Hi,
I have been trying to clear my facial hair with laser for a year a without too much luck. So, I would like to use galvanic myself at home with a magnifying mirror. My facial hair is terminal.
I suppose I’m sort of sad to see Sterex jumping in on the lucrative (questionable) “home DC unit” market. Well, yes there is money to be made! In most cases, these units end up in a drawer and largely unused. (Still, if one is persistent one can get results … but this is rare!)
If you are looking for an electrologist contact the ANBOS in Den Haag. They will surely be able to find a qualified electrologist for you; but you might have to “voyage” into the Netherlands.
It’s not, in fact at 475 pounds sterex wont even sell it to you except through a trade account. Oh and at that money it doesnt come with a footpedal you have to buy that separately
That said, and I say this as possibly one of most successful DIY’ers around, I really dont recommend you go down this path. It does take a while to learn to make insertions well and control the current intensity, but even just getting so you can work comfortably without getting into some weird pretzel making position will be a challenge. The best I ever found as a DIY’er was laying bck on m bed witha 12X mirror suspended from the ceiling.For the money you spent on the unit, you may be better off just giving that same money to a pro for work.
But moreso, I would say that when I did start to learn how to do this, it only took about a week for me to get so fed up with galvanic I turned to blend and never, ever turned back. Galvanic was just slow and tedious and difficult to get resistance free withdrawls with. And this is the very same reason so many one-touch or home based units sit disused, it gets to be so tedious you give up and it sits in drawer or closet somewhere.
I have a second hand SX-B that I use to treat the odd spot on my legs using blend in between professional electrolysis treatments. I would never try treating my own face.
The annoying thing I find with the Sterex is that the red cable for the indifferent electrode seems to easily pull out of the socket a lot when treating.
Correct insertions take a lot of practise - I can probably treat one hair every 3 minutes at best compared to a professional who is a lot faster and accurate. Galvanic is obviously going to be a lot slower than that.
For that kind of price, I personally would see a professional. Thermolysis is a perfectly effective electrolysis method - I had most of my body treated with thermolysis.
I would prefer to go to a professional but I have found only two in Belgium and they are flash thermolysis ( a split second for my leg hair that 8 days later is pretty messy looking).
I need something kinder for course and thick facial terminal all hair. I would consider a blend unit, but then they start getting quite expensive.
Of course I will use the link posted above for Netherlands.
Of course, I could give up, but this entails things far worse.
Did you try a treatment on the face with flash thermolysis? The skin reaction on your leg and the skin reaction on the face will not necessarily be comparable. On body areas with flash my scabs fall out after about 1-2 weeks. I generally had scabs in every body area treated. On the face, I rarely scabbed, maybe 2 or 3 tiny pinprick ones and only at the very beginning. I mostly experienced some redness on my face with flash that went down within the hour. I’ve been treated with blend, thermolysis and flash on the face and thermolysis and flash on the body.
My only experience with galvanic was with a one touch unit and my skin reacted more with that and left a bigger scab on my leg that took almost 3 weeks to fall off. I ended up throwing the one touch unit away.
If you haven’t already, try having a small test patch done on your face with a professional. It’ll be the best way for you to judge how your facial skin will react, sensation levels etc.
Hi and thanks again for advice. Really has been appreciated.
My reasons for galvanic preference were influenced by this site, but am unsure exactly what to believe.http://hairzapper.com/thermolysis/
I shall start a new topic on this.
I called an electrolysis in Brussels who said he used galvanic in Belgium until he was unable to buy the machines any more. He said he’d been in the business for 35 years. Also he said he would teach me electrolysis for 30 euros per 30 mins. He aidI could bring my own epilator if I liked.
That website has been discussed on here before - you can do a search for Susan laird. If you also do a search on here for galvanic you’ll see that there have been some people going for years without results too. Point is, it all depends on the skill of the electrologist not the method used.
There’s some YouTube videos posted by Josefa Reina where she shows electrolysis which may be helpful for you to watch. She uses thermolysis. There are also galvanic electrolysis videos - see here http://youtu.be/j8vFZZpkdNQ
I believe that professionals who still use galvanic only use multi probe machines so they can treat several hairs at once. I honestly think you’ll get frustrated trying to treat yourself with galavanic using only one probe such as on the sterex.
sigh. Sophie, I feel the need to tell you that the hairzapper site is more than a little misleading. I can underastand ( and share) your feelings about thermolysis after reading it, but thermolysis is not the devil it is made out to be there. The site is designed to guide the reader to one form of electrolysis and one only, but the assrttions it makes on other modalities are just plain incorrect and defamatory. While I’m sure Susan Laird is a fine electrologist ( and I’ve actually conversed with her) the hairzapper site, is misleading.
Update:
The flash thermoysis caused hyper-pigmentation on my leg. She was surprised and we tried lower voltage with 3 bursts and had resistance free withdrawals. Shall see how this is in a months time.
She said she had never seen hyperpigmentation before ( I Have olive skin with freckles ), but she did not use gloves and touched the needle with her fingers, so I am not totally confident. She seems to just want to turn the machine to the highest setting and I had to ask specifically to turn this down to the lowest setting.
Either I do this myself or travel to London for sessions.
Why travel to London?
Nobody in Belgium does electrolysis except her and another man in Brussels, who had a reputation of causing scarring on the beard like some of my acquaintances have attested to, or taking the Eurostar to London and having work done there. Difficult choice because the cost to London including Eurostar would be 260 euros. A Sterex epilator would be 700-800 euros.
If I need more than one trip to London then I should just do this myself. Why do I live in such a backwards country!
Thanks Iluv2zap for letting me know. I did wonder if this was guiding me to galvanic
Sophie.
P.S I tried the site listed earlier for the Nederlands and emailed lots of clinics in Limburg and nobody replied.
Had a thought. I could drive to Germany. Does anybody know transgender electrolysis over there for beard removal. I don’t have too much left after 1.5 years of laser removal.
Hyperpigmentation is a normal response for some people. I also developed hyperpigmentation and fully expected it to occur everywhere. As it was I had hyperpigmentation only on upper arms, forearms were OK, hyperpigmentation on my legs - thighs especially. It has all resolved.
In Germany, you can try contacting Beate Ritzert who posts on here. In London, I can recommend Geri who also posts on hairtell too http://www.electrolysis4hairremoval.co.uk/
