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| A Word About Electrolysis | |||
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Here's a topic close to all our hearts, that of permanent hair removal. Over the years I've looked at quite
a few methods of "permanent" hair removal, and indeed even tried a few. I work as an electronics engineer, so
have an ability to see past a lot of the hype that gets generated. Also, I've spent a few years working with
high power pulsed lasers, so know a little about laser physics. Here's a quick list of different techniques that I've tried over the years, and a few of the techniques that I've dismissed out of hand as being, well, without a chance. Ones that I've tried that show promise are:
A word about laser hair removal:I did it. I gave it a really good bash. I had a total of six sessions, at three month intervals (except for the last one, which was after about 9 months). The particular method I chose was long pulse Ruby laser, at a clinic in Sydney. I'm not going to crow its praises, but then neither am I going to scoff it. My experience is that it's reduced (not eliminated) the number of hairs that I've had to treat using electrolysis. About me; I'm probably an ideal candidate for laser hair removal. I have fairly light coloured skin, and black hair. This means that there's a lot of contrast between my skin (which we don't want to damage) and my hair roots (which we do want to damage). The way laser electrolysis works is to subject the skin to damaging light intensities. The hope is that the dark hair will absorb the majority of the energy, and get hot, and that this will kill the hair root. Of course if you don't have dark hair, or if you do have dark skin, then you can forget it, as your hair simply won't preferrentially absorb the energy, and instead the melanin (the cells in your skin which give it colour) will absorb the energy, with disastrous results. Each of the treatments that I had were half an hour in length. In each session, all of my face was done. The actual process probably hurts about as much as electrolysis. I ended up with a very burnt feeling face. The individual shots were about as painful as somebody flicking a rubber band at my face. Afterwards, my face was very red and sore for about a week. The remains of a lot of the hair roots worked their way to the surface over the next couple of weeks, which was less than pleasant. Moisturiser (and lots of it) was applied in the week or so afterwards. A few weeks after the first session, I was absolutely absolutely convinced that I'd found the way. Only about half of the hairs started to grow back. I booked another session, and went back for more. Unfortunately the results of the second session weren't as dramatic as the first. The results of the third weren't as dramatic as the second, and so on. So the net result of those six sessions, at $300 per session, is that two years down the track I have maybe 1/3rd of the number of hairs that I started with. I'm not writing the experience off as useless, but neither is it the cure that I hoped it would be. It has allowed me to get on with my life without the fortnightly electro trips for a couple of years though. So now, I'm rather heavily into the whole electrolysis thing.
Everything you never wanted to know about electrolysis:Electrolysis is commonly used to mean any permanent form of hair removal. Thus, laser hair removal is often called laser electrolysis, and thermolysis (which only superficially resembles true galvanic electrolysis) is also often called electrolysis. If you clicked on this link hoping to find a list of people who will do electrolysis, you've come to the wrong place. This is entirely a rant session. Addresses and details can be found .here. If however you're interested in the whys and wherefores, you've come to the right place. Here's how electrolysis works. The cavity in your skin that contains the hair root also has glands that secrete moisture, so that the hair doesn't go all dry and yucky. The actual water that the hair root sits in is very high in salts, as with the rest of your body. When you put DC current through a salt water solution, you cause a chemical reaction. At the cathode (negative electrode), the water splits into Hydrogen gas and OH- (Hydroxide) ions. The Hydroxide ions produced are what does the damage to the hair root. Hydroxide is the basis for caustic substances such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH) etc. The number of hydroxide ions depends on the actual number of electrons fed into the hair root, which is the product of the current and the time. At the anode, which is usually a wet pad that you either clamp to yourself, or else something that you hang onto, chlorine gas is liberated, which itches like crazy, but doesn't do a lot of other damage, as long as the contact patch is relatively large. (We're talking about something the size of a 20 cent piece or larger). Now the pain of electrolysis is entirely dependent on the current used. A typical current would be about 100 microamps. I myself