Susan's Place Transgender Resources

We were talking about face-clearing electrolysis the other day, and I likened it to paying off a mortgage, in that the sessions in the beginning don't seem to be making much difference, while the latter sessions really start to obviously reduce the number of visible hairs.  It struck me that it should be possible to create a mathematical model of the process, incorporating number of hairs removed in a typical session, rate of success on a particular hair, frequency of sessions, rate of regrowth, etc... 

With some customization given individual's actual or perceived rates and provider's efficiency, it ought too be possible to develop optimal strategies for frequency and number of sessions required to get one's face cleared via electrolysis.  It seems that this ought to give better predictions than empirically-determined "ballpark" estimates that we toss about.  I'm curious if anyone has tried this? 

Erin

For a cost model:
So, my electrologist told me she can do 8-12 hairs per minute.  I think she does more, based on my experience with her, but that is a good basis.  She is currently $88 and hour.   $1.47 per minute, or per every 8-12 hairs.  So, let's make it round and say 10 hairs for $1.47, or nearly 0.15¢ per hair.  Now, we need to know the number of hairs, then calculate the number of hairs in the other two stages of growth for future successive clearings.  And we need a variable to address the failed killings because, well, no one is perfect and kills every hair with 100% efficiency.

  Hey you two!  I'm already apprehensive about making an appointment to start my face removal. With all the discussions of pain involved and dangers of pain relief it's bad enough. Now you want me to think about the cost per hair the amortization of hairs over time? I'm sure the huge cost involved could cause me to take out a mortgage to pay for it and I don't even own a house.
    Maybe I'll just keep shaving...

  Thanks a lot, LOL
   Laurie

Hi, Dayta

Your suggestion sounded interesting so I made a very crude spreadsheet that allows for various hair densities, operator timings and such. Unfortunately it looks like I can't attach or upload it, and would have to put it on some other server to  include a screenshot.

If you're interested, I've attached a text-format version of one possible scenario below.

Area   300   cm2                              
Density   30   hairs /cm2                              
Active   9000   hairs                              
Active %   70%                                 
Dormant %   30%                                 
Dormant   2700   hairs                              
Grand total   11700   hairs                              
Hair cycle   180   days                              
                                    
Operator speed   5   per minute                              
Miss rate   5%                                 
Rate   100   /hour               

Session	Interval (days)	Time (minutes)	New active	New dormant	Start active	Start total	Treated	Missed	End active	End dormant	End total	Cost
1	0	120	0	0	9000	11700	600	30	8400	2730	11130	200
2	7	120	106	98	8408	11130	600	30	7808	2752	10560	200
3	7	120	107	91	7824	10560	600	30	7224	2766	9990	200
4	7	120	108	84	7247	9990	600	30	6647	2773	9420	200
5	7	120	108	78	6678	9420	600	30	6078	2772	8850	200
6	7	120	108	71	6115	8850	600	30	5515	2765	8280	200
7	7	120	108	64	5558	8280	600	30	4958	2752	7710	200
8	7	120	107	58	5007	7710	600	30	4407	2733	7140	200
9	7	120	106	51	4462	7140	600	30	3862	2708	6570	200
10	7	120	105	45	3922	6570	600	30	3322	2678	6000	200
11	7	120	104	39	3387	6000	600	30	2787	2643	5430	200
12	7	120	103	33	2858	5430	600	30	2258	2602	4860	200
13	7	120	101	26	2333	4860	600	30	1733	2557	4290	200
14	7	120	99	20	1812	4290	600	30	1212	2508	3720	200
15	7	120	98	14	1295	3720	600	30	695	2455	3150	200
16	7	120	95	8	783	3150	600	30	183	2397	2580	200
17	60	120	799	18	963	2580	600	30	363	1647	2010	200
18	60	120	549	36	876	2010	600	30	276	1164	1440	200
19	60	120	388	28	636	1440	600	30	36	834	870	200
20	60	60	278	4	311	870	300	15	11	574	585	100
21	60	30	191	1	201	585	150	8	51	391	443	50
22	60	30	130	5	176	443	150	8	26	274	300	50
23	90	30	137	4	159	300	150	8	9	148	158	50
24	120	20	99	2	106	158	100	5	6	56	62	33.33
25	150	10	47	2	52	62	50	3	2	13	15	16.67
26	180	3	13	0	15	15	15	1	0	1	1	5
Total days	1005										Total cost	4105
Total years	2.75

