Facial Hair removal

[vs-boygirl]

I was just wondering what different options are out there for stopping facial hair. i know of laser hair removal. My therapist told me it wouldn't work and she was right. I tried this for 8 months with one session per month. During that time the hair growth decreased but still didn't go away that well than after i stopped it seemed to grow back to about 80% of before i started.

Then there is electrolysis but i heard it hurts terribly and your face looks terrible for the rest of the day following a treatment. Are these the only options.


A person told me about taking a pill to stop hair growth but wouldnt that stop the hair on top of my head from growing and it would eventually fall out if its not growing and healthy.

Thx

[kersentaart]

I was just wondering what different options are out there for stopping facial hair. i know of laser hair removal. My therapist told me it wouldn't work and she was right. I tried this for 8 months with one session per month. During that time the hair growth decreased but still didn't go away that well than after i stopped it seemed to grow back to about 80% of before i started.

Then there is electrolysis but i heard it hurts terribly and your face looks terrible for the rest of the day following a treatment. Are these the only options.


A person told me about taking a pill to stop hair growth but wouldnt that stop the hair on top of my head from growing and it would eventually fall out if its not growing and healthy.

Thx

About all you can hope for is reduction with the laser, and you really need to be a good candidate (dark hair, light skin) and be somewhere with a quality unit (ie Lightsheer) to have a half decent amount of success.

What's left over, I'm sorry to say is all work for electrolysis. It hurts but most areas are tolerable and to be honest it's not that much dramatically worse than getting hit hard with the laser it just takes a lot of time. Main thing is just research how it works and what to expect, find someone with plenty of experience, a blend unit or multi needle galvanic (keep away from straight thermolysis) and just start putting in the time. It's a big investment, it takes forever, but the sooner you start the sooner you finish and if you don't want facial hair it's the only realistic option.

Alternatively the big cost saving way lol which is what I do now is to buy a professional blend unit (or a straight galvanic if you're on a tight budget, just be aware that it takes a lot longer per hair) and train someone up to use it on you (in my case my gf). Electrolysis is not a particulary hard skill to learn and as long as you research/understand how it's done and how it works, start with low power levels, practice good hygene and proceed carefully you'll figure out what is required to get a kill.

And if you're curious, I use a Sterex SX-B blend epilator, cost me about $800US for a used unit in new condition via ebay, it's a nice simple unit that works very well.

###Edit###
One additional thing I forgot to mention, blend units are a combined galvanic/thermolysis package, if you do get someone to treat you with one, the galvanic current should be what's doing most of the work (ie power setting I use on this machine is thermolysis 9% galvanic current 35%), some practitioners will use a high thermolysis power setting with a token galvanic current which is not particulary effective on coarse hair.

[kersentaart]

Just a quick follow up, to the priv message below which I have reproduced with permission from the poster. I wanted to to answer here as I felt it may benefit someone else in future seeing the facial hair removal q's come up for most of us who walk this path.

Originally Posted by vs-boygirl
You answered a post of mine about electrolysis. How bad does your skin look for the rest of the day after a session? I know with laser id go first thing in the morning then by the time i went to work in the afternoon id look a little red but not really noticeable. Some people thought id have some razor burn or others thought i was tan. is there an amount of hours you've found that it lasts. I know i need to start it and the only thing holding me back is the fact i dont want to look beat red all day at work or in front of people.

With regard to your laser treatment, it sounds like the power level they used was pretty pathetic, I ussually looked like a lobster for about 3-4 days after.

With regard to how bad does my skin look... uhhh it doesn't look great after, generally every hair treated will leave a small amount of swelling around it, deeper hairs a bit like mosquito bites, slight redness will also be apparent, both will subside 24 hours following on most ppl and each treated hair folicle will leave behind a tiny scab (pinhead size or smaller) which takes a good 5 or so days to come off (allow them to heal don't pick). No makeup is to be used for at least 24hours after treatment, the reason being is that you want to do everything to prevent infection in a treated pore, so very important to keep your skin clean. Infected pores (they're pretty much the same experience as acne) have potential to scar, they ussually don't but if you treat your skin badly the number of infected pores will be so high, scarring will be unavoidable.

When it comes to treatment, there are a couple ways to go, first is the clear an area and slowly enlarge it over treatments, this will leave one area that is battered pretty hard and will be noticeable, the alternative is to work the whole face gradually thinning the hair by killing random hairs, this is easier to hide but takes a lot longer to notice results as they're not concentrated in one area.

Pre treatment you want to grow your facial hair long enough to be readily gripped by tweezers, washing your face an hour or more before with a mild soap isnt a bad idea either just to get all the oils etc off your skin beforehand (clean skin = less chance of infected pores). Area to be treated will be wiped with a sterilizing fluid (ussually ethanol) at treatment time.

Last but not least, keep in mind it takes a long long time, ~200hours+ worth of work for most ppl, anything that is effectively killed however will not grow back ever.

####Edit####
Hehehe gf did a few hours on me earlier this evening, her reaction after was "**** babe, looks like someone punched you in the face" from all the swelling. It was the dreaded upper lip area (this is the bit that hurts bad), been about 3 hours since, now just looks like a minor rash, no longer red just uneven swelling, tomorrow it'll likely have tiny little scabs all over it, which I'll be stuck with for several days.

If you're still living in guy mode its easy, the best coverup is just to say "I hate shaving, never want a beard so I'm having the hair removed". If you're a full time girl now, it's a little trickier, best policy seems to be try and time shaving so you can make it through your last working day of the week with as much shadow as can possibly be hidden and then treat the morning after, which'll hopefully give you enough growth for the tweezers to grab, then avoid makeup, shaving etc til the morning of your next work day... It can screw up your weekend but allows for a degree of stealth.

Big time blocks of treatment are a good way to go, it'll get it all over and done with sooner. Plus some places will give good rates if you're prepared to book in advance a decent sized block of time (never hurts to ask if they don't outright offer). First time I'd just get an hour or so and avoid upper lip that time, as a bit of psychological preperation. From there on out I'd try book at least a couple hours each time or a full morning if you can hack it. The first goal is to try and get to a maintenance point, so that the whole face can be cleared of currently growing hair in one session. I'm not there yet myself, clearing for me now is about 6-7 hours worth of work but when I started it would've been probably 25-30hours worth to clear my face in one session so that's a pretty decent amount of progress and at a guess another 15 to 20hours worth will get me there.

[DSummer]

I prefer waxing on my face... you have to use a special wax, but it works pretty well (by special I mean off the Wal-Mart discount shelf with a label that says facial wax).