for a treatment where the electrologist will get all the offending hair in one sitting each time. that way you don’t have to pluck. also, clipping the hair is fine, you just can’t remove it with the root while you’re getting treatments.
If I am getting only the offending hairs below my chin/ upper neck done, and not ALL the hairs that are there, how will the electrologist know if he/she is getting the same hair again or if it is in its correct stage of growth? I’m speaking of the blonde hairs b/c the dark ones are easy to remember where they are. Can they time it by the week and then just hope they find it? How can you tell what stage it is in? Hairs will keep coming in later that I will want to get rid of so how will I ever know if I am killing them? I want this to work so badly!
Well, if they zap all the hairs that are offending you each time, you will inevitably get all the hairs that are offending you. You don’t need to track it hair by hair. Anagen stage lasts for 3-4 weeks on the face. So you want to get the hair at that time, the sooner after it first show up, the better. Also, some people shave the area several days beforehand so that the electrologist can see which hairs are actively growing (anagen).
Thanks Lagirl. So how long do the other stages last on the face? Is it ok to just zap offenders when you see them, not knowing what stage they are in? Can you still get progress this way? I’m not trying to exhaust this inquiry, I just want to know if there is still hope b/c the offending hairs will not all be present at the same time. I just want to rid of any that stick out straight or are too long or don’t flow with the curve of my skin. As they grow there will be different hairs that pop up that look horrible. I don’t want to take all of them away so shaving wouldn’t be an option.
Also- regarding the dark hairs, which are almost black: I know where each spot is and it seems like it is just one hair that pops up until I pluck it but if hairs stay dormant for 2 months after plucking then different hairs must be popping up in the exact same places…is that true? It seems like every week or 2 max. If we just zapped these every time then we are bound to kill them sometime I guess. How long will this method take to stop the growth? I don’t have much money but if there is any hope I will consider a maintenence program hoping to achieve succcess.
Have other ppl had success here without shaving? Thanks to all who are helping me figure this out!
i think you are missing the point. say, you come in and zap all the hairs that are actually bothering you. you leave, and then you will probably need to come back in 2 weeks because you will see more hairs come in that are bothering you. these will be hairs that were dormant before. it doesn’t matter what stage the previous hairs were in in your case. after the first clearance, if you come in on schedule which is important (i.e. within 2 weeks after the new hairs first come in), you will always be treating the offending hairs in the correct stage.
p.s. since you’re not treating all the hairs in the area, you don’t necessarily have to shave. You can just come in as soon as new hairs show up and have the electrologist treat just the offending hairs.
You are correct. If you are seeing a hair grow in in a spot that you plucked within a week or two, it’s not the same hair. It’s a different hair. It takes a lot longer than that for the same hair to develop and grow out of the skin again. Each hair shouldn’t need more than 2-3 zaps total, and many will be killed on the first zap too. The important thing is to stay on schedule. It’s not too expensive either if you go in every 2 weeks for maybe 30 mins (I don’t know how long you need since we can’t see how much hair you have to treat). After a while, you will need to come in less and less often as you eliminate hairs completely.
If you have an electrologist who can clear you in a short period of time, and you keep on track to have the electrologist do all the hair removal as the hairs come in (we can treat them before you can see them) you can just stop plucking now, get cleared, and never pluck or shave again.
You just have to have someone able to catch the phase and keep up.
Hi everyone. Thank you for the helpful replies. Sorry I abandoned my thread! i did not meet for my consultation as it will have to be pushed back a bit before i can start ($ issues right now/sudden loss of job)
Hi James. i am in atlanta, ga.
Sorry if i am not understanding something that has been explained but when you suggest a “complete clearance in the first visit” is that saying i should let as many hairs grow to surface before i go in. like maybe hide out from public for a bit!!
also, i am going to work on providing a photo of my chin area but i am embarrassed as my face/skin is often very broken out and damaged and my new camera likes to, um, show this off in detail!!
between now and when i actually start my treatments, i am going to learn as much as i can. this is something i am committed to, once i am back to having stable funds.
A Plucker like yourself needs to stop plucking for a week to 6 weeks (that is why we suggest shaving) and then get full clearance. If the plucker simply refuses to shave, then one will spend more money, as one will have to go in, get cleared, then go in again in 3 to 5 days, get recleared, go in again in 3 to 5 days, get recleared, until that whole phase comes in and then the second clearance can begin. Trust me, it is less money if one just puts down the tweezers for 6 weeks and then gets cleared. If money is no object, they just go in frequently in the beginning.
It has been said that blend is good for deep, stronger hair that has been plucked and tweezing hairs makes it more difficult for thermolysis. I have tweezed the daylights out of my chin and under chin area for the past 3-4 years. I was hoping to do microflash, but with all this considered will it still be a good option for me?
Most practitioners using microflash have the ability to use blend as well. You need to find someone who knows what they’re doing and let them choose the best method for various types of hair that you have.
Neither of the women I’ve spoken with so far do blend, from what they told me.Whether they have the capability, I don’t know, but if they don’t ever use it then it doesn’t seem like it would matter. I just want to make sure I’m pointed in the right direction!
I know I may be worrying too much…I just want to make the right decision if I’m going to invest so much time and money into this new venture. I just need to trust the practitioner, I know!!
There, there, it will all be better soon, just you wait and see.
Now for the information:
Although heavily tweezed hairs are more difficult working on in the beginning, they all fall in the end, as long as the practitioner knows what she is doing.
Thanks for the hug and reassurance James…it really does give me hope and mean a lot to me. You guys don’t know how much your advice means to so many of us. I’m going through therapy to deal with all of this and honestly you guys give me more hope and help relieve more anxiety than all of that.
Actually, if the number 7 jerseys that show up on my door step as thank you’s from around the world are any indication, a few people actually do take the extra step to show me their gratitude in a very physical way. [grin] Now if only I can get a Beckham 7 or a Ronaldo 7 from Manchester United, I would be set LOL.
Since all of us who have made HairTell what it is today have had to deal with unwanted hair, including me, we really feel your pain. We will be right here for you, as we always have been.
