A Guide to Electrolysis

By C Dawson

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How does hair grow?

To understand how the diffrent treatments work (or don't!) what the hazards are, why they cost what they do, and why you may have to be patient indeed, you need to know something about what hair is and how it grows.

This is not an excuse to give you a science lesson and it certainly won't get technical. We all need to get into the complexities of the structure of the skin - there are plenty of books available if you want to do so yourself - but the basics are farly simple.

The starting point is that, of all the organs of the body, your skin is the largest. If, like me, you have always assumed that the main purpose of skin was to stop the blood from leaking out, this may come as something of a surprise. It is far more important than that, as its relative size suggests. In fact it has a number of functions without which you would be in considerable trouble, and just as you can damage your liver by drinking too much alcohol, you can harm your skin by treating it badly. It pays to understand it.

It has three main layers, although each have lesser layers within them, and the layer at the surface (the "epidermis") is flexible, but tough. Like all parts of the body, it is made up of cells and, as the ones at the surface die, they flake off and are replaced by other cells from the layer below.

The two layers beneath the eperdermis (the "dermis" and the "subcutis") contain an extensive and remarkable network of nerve fibres, blood vessels, fat cells and glands of different sorts, all set in a web of body tissue.

Among the functions this very complex organ performs for you are the maintenance of your body temperature; protection (against blows, harmful light and bacteria); the disposal of material which could be harmful to your body; and the detection of sensation - heat, cold,pressure, pain, pleasure and touch.

Your skin varies over your body. It is thinnest on the lips and eyelids, thickest on the palms of your hands and the soles of your feet. In some places - armpits and forehead, for instance - it has more sweat glands. And in some places, too, it produces more hair than in others.

The surface of the skin has a very large number of openings. They are not so much punctures in the skin as places where the surface layer funnels down into lower layers for one reason or another. To provide a sweat gland with access to the surface, for instance; sweat glands produce a moisture, as we all know. When this moisture reaches the surface of the skin though one of the special ducts, the heat from which we are suffering evaporates it, and the process of evaporation cools the body. The skin produces about two pints of sweat every day in normal circumstances. Another sort of funnel contains the hair. It is called a "follicle" and this is one of the few technical terms you will need to remember for the rest of the article. There is a diagram which shows, in a very simplified way, the way in which the hair itself and the folicle are arranged.

A very important companion of the follicle is the sebaceous gland. Whenever you find a hair follicle, you will usually find a sebaceous gland, but not the other way round. Sebaceous glands make a substances called "sebum" which reaches the skin through the follicle opening. Sebum is a lubricant and conditioner which works on the scalp, the skin and on the hair itself. Without sebum, they would deterioriate.

They exist in the skin on every part of the body except the palms and soles and they reach their heaviest concentration in the face. Every hair has its origin in a sebaceous gland but not every sebaceous gland always produces a hair. Because of their importance to the condition of your skin, it is obviously crucial that any action you take against the hair itself does not damage the sebaceous gland.

The structure of the hair needs also to be understood because this holds the key to the way it can be attacked. The hair shaft is the part of the hair above the surface of the skin. The part below the surface, lying in the part of the follicle, is the hair root.

At the base of the root is a slightly swollen part, called the bulb and there is an indentation in the underside of the bulb which contains the papilla. The papilla is also very important when it comes to destroying the hair.

The whole folicle is served by a system of blood vessels and nerves, and also by its own muscle. As you will note from the diagram, hairs usually grow at an angle to the surface of the skin. In certain circumsatnces - fear and coldness for instance - the muscle comes into action and pulls at the base of the hair so that it can be dragged upright. This is what we call hair "standing up on end", and it is also the explanation for goose flesh or bumps.

It is the bulb and the papilla which are responsible for the growth of the hair, after receiving a trigger from the hormones in their blood supply. In due course each hair regenerates naturally, and falls out. The bulb and the papilla then rest, before receiving a further hormone signal and starting the growth of new hair.

Specialists who treat hair have a number of names for the different types or stages of hair growth. We need to know only three. "Vellus" hairs are soft, downy and fine, and you will find them on most parts of your body. The hairs you will see on the face and arms of young women, for instance, will almost certainly be vellus hairs. You will sometimes see these described as "lanugo" hairs, which are actually the hairs which grow on babies in the womb, and which they usually lose quite soon after birth. "Terminal" hairs are far tougher and much more noticeable. Women have them on the scalp, under the armpits and in the genital area. The distribution of terminal hair on men is usually, as we know and despair, much more widespread and usually includes the face.

The other sort of hair we need to know about is the "regrowth" hair. We will return to it later.

As you would imagine, hormones play a very important part in the growth and distribution of hair. The male androgens, and particularly testosterone, are very powerful stimuli for hair growth and are especially responsible for the growth of tough, terminal hairs on the face. In women, the female oestrogen hormones are normally able to outweigh the effect of the testosterone in their bodies, so that terminal hair will usually be found on their scalp under their armpits and in their genital area.

Sometimes, however, this balance is not maintained and they may find terminal hair growing in embarassing places - on the face, for instance, and sometimes around the nipples. This is often one of the effects of the menopause or "change of life", which women experience in their forties and fifties. But all sorts of other factors, including emotional stress,can upset the hormonal balance; and professional beauty therapists believe that most women, at some time in their lives, feel a need to get rid of unwanted facial or body hair.

The methods, techniques and practice of hair removal described here, therefore, been developed for use on women. They are, of course, available also for men; but it is important to bear in mind that the technique for permanent removal starts off with an assumption about the relative androgen and oestrogen levels in the person being treated which will not apply to physical males - unless that is, you take special steps to counteract your own overwhelming testosterone levels.

To find out more about the different methods, both temporary and permanent, I have spoken to many practitioners, most of them beauty therapists. I will refer to them mainly by their first names. I have also been greatly helped by Julie, who is course director for the beauty therapy courses at one of the country's top colleges of arts and technology. And I have talked also to Margaret, Clinic Manager of the Albany Clinic, which specialises in treatment and care of transvestites and transsexuals. If you want to follow up your interest in this subject, I would especially recommend a book called "Principles and Techniques for the Electrologist", on which I have also drawn for this article. It is written by Ann Gallant, who was a lecturer responsible for beauty therapy at two colleges of arts and technology, and is published by Stanley Thomas (Publishers) Ltd.

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Related categories: Make Up & Beauty

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