Laser Hair removal and plucking

[Katie]

Someone said don't spend your money on a home unit and that's very good advice. I should have pointed out that I ended up buying an Apilus unit off the internet. It is a professional unit. I didn't waste time with the home crap.

Katie

[Joanna Dark]

Someone said don't spend your money on a home unit and that's very good advice. I should have pointed out that I ended up buying an Apilus unit off the internet. It is a professional unit. I didn't waste time with the home crap.

Katie

Is it easy to use? What about using it to lessen the appearance of pockmarks? I have a couple pockmarks that bother me. They don't effect passability but they bother me. But zapping hairs and resurfacing are tow very different things.

[A]

As I said, electrolysis on yourself, even if you were a real professional, wouldn't be advisable at all. Imagine if not having the proper qualifications. Really, don't do it.

If you want to do something with an at-home machine, go with laser/IPL instead. It certainly won't be as effective as professional treatments, but it will have some effect, and above all, unless you really do it wrong, it's not especially risky.

And uhm, could laser do something for scars? At the very least I can promise you that my numerous laser treatments didn't affect the big hole in my skin, where a huge blackhead was 8 years ago, at all. Laser CAN do something for dark spots on your skin, but I'm not sure that's a recommended use of it. The one above my lip got a lot lighter. But apart from that... I've never heard of such a thing.

I think the only hope for pockmarks is deep exfoliation, or something like that.

[Joanna Dark]

As I said, electrolysis on yourself, even if you were a real professional, wouldn't be advisable at all. Imagine if not having the proper qualifications. Really, don't do it.

If you want to do something with an at-home machine, go with laser/IPL instead. It certainly won't be as effective as professional treatments, but it will have some effect, and above all, unless you really do it wrong, it's not especially risky.

And uhm, could laser do something for scars? At the very least I can promise you that my numerous laser treatments didn't affect the big hole in my skin, where a huge blackhead was 8 years ago, at all. Laser CAN do something for dark spots on your skin, but I'm not sure that's a recommended use of it. The one above my lip got a lot lighter. But apart from that... I've never heard of such a thing.

I think the only hope for pockmarks is deep exfoliation, or something like that.

Laser is used for scars. It is the recommended treatment. But it's a different procedure then hair removal. So geting laser hair removal won't effect them at all. You've never heard of laser for pockmarks? It's laser and if that don't work, fillers like Juvaderm or resatlyn. I wouldn't spend the $2,000 on a professional laser machine unless I had big bucks. But if I did, I would.

[A]

Uhm, never heard of it. How does it work? Is it like laser surgery? Do they even out the skin by cutting?

[Christine167]

Uhm, never heard of it. How does it work? Is it like laser surgery? Do they even out the skin by cutting?

No more like damage the scar slightly to trick it into healing again. The body can fully heal a very small area but large cuts and burns scar over.

[Katie]

So I was asked about wether electrolysis is easy to learn. Well I have had my machine for about a monh and a half. I have spent a load of hours using it. I suppose I learned by trial and error. What was the best for me was a comfy chair, a magnifying light found on ebay for about 60 dollars, and for my face a 10 dollor magnifying mirror from the drug store. What I do is stich the mirror inside the magnifying light (so I am not using the light magnifyer) so as the light is pointing at me. That gives me 10x magnification and I am good to go. I am also getting a pair of loupes like the doctor uses for my legs and all.

As far as the machine goes. Well it is computer controlled and does all three types of electro. It also has a number of presets in it. So for example if I want to do my legs I select legs on the machine and all the levels are set. I used these as a baseline and then turned up the power a bit more because i like to fry the hair for sure.

Also someone asked me about pock marks. I dont know about using the machine for that but I can say you can use it to cut off a skin tag. I had bump on my leg and so I just slowy fryed it off in a min or two. No blood since it cauterizes as it cuts.

Ebay has professional machines on it at times. There is a lot of junk but occasionally you will see good stuff like Apilus machines, or Clair Blend.

Finally it takes a great deal of patience and ohh. This is not really the pro way of doing it but if you have trouble getting the probe into a pore you can always hit the gas pedal and the needle will fry its way in. Thats what I did when I was learning.

[Katie]

Oh and 2000 for a laser machine someone mentioned. I gained access to a supplier for Apilus. They have a laser machine for 40,000 dollars. Not sure what your talking about for 2000. Crap thier top of the line electro machine is over 7000.

[A]

Katie... I'm amazed you're not scarred all over. Your skin must be good at healing without a trace.

Also you should know that the presets aren't a very safe way to do it.

Oh gosh. I hate how some people can do some very unsafe and dangerous stuff and get away with it.

[Katie]

Well for one I took a lot of time and did my homework just like anything else in life. I watched videos I read as much as I could. Like hormones this is not rocket science (all publications written by doctors about hormones is available to become an expert on the topic). Do I have scars? I have burns where I have zapped. That's pretty common. I presume they will heal. For the sake of argument I would rather have burn/scars than the hair if you understand what I am saying.

But hey I am one of the few people that has went through transition. I did it because I had to. I took the risks because I was willing to. I didn't shy away from things because they could be dangerous. Was I crazy? Well that's debatable but there are a small but decent number of girls that have gone through the entire transition process and we survived. We did whatever it took to reach a goal. I think the Nike commercial says it all...... just do it.

On the other hand I met a countless number of people that had a 1000 reasons for not doing this or that. Strangely nearly all of them have not progressed towards any goal they ever suggested they were working on.

Katie

[A]

Uhm, I don't think you're supposed to get burns, no. When I go, she even uses some pretty high settings on me, settings that sometimes scare her, and despite that, any redness (most of which comes from having a lamp pointed on my face and hands manipulating my skin for an hour) is always gone within an hour. No lingering pain at all, either. Thing is, the needle isn't supposed to touch your skin, let alone fry its way through it.

There are reasons why you shouldn't do some things yourself. Now, you can be stubborn and do them yourself anyway, and I'm not gonna argue against that: yes, it can lead you to your goals. And yes, you might go through even the most dangerous situation unscathed. It doesn't mean that you're not taking useless risks. No one's forcing you to do it yourself.