Home electrolysis Q & A
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free skin care · Mon Jun 09, 2008 12:00 pm

After having mentioned in a couple of threads about my great results from using a home electrolysis kit for permanent hair removal, I have got a few PMs with questions about this.

I don't know how many people who are interested, but thought that I could open a thread in stead of writing long PMs.

I have been using One Touch home electrolysis kit on my legs and upper lip. One and a half year ago I finished the treatments, and hairs have not grown back.

I also treated my bikini area 15 years ago, and the hairs were permanently removed. It takes some time, practice and patience to manage this treatment on your own, but I will gladly answer questions from those who consider to give it a try. Smile

free skin care · Thu Jun 12, 2008 12:45 pm

Thank you for all your help, Septembergirl!

I just have a few more questions that might benefit others as well:
1. Are there instructions on how to use the at home DIY electrolysis machine?

2. Approximately how many sessions are needed for permanent results? (is there such a thing as permanent?...or permanent reduction only?)

3. How many uses can you get out of one needle? (until it breaks? or are there a specific number of times/uses?)

4. For an inexperienced individual, is it dangerous to DIY?

free skin care · Thu Jun 12, 2008 2:32 pm

hotiron123 wrote:

Thank you for all your help, Septembergirl!

I just have a few more questions that might benefit others as well:
1. Are there instructions on how to use the at home DIY electrolysis machine?

2. Approximately how many sessions are needed for permanent results? (is there such a thing as permanent?...or permanent reduction only?)

3. How many uses can you get out of one needle? (until it breaks? or are there a specific number of times/uses?)

4. For an inexperienced individual, is it dangerous to DIY?

1. There are very thorough and easily understandable instructions in the One Touch home electrolysis kit.

The important factor is to insert the electrolysis needle along underside the hair and into the follicle. Good lighting is essential. I prefer a mini mag lite as it gives a perfect concentrated stream of light.

Working on the face, I find the best position to be lying down with a couple of pillows under my head, holding a mirror (magnifying, if you prefer) and a mini mag lite in the left hand and the electrolysis stylet tip in the right hand.

2. Hairs that have been plucked or epilated have got bent hair roots. These hairs need several treatments to get removed permanently.

Hairs that have previously been shaved or not removed need approximately 1 to 5 treatments. As the hairs grow in cycles, a certain amount of hairs will always be immune to treatment.

The hairs will grow out thinner after each successful treatment. The results are permanent. I don't have a single hair left in the areas I have been treating.

3. The needle is very thin. It will last a long time if you make sure to insert and pull out the needle carefully. When it gets bent, straighten it out with tweezers. BTW, you need to invest in quality tweezers. The ones in the kit are useless.

4. No. Make sure to disinfect the skin and needle with surgical spirit before and after treatment. Electrolysis should not be used on moles, warts and nipples.

You are supposed to hold the stylet tip with wet finger tips. The worst thing that may happen, is a small electrical shock if you have too much water dripping onto the skin being treated. This is a battery operated device with a mild current. An electrical shock from the device is not harmful or painful.

HTH. Smile

free skin care · Thu Jun 12, 2008 5:27 pm

Septembergirl - have you had any scarring from using this? Do you feel the risk of scarring high?
thanks

free skin care · Fri Jun 13, 2008 3:45 am

Skin damage - short or long term - is the disadvantage with electrolysis, as you insert a needle with current electricity into the follicle.

Home electrolysis will most likely leave redness or sores for some days after treatment. I found that the small sores on my face grew fast, and did not leave permanent scars. The hairs are usually thinner in the face. Less current and shorter treatment time is required, hence the less risk of scars forming.

Thick, coarse hair on the legs require a higher power level and longer treatment time, and the risk of skin damage increases. For some weeks or months I had unsightly marks on my legs. They faded gradually within a year. Now, I have no scars on the fronts and sides of my calves, but there are quite a few small, white, raised scars on the back of my calves, just below my knee. I much prefer those marks to the dark, coarse hair and all the ingrowns I used to have. I am currently treating the scars with Dermaroller.

I believe scares formed on the back of my calves because this was the first area I was treating, and I did quite a few beginner's mistakes:

* The lighting was not good enough, and I made many mistakes by inserting the needle in the wrong places before eventually hitting the right spot.
* I got infections in some of the follicles because I was not diligent about cleansing the skin and needle both before and after treatments.
* Sometimes I inserted the needle in a sore because I did not have the patience to wait until it was healed
* The hair growth on the back of my legs was more dense than on the front. That makes it even more important not to treat too many hairs in the same area at the same time.

For those who are interested in electrolysis, my advice is to buy one of those cheap devices and do some practicing on your hair growth. You cannot go very wrong with it.

