I was wondering if there is someone who has a similar situation as me that can tell me of their electrolysis experience(i.e. how long did it take for improvement, first clearance, how long total)? I posted here before about my situation. I have darker/thicker hairs on my upper lip and chin, and finer/ligher hairs on my sides/cheeks/going up close to my eyes. I’m concerned cause there’s so many, and they’re so close together. My chin is more sparse though. I know it’s hard to know how long each individual will take, I would just like to hear other people’s experiences that are similar to mine.
I’ve had 5hrs of electrolysis so obviously I’m early in the game. If anyone can let me know how they’ve done or know of someone that has a situation like mine that would be great!
The link below outlines my electrolysis experiences as well asmy laser experiences. I have had successful electrolysis on my upper lip and eyebrows when it comes to my face (I had other areas done too).
There are plenty of other diaries on the forum. Just scroll through the posts and you’ll be able to read several just in the first 5-6 pages of the forum.
michgirl, I couldn’t get any electrologist to treat facial vellus hair. I DID learn that natural blondes, like myself, have more hair follicles than brunettes–even though brunettes generally have thicker looking hair. So it takes longer a lot of times.
I found that Spiro alone thinned out vellus facial hair a LOT (better than it treated the terminal hair). You want some of it, or else your face will look waxy. I understand vellus is hard to treat due to the small size of the pore. Electrology worked well on my upper lip, where I had vellus hair, but the fine light ones on my cheeks… nobody would treat those. And I’m kind of thankful about that now. Maybe you could try an electric razor that just shortens the hairs but doesn’t cut them right next to your face. Vellus hair doesn’t usually grow that fast.
Not sure if that’s the kind of thing you’re wanting to hear, but that’s my experience, anyway. And I’m assuming you are a biological female.
If an electrologist has invested in surgical magnification above 3x, then those vellus, light hairs can be seen, especially with a good light source like halogen.
Wouldn’t a halogen light blind one’s eyeballs out? I don’t know if I could stand it. I wonder if those goggle things that people wear in tanning booths would help. Or if that would annoy the electrologist.
A halogen light is very bright and is very hot to work under. It needs to be tilted correctly and placed at a good working distance away from the client and the practitioner. The light is not bothersome if I’m working on someone’s buttocks, of course, but for eyebrows it can be uncomfortable. The plastic goggles would work well for this area unless they interfer with making accurate insertions. It’s important to see the hair and with this light and good vision wear, you can. At some point, I may get an LED light, which is a cooler, white light.
Maybe I should clarify. These are not vellus hairs, they’re just blonde/long, and not quite as thick and coarse as terminal hair. But they are hairs that changed, became thicker and longer than once were. Before you couldn’t see hair on my face, now I look like I have a light beard, it’s kinda downy. I have just gone on spiro so I’m hoping it helps, but I’m going all out with the electrolysis. I just wanted to get a ballpark on how long it might take.
You could just get a fiber optic and add it to the light you already have. That way, you could keep the brightness, remove the heat, and focus the light even more, so it is only in the exact spot that you want, and is not a blaring sun spot above the client.
Really, the only thing you would need is the fiber optic line, as you could have a nice person make you a box to incase the light with complete with a hole for the fiber optic line to stick into it.
The how long part depends on how much hair you have, what modality of electrolysis is used, the skill level of the electrologist who can hopefully see and insert a probe to the follicle’s target area. “How long?” depends on what the hormonal situation is in your body, medications being taken, stress level, consistentcy of your appointments, and perhaps equipment used.
Generally speaking, when all is in place and clicking along as it should, a skilled electrologist can finish the job within 9?, 12?, 14?, 16?, 18? months, depending. You will not be hugging each other and saying, “Glad to know ya!” any sooner than that because of our dear, sweet Mother Nature; she has her own drawn out plan concerning hair growth cycles and you can’t do anything about that and neither can your electrologist.
Get the OFFENDING hair off fast. This is called first, full clearance. Then, keep the area cleared of all noticable hair until there is nothing left to clear anymore. Put the time in up front by having longer more frequent appointments. Within about six months, you can spread out the number of appointments and expect shorter sessions. Time your appointments so that new growing hair is treated. Good news is that frequently, you go in for one area and then become aware that not only can you conquer the chin, but you can do the lips, side burns, nipple area and abdomen as well by the time that 9-18 month period is over.
Did I answer you question well enough?