use 100 microamps on my top lip for 90 seconds, and 150-200 microamps on my chin for 90-120 seconds. I have a fairly high pain threshhold. In order to reduce the time required for each hair, there are two common techniques. The first one is the blend, and the second is multi needle. The blend superimposes an AC signal on the probe, at 13.5MHz (at least on the blend unit that I measured). The idea behind blend is that the AC signal causes the water molecules surrounding the hair root to vibrate, and thus heat up. The heat causes further damage to the hair root. Blend electrolysis involves treatment times of anything from five seconds to a minute per hair. It's also popular to do away with the electrolysis reaction altogether, and just heat the hair root up with AC power in an attempt to kill it. This technique is called thermolysis, and isn't (IMHO) worth the effort. Thermolysis (using AC only) often goes under other names, such as flash electrolysis. Thermolysis is easy to spot, as each hair is only treated for a couple of seconds. Hey, it's almost as fast as pulling the buggers out with tweezers and almost as permanent :) Multi needle electrolysis is simple DC galvanic electrolysis, but speeds the process by treating many hairs at once, using more than one needle. The Gentronics unit (which is popular in Australia) uses sixteen probes simultaneously, which is the maximum that one operator can feasibly handle. Here the treatment time for each hair is a nice, long 3-5 minutes, but sixteen hairs are treated at the same time, so the time per hair is more like 20 seconds. My personal preference is for galvanic electrolysis. Multi needle galvanic electrolysis speeds things up nicely without overly increasing the risk of damage. I'm not a big fan of the blend method, mostly due to a rather unfortunate incident with an operator who wanted to remove as many hairs as she could in the hour, rather than remove a smaller number of hairs safely. She used mostly AC with only a token DC component, and I ended up with a rather dark top lip which took a good two years to fade. Doing it yourself: Recently I decided to go back to electrolysis after a couple of years of alternating between waxing, plucking, and shaving. However, my work and study commitments preclude me from taking Monday mornings off, as I used to do, so I decided I'd try doing it myself, with (so far) pretty impressive results. Also, I'm a little wary of trusting my face to some miscellaneous kid who may or may not know what he or she is doing (no offence to the electrologists that are good at their job). In any case, I reckon that electrolysis is a skill that an intelligent person can learn quite quickly, especially if they're doing it to themselves. Indeed, I'd like to acknowledge the patient help provided by Shirl and Ainslie at AI Electrology on the Central Coast for a hell of a lot of this bit. They let me poke and prod and measure their Gentronics multi probe electrolysis machine, and answered all my silly questions, and even provided me with a simple electro unit to use. If you want a really good electrolygist, and even better if you want to keep the money in the community, you really can't go past these girls. One thing to note though is that doing it yourself can take a fair whack more time than going to somebody that does multi-needle. I've not figured out how to do multi-needle to my face (yet). Though of course there's nothing to stop you from making an arrangement with a tranny friend along the lines of "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine". Though of course the advantage of doing it yourself is that you can do it any time you like. I tend to do an hour or two every few days, which is probably equivalent to the three hours a fortnight that I used to do. There are three methods that I can identify if you want to take this route. Firstly, you could buy a cheap home electrolysis thingy from an American mailorder place (DON'T buy anything that doesn't have a probe that goes into your face. Contraptions that use cotton buds (Q-tips), no matter what they've been dipped in, will only put current into the surface of the skin. The hair root is a good 2-5mm below the surface. Many people have said good things about the home electro units that do have a probe though, so if you're a miser, they may be a good way to go. The second way to do it yourself (and a good one if you're loaded) is to buy a professional unit. These things range from $2000 to about $8000. Don't buy a thermolysis one. Blend units can generally be used as galvanic only machines, which is what you want. If you don't have the skill or contacts to roll your own, you could always justify the cost by multiplying $50/hour by 200 hours... There are occasionally second hand ones around, too. Electrolysis isn't something in which dramatic advances have been made. 1960s machines will work just as well as 1990s machines, but probably won't be as plasticky. The third route, and the route that I am currently following, is to build your own. Fair warning. I'm an electronics