A Guide to Electrolysis
By C Dawson
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Are These Methods Effective?
Methods of getting rid of hair permanently are called "epilation", while temporary methods are called "depilation". We will start with the temporary methods of depilation. They appeal to many people because they are often quite simple and can be performed by the person who needs the treatment. But are they safe? And are they effective?
The most obvious method is shaving. For women this is one of the most commonly used methods, especially for legs. They are, however, treating vellus hair, whereas a man will usually have to contend with terminal hairs. There is some uncertainty about whether, as Margaret says, "the more you shave, the more it stimulates the growth", but she would probably agree with Rosemary that "it doesn't really have any detrimental effect. It's an old wives' tale that it damages the hairs".
Julie, however, has an explanation for why the growth of hair often looks worse after shaving; "usually your hair has a nice tapered end, so if you're shaving the hair you're going to get a blunt edge on it... so it looks darker or coarser as it grows through". You have only to remember that the hair usually grows at an angle to the skins surface; your razor will not be simply be chopping it straight across, but slicing at an angle, leaving a bigger cross-section showing.
There seems to be no reason, then, why you shouldn't shave your unwanted hairs away - you won't do them any damage or actually make the regrowth coarser. Most of us, however, could find several reasons why shaving is no real answer. For body hair it has to be done too often to be practical, and there are dangers of inflicting cuts, which make it clear to everyone what you have been doing. And, of course, for facial hair it is only the most temporary of solutions.
It is likely, though, that shaving will toughen the skin; dragging a razor across it regularly will inevitably produce both friction and pressure, which tends to lead to a thicker skin layer. It is interesting that electrologists will often recommend to their clients that they use sharp scissors instead of a razor, once treatment has started.
If you are a transvestite who likes occasionally to look as convincing as possible but has no interest at all in dressing full time, shaving may be a very convenient, cheap and private way of dealing with a short-term problem. For a transsexual, however, it is less likely to be satisfactory.
Plucking
Another method that is cheap, simple and private is plucking, using tweezers to pull the hair out. It is a method many women use on their eyebrows. But says Julie, "tweezing out the hair on a facial area is not a good idea". Marian says: "I really don't recommend it. It produces infection sometimes and it can distort the hair". And "it's very painful, apart from anything else, especially on a large area - and very difficult", adds Margaret. Nobody i have spoken to recommends plucking at all. Many beauty therapists raised fears that trying to pull hairs out by the roots with tweezers would only succeed in breaking off the hair and damaging the root. At the moment there are three systems of permanent hair removal, by electroysis, in use at the moment in beauty salons in Britain. In all of them a very fine needle is inserted into the follicle and electrical power is used to disrupt the bulb and the papilla.
The skill required of the practitioner is remarkable. Few untrained eyes, I suspect, would be able to identify a regrowth hair which might then be crooked, making it very difficult indeed to treat permanently by any method, including plucking.
Waxing
A much less dangerous method of removing hair temporarily is by waxing. The basic technique is to seize a lot of hair on one area of skin simultaneously by applying something sticky in the direction of the hair growth, and then removing them all at once by pulling sharply in the other direction.
Done properly, this will usually remove the hair roots. But, of course, there will still be some regrowth in due course because the papilla will still be in place.
There are three main ways of using wax. There are prewax strips, intended mainly for home use, which you buy in a box. You remove a backing sheet, stick the strip on in the direction of growth, and pull it off like an elastoplast. Women use this method on their legs but rarely elsewhere. The advantages are that it is quite cheap, and you do not need any special equipment.
Cool waxing works in much the same way, except that you apply a sticky honey wax thinly on the leg, then put a paper or muslin strip on it and pull it off in the same way as with pre-waxed strips.
Hot waxing involves heating a mixture of beeswax and resins to about 60 degrees and spreading it thickly on the leg. When it has set, gripping the hairs, you yank it off in the same way as in the other two methods. "it is said to be more effective than cool waxing," says Julie, "but we've done a lot of tests with clients in which we do one leg with hot and the other with cool, and we haven't seen much difference. But with very strong hair, you have perhaps got a better grip." Beauty salons will usually offer both hot and cool waxing, and it is possible to buy kits for use at home. Cool wax has to be disposed of after use, but it is possible to filter the hairs from hot wax, and re-use it. Many salons refuse to do this, however, because there is a danger of cross-infection; if you are going to be the sole user of a home hot waxing kit, filtering would not present the same kind of problem. An advantage of waxing is that the effect should last for three or more weeks, until regrowth occurs, and then, of course, you might find eventually that the regrowth hairs were less course and noticeable. A disadvantage is the pain which these methods inevitably involve. Much will depend on your own pain threshold, of course, but it is worth remembering that successful treatment of an area such as a leg will need several applications of wax or prewaxed strip.
One beauty therapist from Essex said she would consider using the waxing on some body areas in treating a transsexual. Waxing is not, however, an option on the face.
Creams
Nor are most depilatory creams, which are probably the second most popular method of home treatment. "Immac" is perhaps the best known brand, although there are a number of others. There are some types designed for facial use but it seems very doubtful if these would be able to cope with male facial hair.
They work by a chemical reaction with the hair at the point that it leaves the follicle and, says Julie, their effect may last a little longer than shaving or plucking. There are dangers, however; "Because they're quite a strong chemical product, the skin might react to them. So you're actually destroying the surface layer of the skin if you leave them on too long." That is why you're always advised to do a patch test when trying a new depilatory cream or treating a new area of skin. The time recommended by the manufacturers for you to leaving it on the skin is obviously related to its use by a women - a man might need to leave it on a little longer but not much.
Margaret believes that there is a danger with these creams that their frequent use will result in a stronger hair growth in time, while Julie points out that they do tend to smell a bit unpleasant, despite the makers' attempt to mask the chemical smell with some other fragrance.
Having said that, chemical depilatories - which comes as creams in tubes or jars, or as aerosol sprays - will often appear to be the best method available to transsexuals or transvestites for regular use. They are not, however, a permanent method of hair removal.
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