James thanks for the advice, but I can barely picture what you are saying. I thought of getting a gizmo that costs $1,000 from the place where I purchased my surgical loupes, but am not totally sold on that idea or comfortable with the setup. I’ll give you a call when I get more serious about making a change.
Fiber optic lights? The only thing I know about those are that they are what makes the tips of my mom’s Christmas tree needles switch colors in slow motion. They don’t look like very bright lights to me! I know not of which I speak.
I just know when driving home at night, I much prefer to have incandescent headlights coming at me than the blinding halogen ones. Man those hurt!
michgirl–the spiro will do a lot in thinning and slowing the growth on your blond-but-coarse facial hair. It’s the darker facial hair that resists spiro the longest. Between the spiro and the electrology, those lighter colored hairs will be easier to get rid of than the darker ones, but that’s not to say the darker ones won’t go. As far as spiro, body hair improves faster than facial hair, lighter hair faster than dark. A lot depends on your electrologist, too, as far as getting clearance. Don’t pluck or wax any area on your face, whatever you do.
Spiro works quite slowly at first, and then it really picks up momentum. I sooo wish I could give you a time frame, but there are so many variables that it would impossible to do so. I was given a time frame by my electrologist when I first started, and it was way off. I’m reluctant to even give a ballpark figure.
Fiber optics are kind of like electric wires. With an electric wire, the electricity goes in one end, and out the other. With fiber optic cables, the light goes in one and out the other. It’s great for Christmas trees because you put one light in the middle, and the fiber optic carries it all over the tree to be pretty little specks.
James’ contraption is more like the spray hose in a sink for washing dishes. You make a box with one hole in the side, and then you put the light inside the box, so none of the light can get out, except through the one hole. You stick one end of a fiberoptic cable in that hole, and all the light comes out the other end. Now you’ve got a flexible cable that you can point at whatever spot you want, and it will put out a really bright dot of light, kind of like a laser pointer.
When lasering the female face there is a high risk of stimulating surrounding hair, basically making those tiny little blonde hairs thicker, darker, longer and coarser. This can happen on areas where the hair is fine but dark, peach fuzz is basically a time bomb waiting to happen if you laser it.
Electrolysis is your best bet, you want to look at the skill of the practitioner, the speed at which he/she operates and then the lighting, magnification and equipment he/she uses.
There are a lot of discussions about this on the forum, run a search and you should find a good crop of information on this.
In regards to time period, it all depends on the factors above as well as al the other factors that James and Dee have kindly mentioned on the post and around the forum. What the receptionist may have given you is a rough figure deducted either from personal experience or other clients experience as it all depends on the amount of hair you have there.
I’m desperately seeking advice as I’m thinking I may need electrolysis done but am not sure.
About 9 months ago I started getting a dark spot on my upper lip.
After reading some blogs I found that other woman have had this happen as a reaction to their birth control pills. Well, I stopped BC about 9 months ago and am still experiencing this darkness on my upper lip. I now only go to the salon for a scheduled waxing but it becomes dark quickly and there is no hair there!!
Thank you for responding. I am not a woman a color. I am fair skinned and do use sunscreen. I’ve seen so many creams on line and have had no luck with the prescription hydroquinone.
I’ve seen my GYN to see if this has been caused by the pills I was using. However, I’ve been off of them for 9 months now and the darkening is still there.
I’m going to set up an appointment with another dermatologist…
Just thought I’d look into other avenues for help and suggestions or possibly learn of others with experience on this issue…
Please run a search for previous recommendations in your area.
Method doesn’t depend on your skin type with electrolysis (unlike laser). Generally, just find someone who knows what they’re doing, have up-to-date equipment, etc. Thermolysis electrolysis is fastest, especially the newer microflash type. Blend may be needed for some deeper hairs.
Thanks Zhentar for your description. I want one too!
Pleasehelp, you are describing melasma. It does not go away easily. Usually long-term 4% hydroquinone will take care of it, but as soon as an unsunscreened face sees the sun, it’s like it never faded in the first place. It comes back that fast. Melasma spots are usually caused by birth control pills, and sometimes hormone patches. Maybe somebody in the prescription threads mention this–not sure. I just know they are stubborn as heck.
I wonder if some kind of laser would get rid of it, like they can do for unwanted tattoos. Well, I think we’re on an electrolysis thread so I’ll leave it at that. Good luck.
I know not of which I speak.