First buy a really large hare sized trap and put some carrots in it. Oh, you said hair, not hare? I wondered why you were wondering about removing hares. I figured they had gotten into the veggie garden again.
There are only two permanent methods of removing hair. Electrolysis, which is the only one actually allowed to be called permanent, and laser hair removal. Let’s start with laser.
Laser
Laser is usually used as a generic term and may refer to intense pulsed light (IPL) or laser, but the only thing you care about is whether it works. There are two issues with laser. Skin tone and hair color. Ideally you want fair skin and black hair.
As the skin gets darker more energy is lost in the skin. This leads to pain and also means they need to turn up the power to be effective. At some point you’re just going to burn the skin.
As the hair gets lighter you need more energy to heat the follicle enough to kill it. As above you eventually have enough heat to cause pain and damage to the surrounding tissue.
However, if laser can work for much of any reason it will be the fastest and cheapest solution. It is the right way to start for areas like the face or genitalia that may year or months to be cleared.
My personal anecdote was using laser for prep on my SRS surgery. Laser saved considerable time in the process where about 3 sessions cleaned up most of the hair.
Electrolysis
Even if you are a candidate for laser, it is unlikely that it will get all of the hair, even if you are young. There will probably be at least some cleanup with electrolysis. If you’re older, like me, you’ll skip laser entirely.
In electrolysis a small probe is inserted into each follicle. The follicle is “zapped” using one of three methods and then the hair is removed. Repeat until finished. Most hairs will need multiple treatments before disappearing permanently.
In galvanic electrolysis, the original form, a small current is sent by way of the current. The galvanic current causes the breakdown of the salt in the solution into H2 and Cl2 gases, which bubbles away and NaOH or lye. The lye’s caustic and burns the follicle. Some percentage are killed in this way each time.
You could label this a chemical burn method.
In thermopolis a probe is inserted that conducts high frequency electricity. This then dissipates at the root of the follicle causing a thermal burn. Although less effective than galvanic, this method is much quicker so many more hairs can be treated in a single session.
In blend, both galvanic and rf are combined. The effectiveness is increased but the time goes up considerably.
Pain and Pain Reduction
You will have pain, no matter what polite lies are said, electrolysis and laser are both painful in some delicate areas. The amount of pain depends on your tolerance which is very individualistic and changes for a person over time as well.
The most painful areas on the face are the lips, particularly the centerline which is innervated from both sides of the face. (at least it feels like there’s an overlap)
Then there’s genital hair removal, do I really need to explain?
There are four options for pain:
- Nothing – some people can tolerate pain well and just tough it out. For most areas other than the lips and under the neck I often don’t bother. Creams make a mess and there isn’t much pain.
- Creams or gels – there are a variety of these. Emla – a prescription cream containing 2.5% lidocaine and 2.5% prilocaine is popular but quite messy and has to have a layer of plastic so it doesn’t dry out. 5% lidocaine cream or gel formulated to get through the skin works well. Don’t expect these to reduce the pain to zero, they are about making things tolerable, not entirely numb.
- Dental blocks – if you have a friendly dentist and can arrange several hour electrolysis sessions consider getting a nerve block for a whole area and having the electrologists work for several hours to entirely clear it. There are places that will do several 8 hour days of that for around $3000, but you generally have to fly there. On the other hand, a few session like that and you’re largely clear.
- Hypnotism – at least claimed by a hypnotist I know can be used to block pain. I had partial success with meditation techniques but never took her up on taking the hypnotism stuff to heart. It may well have promise. You might put acupuncture and some other modalities in this section too.
How long does it take?
It might be really quick if you’re young and especially if you were able to start before puberty did it’s damage. For most MtF transitioners it takes a number of years of electrolysis to be down to maintenance. For me:
June 2013 – Nov 2013 1/wk
Dec 2013 – Mar 2014 2/wk (went full time on 3/10/14)
Mar 2014 – Sept 2017 once per 2 weeks
Now once per 4 weeks, and the hour per four weeks will get reduced as appropriate
Approximate total hours:
26 hours 6/13 – 11/13
36 hours 12/13 – 3/14
91 hours 3/14 – 9/17
= 153 hours
My electrologist is fairly reasonable as far as cost. Electrology is usually the second most expensive procedure next to SRS on the list and you pretty much can’t skip this. You can pick when you’re satisfied though – I was ok for walking around after about 50 hours or so. However, new black hairs still come up and that’s why maintenance is still needed from time to time. Plucking them can cause other hairs to appear and then you start undoing the work you’ve expensively paid for.
My Gifted Life 