If you want to make your own spreadsheet, here are the values and formulas:


Area: Area to be cleared in cm2
Density:   Hairs per cm2
Active: Hairs counted in one cm2 area x total area to be cleared
Active %: Percentage of hairs in the active phase
Dormant %: 1-active %
Dormant: Active * dormant %
Grand total: Active + dormant
Hair cycle: Your hair cycle

For the first row the interval, new active and new dormant fields are 0. The start total is the grand total.

Time is the session time in minutes.
New active is dormant hairs at the end of the previous session x days since last session / hair cycle.
New dormant is active hairs at the end of the previous session x days since last session / hair cycle x dormant %.
Start active is active hairs at the end of the previous session + new active - new dormant
Start total is the total hairs at the end of the previous session
Treated is session time x operator speed
Missed is treated x miss rate
End active is start active - (treated - missed)
End dormant is dormant at end of previous session - new active + new dormant + missed
End total is end active + end dormant
Cost is rate * session time / 60
Total days is a total of the intervals between sessions
Total years is total days / 365

I hope this is of some help...

There's the cost in terms of pain, and how much you can deal with at a time. Plus the intensity of the machine vs the risk of skin damage.

I suspect by the time you've modeled it well you'll be half way though your electrolysis, and won't have anyone else to compare it to anyway.

I highly recommend Irina Cardos and Precision Hair Removal.  They offer pain managed , large volume electrolysis in Willimet, IL administered by Dr Zukowski.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Irina Cardos is my electrologist.  She's very good.

An important factor to consider is modality.  Flash thermolysis is widely used today.  It's not electrolysis at all because it uses high frequency RF to heat and kill the follicle, not galvanic action (if you are not holding an electrode in your hand, you are undergoing thermolysis).  It's the fastest way to treat a follicle (30 to 40 a minute), but the kill rate is reduced depending on the power level applied.  Blend modality combines galvanic electrolysis with thermolysis.  The RF heats up the lye created by electrolysis to hasten its effect.  Kill rates are higher, but it takes typically 12 seconds per follicle, so on a new client the cost of using blend is usually prohibitive.

Irina Cardos used flash thermolysis on me in the beginning, but switched to blend as my beard thinned out.  Thermolysis is potentially dangerous because it can cause scarring if the practitioner is not well versed and careful.  Blend is very safe and almost never causes dermal cell damage which is why I prefer it over flash when feasible.  I have some signs of scarring from thermolysis (from a different electrologist), as do many trans women I've seen (look closely at Caitlyn Jenner's chin area).  Contrary to what I've been told, CO2 laser skin resurfacing doesn't clear scarring from electrolysis because the scarring is quite deep down as compared to acne scarring.

I might also add that facial hair removal is a misnomer from my experience.  My face is not clear of hair after 225 hours of thermolysis/blend electrolysis.  It's been 7 months since my last treatment, and what I have is a fair amount of tiny, shallow rooted, colorless hairs not unlike the hair on a woman's face.  It's much like peach fuzz.  It's invisible.  Some of those hairs still want to grow out in length, so I should go back and have then treated again, and will when I get back to Chicago.  It's easy, however, to run an epilator over my face once in a while to extract these longer hairs. 

If the cost of electrolysis is a problem, epilation works quite well once your facial hair has been thinned out well by laser or electrolysis.  If plucking a hair is not painful, epilating will not be painful either.

I just realized that not everyone understands centimeters. If not, just choose any arbitrary unit (e.g. 1"^2, 1/2"^2, 1/4"^2 or 1/8"^2 and use that to calculate the area to be treated and hair density. Once you derive the total hair count all calculations work the same regardless of what unit you used.