Electrolysis requires some patience and practice and is best suited for smaller areas.

free skin care · Sat Jun 14, 2008 5:47 am

What type of electrolysis machine do you have and what was the cost? I would love to treat chin and upper lip hair. I bought a device many yrs ago..
but instead of it being a needle it was a tweezer, needless to say it never worked.. Neutral

Thanks for the info,
Lou

free skin care · Sat Jun 14, 2008 8:16 am

Hi, Lou (and others).

Electric tweezers don't work. You need to insert a needle to apply current electricity to the hair growth cells.

I have been using the One Touch electrolysis kit, that has been on the market for at least 20 years, probably even longer. It's a cheap ($35-40 if I remember correctly) and simple device with an old fashioned design. But it surely works when you know the knack of it.

Before DIYing, I went to 4-5 different estheticians to remove hairs on my upper lip with electrolysis. The hairs always grew back. I am sure that they did not keep the needle in the follicle long enough to destroy the hair growth cells. A successfully treated hair glides out easily when grabbing it with tweezers.

It's supposed to look like a little tadpole with the hair growth cells attached to the strand. Wink

free skin care · Thu Jun 26, 2008 7:49 am

Hi Septembergirl,
Thank you for letting me know about this thread. I do have several questions:
* How long did it take you to completely treat your legs - was it months, years, . . .?
* How long were individual treatments, i.e. how big of an area would you treat at each session?
* How often were your sessions? Did you do it daily for 15 minutes, or twice a week for an hour? How does it work?

Sorry for all the questions, but I've been struggling with the hair issues for a long time (it's hormonal in my case) and I would love to know if this is an option for me.

One more thing, in one of your posts you say that the electrolysis is good for small areas. I don't really consider legs to be a small area, so I must say I am a bit confused by that. Can you please elaborate?

Many thanks! Very Happy

free skin care · Thu Jun 26, 2008 8:31 am

rubby wrote:

Hi Septembergirl,
Thank you for letting me know about this thread. I do have several questions:
* How long did it take you to completely treat your legs - was it months, years, . . .?
* How long were individual treatments, i.e. how big of an area would you treat at each session?
* How often were your sessions? Did you do it daily for 15 minutes, or twice a week for an hour? How does it work?

Sorry for all the questions, but I've been struggling with the hair issues for a long time (it's hormonal in my case) and I would love to know if this is an option for me.

One more thing, in one of your posts you say that the electrolysis is good for small areas. I don't really consider legs to be a small area, so I must say I am a bit confused by that. Can you please elaborate?

Many thanks! Very Happy

Hi, Rubby!

Good questions.
* It took me approximately a year to treat my legs. The first weeks/months I did it 1 - 2 hours several days a week while watching TV or listening to books.

* I usually zapped 50 hairs per leg every time. It's a good idea not to zap all the hairs in one concentrated area to minimize the risk of sores and infections. You can f. ex.. start near the ankle and zap a line towards the knee. After 3-4 months (I don't remember exactly), I was pretty satisfied with the results, and it was sufficient to do one treatment every week, then every other week etc. For those who have been waxing and epilating, the hairs will grow back quite a few times before being gone for good.

* Electrolysis is best suited for small areas because it takes a lot of time and efforts to treat larger areas, like legs. You really need to be dedicated to the task for some months. It can be a good idea to have some laser treatments, and then treat the remaining hairs with electrolysis.

I hope I was able to answer your questions.

free skin care · Thu Jun 26, 2008 1:37 pm

Septembergirl wrote:

For those who have been waxing and epilating, the hairs will grow back quite a few times before being gone for good.

* Electrolysis is best suited for small areas because it takes a lot of time and efforts to treat larger areas, like legs. You really need to be dedicated to the task for some months. It can be a good idea to have some laser treatments, and then treat the remaining hairs with electrolysis.

I hope I was able to answer your questions.

I've been waxing my legs for almost 30 years Shock

!!! I guess I'd need a couple of years to get rid of hair on my legs Confused

. I just may wait till I have $$ to do laser and then follow up with electrolysis.
Thank you for the info Septembergirl.

free skin care · Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:47 pm

rubby wrote:

I've been waxing my legs for almost 30 years Shock

!!! I guess I'd need a couple of years to get rid of hair on my legs Confused

. I just may wait till I have $$ to do laser and then follow up with electrolysis.
Thank you for the info Septembergirl.

You're welcome. Smile

I had been using an epilator on my legs for nearly 20 years before starting electrolysis treatments. The roots are getting bent, and repeated treatments are required. That's why it took me so long to get rid of the hair on my legs.

free skin care · Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:27 am

Septembergirl, would you have any suggestions on where to buy the One Touch home electrolysis kit? I live in Canada and the only option I found is to buy it online from ebay or Folica.com. Does anyone know of an actual store in Canada that sells that? I read on other forums that drug stores sell it in the US ...

Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:02 am

Hi Septembergirl,

i was wondering if you can use the one touch on eyebrows? i have excess hair growing down my eyelids and wonder if you would think it'll be safe to treat these with the one touch. I've had treatments done at a salon but no reasonable results and think it'll be a good idea to DIY

thank you

free skin care · Thu Dec 18, 2008 7:20 am

Septembergirl wrote:

Skin damage - short or long term - is the disadvantage with electrolysis, as you insert a needle with current electricity into the follicle.

Home electrolysis will most likely leave redness or sores for some days after treatment. I found that the small sores on my face grew fast, and did not leave permanent scars. The hairs are usually thinner in the face. Less current and shorter treatment time is required, hence the less risk of scars forming.

Thick, coarse hair on the legs require a higher power level and longer treatment time, and the risk of skin damage increases. For some weeks or months I had unsightly marks on my legs. They faded gradually within a year. Now, I have no scars on the fronts and sides of my calves, but there are quite a few small, white, raised scars on the back of my calves, just below my knee. I much prefer those marks to the dark, coarse hair and all the ingrowns I used to have. I am currently treating the scars with Dermaroller.

I believe scares formed on the back of my calves because this was the first area I was treating, and I did quite a few beginner's mistakes:

* The lighting was not good enough, and I made many mistakes by inserting the needle in the wrong places before eventually hitting the right spot.
* I got infections in some of the follicles because I was not diligent about cleansing the skin and needle both before and after treatments.
* Sometimes I inserted the needle in a sore because I did not have the patience to wait until it was healed
* The hair growth on the back of my legs was more dense than on the front. That makes it even more important not to treat too many hairs in the same area at the same time.

For those who are interested in electrolysis, my advice is to buy one of those cheap devices and do some practicing on your hair growth. You cannot go very wrong with it.

Electrolysis requires some patience and practice and is best suited for smaller areas.

I wonder if this would work as a form of "needling" on small lines?

Fri Jun 19, 2009 4:04 am

Septembergirl,

Thank you so much for sharing your experience and answering questions.

I am currently looking at buying the Clean & Easy Deluxe Home Electrolysis device, I believe this is the new branding of One Touch. I still have some questions and would be very grateful if you could answer.

Septembergirl wrote:

[i]* The lighting was not good enough, and I made many mistakes by inserting the needle in the wrong places before eventually hitting the right spot.

How did you know when the needle was not inserted in the right spot? Is it only after you apply the current and the hair doesn't come out easily, or can you tell before you apply the current?

I have spent a day reading reviews of this gadget and the opinions seem so polarized - either very happy and permanent hair removal with not much scarring, or lots of scarring and not much effect on hair removal. It seems to me that it is likely that the people who didn't get results but got bad scarring were not inserting the needle in the right spot and therefore not killing the hair root, but zapping the skin to the side of the hair. Therefore hitting the right spot would be key. How would I know I'm hitting the right spot before I do any damage??

Septembergirl wrote:

The important factor is to insert the electrolysis needle along underside the hair and into the follicle. Good lighting is essential. I prefer a mini mag lite as it gives a perfect concentrated stream of light.

To insert the needle underside the hair did you have to hold the hair up or out of the way? I'm struggling to visualize the whole process... Holding a mirror or magnifying glass in one hand, holding the stylet in the other hand, stretching the skin to open the follicle with the other, and holding the tweezers to hold the hair in position and pull it out after zapping in the other. Oh, no, hold on, that makes four hands Embarassed

Is it as fiddly as it sounds??

Septembergirl wrote:

The hairs will grow out thinner after each successful treatment. The results are permanent. I don't have a single hair left in the areas I have been treating.

Is it fair to say that this device works better on coarse hair? As the hair got thinner was it more difficult to zap it?

I want to treat the hairs on my chin which are fine and blond. I can't image how even with magnification I would be able to see the opening of the follicle so I can insert the needle correctly Question

It sounds so fiddly, I can just imagine myself randomly sticking the needle around the hair hoping to hit the right spot Sad

But I am getting desperate to get rid of chin hair. Laser treatment did absolutely nothing for me. I have had professional electrolysis on my chin (only recently calculated that I have been having it for 3 year (!!) ) and only about 20% of hairs are gone! I am starting not to trust my beautician because when she pulls out the hairs after zapping I can definitely feel a tug like plucking, and I don't think she applies the current long enough to kill the root. I've spoken to her about it but she says "Don't worry, I know what I'm doing!"... Now I want to try home electrolysis to see for myself if it is just that my hairs are so stubborn, even though they are fine, or is it my beautician's fault.

Thank you so much in advance.

free skin care · Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:31 am

I am curious, when you say needle has to be inserted into the follicle is it like an actual needle, like getting a shot at the dr.'s office? Yikes!

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