engineer. Not just that, but I reckon I'm a very good electronics engineer. I work in a research and development lab, and have access to a suite of CAD software and all the gear necessary to build these things. I've so far put probably $500 into the unit that I'm building, but have done so knowing that I'll save money in the long run. The gist of the exercise is to build a circuit that puts a regulated current into the probe. Something variable from 10 microamps to say 300 microamps is probably ideal. The resistance of flesh is quite low (doesn't that sound horrid?), so you only need about 12-15V maximum potential. Battery power is not just feasible, but is indeed a fabulously good idea. All you have to do is think about how unpleasant it would be if the transformer in that crappy plug pack were to fail, and I'm sure you'd agree. It goes without saying that the negative electrode is the one that goes into the hair follicle. The first one that I had, which I bought from a friend rather than building, was a very simple unit that did that and nothing else. Timing was accomplished by watching a clock, and pulling the probe out after you'd done the necessary time. (I actually had a switched probe that guaranteed a sore finger from holding the button down). I'm currently in the process of building a rather overcomplicated unit that uses a microprocessor to time things and automagically senses the probe insertion and even manages 4 probes at once (and all because I've got a sore finger). I've considered putting up full schematics and board layouts for it, but to be quite frank I'm worried that somebody will kill themselves with something that I helped them build, and will then try to sue me, so I won't. Instead I've just listed the relevent currents and voltages and times. Anyone with engineering nouse should be able to fill in the blanks. In any case, once you've built/bought/stolen the magic box, the remaining bits you'll need for the job are:
 The cells your aiming to kill are just near the base of the follicle, in the matrix. The tip of your probe should ideally end up between the internal and external root sheaths, where it's nice and moist. First you start by putting on a good CD. This both gives you something to listen to, and also warns you that you're overdoing it, because the music ends. Tidy up an area where you'll work and wash your hands and face. First you start by soaking the +ve pad in salty water, and clamping it yo your ankle or wrist (I prefer ankle). Now turn the light on, and put a fresh probe in the holder. The probes are sterilised when you buy them. Don't touch them, and they'll remain that way. It is possible to put the probe in the holder without touching it. Open an alcohol swab and scrub the area of face that you're going to torture. The hairs you're doing should be protruding by about 2mm, so that you can see what direction to put the probe in. Now for the fun bit. Push the probe in just alongside the hair. This should not hurt. You're not breaking the skin, you're just occupying the space alongside the hair. The bottom of the root should only be 2-4mm under the surface, so don't push the probe in too far, or you'll end up with a red spot that'll take a fortnight to heal. Start the current. This is either done automatically if you have a machine with insertion sensing, or else you make the circuit manually. I use 100 microamps for my top lip, and 150-200 odd microamps elsewhere on my face. As with everything, it's much better to start at a lower value and work up to things, rather than hurt yourself. Think of England for a while. A minute or two should do the trick. After 30 seconds or so, a tiny amount of yucky yellowish stuff will often come out of the follicle. This is lye. It's the stuff that does the damage to the hair root. Once you've finished electrocuting that particular hair, remove the probe and pull the hair out with tweezers. It should slide out relatively easily, along with the translucent internal sheath. Now go on to the next hair. Occasionally during the session, wipe with a fresh alcohol swab. I really can't stress cleanliness enough. If bacteria gets into the treated follicles, you'll end up with the nastiest pimples you ever had. The three things that cause scarring are technique (sticking the probe in too far, or otherwise breaking your skin), excessive current or time, and bacteria. After you've finished a session, wipe your probe holder with some alcohol and dispose of the probe. Put your gear away so that it won't get dirty for next time. Gently rub some moisturiser into the treated area occasionally for the next couple of days, to reduce swelling and redness, and try to keep it clean. If you can, avoid putting makeup on for at least 12 hours afterwards. If you've really gone to town on an area, I often find that sitting for a while with an ice pack pressed to the spot does wonders. That's about it for now. This one is an ongoing project of mine, so you can expect to read more about my experiences in the coming months.
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