Friday 15 June 2012

Festering folicles Batman!

    Fortunately there is no real festering involved beyond a handy excuse for a title, but it's time for a quick run-down of laser facial hair removal progress.
    Tomorrow, I'll be off to the clinic for my fifth treatment. An hour catchin' some Joules, followed by a day or two of soreness and mild swelling. A lot of the current crop of hair will come out with the laser, thereafter over the next couple of weeks I'll have odd hairs popping out until I'm clear for the next crop to start coming through. Regrowth when I get it is now very patchy indeed, there is starting to be an end to this process in sight.
    My laser light is coming from a Lightsheer diode laser machine. My operator is very good at her job, and I'm satisfied with the result.
    I'm curious though, my experience seems to differ slightly from that of other people. Not for me the mass ejection of hairs in the weeks after, I don't get my razor choked with dead hairs. Is my hair coming out on laser day unique to me, to Lightsheer, or to the skill of my operator?
    It is extremely fortunate that I have very little body hair. Before you get too envious consider this, we all have our own package of good and bad points. You may have back hair, but I have size UK15 feet, and unlike back hair there's nothing that can be done about that.
    There is however a small amount of hair on my chest. It responds well to shaving, so I've put up with it so far. I'm wondering though whether to have something done about it. Either more laser, or much more economically, an epilator.
    I'd be curious to hear other people's experiences at this point, on both hair removal fronts.

6 comments:

  1. As you know I was part of the chocked razor brigade. I get some hair coming out immediately, but seem to have hair still in my face for a couple of weeks until eventually it clogs the razor when it pops out.

    I have no idea which is good - but after 6 or 7 sessions I am very happy with the results. Still too much on the chin and around the nostrils (euw!) not to shave, but getting there.

    For the rest I decided not to do it - I did a test on my hands and the pain was too much, the hair that came out too little (something I was warned about when doing the test - that she did for free to see what I thought).

    My chest has about 20 hairs that I pluck when needed (something that is getting less now with hormones) and I just shave my legs once a week and epilate my arms once a fortnight. That seems to keep everything respectable :)

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  2. Hi Jenny, I had a couple of IPL treatments on chest hair way back in the testosterone days, it was as much as I could afford and it reduced the hair considerably. Each area of the body as different hair and different cycles...

    After I started HRT the body hair which remained reduced and seems finer, a few coarse white or grey chest hairs grow but until someone asks why a long hair is sticking out it will not get pulled out.

    Epilator will be a bit uncomfortable until you are only dealing with regrowth. No pain no gain...

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  3. I agree Jenny, everyone is different. For myself, I had a few hairs on my chest and similarly on my back, probably slightly more on my back. I took no action on either until I started transition. I was told they would disappear once I'd been on hormones for a while. They did! As for my face, well as you know I had Epilght (HF pulsed light) once every five weeks (the whole face was treated each time) for fifteen sessions which rid me of the dark hairs. Afterward I took to electrolysis for a few years. Yes, a few years but that was because I was only having half-hour sessions every two weeks. My facial hair regrowth was slow (probably due to my post-op status). Now all I have to do is pluck out the occasional rogues! I have found that plucking or epilating, which effectively are the same thing, is a good way to eliminate hair growth. For instance I bought an epilator about twelve years ago when I was two years pre-op. I used it regularly on my legs once a week for the first few years but found that became once every two weeks or even longer. Now I don't have any hairs on my legs at all apart from one or two which persist around my knees although even they are becoming less frequent. I also use the epilator on my arms about once every two weeks but the growth there is minimal anyway. Now I am not advocating the use of an epilator on more sensitive parts of the body, especially the face. Even though it would probably work it would be quite painful I think. By the way, using a cold compress (ice bag) on the face after treatment does reduce swelling I have found. I think that if you want to completely remove body hair you need to either use an epilator, cream, laser or electrolysis. Shaving is a waste of time because it doesn't prevent regrowth, ok for a quick fix but for long term freedom from maintenance not suitable. As Caroline said, no pain no gain.

    Shirley Anne xxx

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  4. Had one session on the chest which helped but when HRT commenced it stopped growing so should have saved the money. Next week on my 13 laser session and have left hair for 4 days without shaving. Very little to see unless I look closely but can feel it. I guess will return to electrolysis at some point but total wimp and it hurts me ! Laser has been over 5 years so it's been long and slow. Hair generally falls out after 7 days and wot shave for 3 days after zaps

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  5. My body hair has dropped by about 80% and now is reasonably stable. Trying out a home laser for the rest. Arms and hands I have enough girl friends with more hair than mine who don't shave and who have convinced me not to do anything. Doesn't help passing or expressing female so why bother ?
    Have a couple of patches of fair facial hair after about 8 laser sessions, but my blood values are still a problem for electrolysis so no real option to shaving.

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  6. Morning all,
    Well, I'm a couple of days after my Shave of the Future and though I'm a bit puffy and have a few zits, it's all good. Unlike my first treatment back in January which was rather uncomfortable afterwards. Real evidence that it's working.
    I take a simple view, that if natal women do something then it's OK for me. I don't have huge amounts of leg hair, so I'm perfectly happy shaving my legs because that's exactly what a natal woman does.
    Natal women however don't have chest hair. :) I guess it all comes down to my dogged avoidance of transitioning, if I was about to receive hormones then I'd let them do their work.
    No pain no gain. Very true!

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