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I built my own hair electrolysis machine

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Re: I built my own hair electrolysis machine

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a trans woman who's had a lot of electrolysis. Almost all of us get permanent hair removal on our face if we can afford it. Laser is far cheaper and quicker, but not everyone can get it since it needs specific hair and skin colour combinations. Electrolysis on my face and neck has cost me tens of thousands. Think $100 per hour, and it taking 100-300 hours to complete typically. Full body hair removal would easily…

Thanks for the clear answer! I looked at the arm hair in the video, than at my grizzly arms and totally forgot about facial hair! That sounds super expensive, isn't there a trend to do that abroad? I remember seeing Istanbul airport full of hair transplant patients, apparently people go there to have more hair at an affordable cost, maybe the opposite is also available at less than $100/h?

Electrolysis is something that needs to be done roughly every 6 weeks, as hairs regrow. Each hair can need multiple treatments to fully kill off, too. There's probably some countries where you can hop over the border to get it done cheaper as a day trip, but I doubt most people will be able to do such a long trip every few months.

There's cheaper places than where I go, for sure, but operator skill is a big part of electrolysis. It's the difference between getting scarred or not, and it's the difference of a hundred hours time spent because the operator wasn't using enough power.

The reality is that it's just time intensive, and there's not many good experienced operators around where I live

Re: I built my own hair electrolysis machine

#52

I'm a rather hairy man and I literally don't even want to imagine the pain of going through this hair-by-hair. I also don't see the aesthetics behind it, but I guess that's the hetero guy speaking. Is this something that M2F trans people typically do? Is it really this expensive? OP mentions hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[flagged]

You didn't need to make an account just to write that, because you are not welcome here.

Re: I built my own hair electrolysis machine

#54

I'm a rather hairy man and I literally don't even want to imagine the pain of going through this hair-by-hair. I also don't see the aesthetics behind it, but I guess that's the hetero guy speaking. Is this something that M2F trans people typically do? Is it really this expensive? OP mentions hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Hetero” isn’t the word you’re looking for, buddy.

Re: I built my own hair electrolysis machine

#56
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it's just a fancy hydrocarbon, and in some form or another can be extracted from female mammal urine. I imagine there's a way to genetically alter yeasts to make estrobeer while they're at it, with the side benefit that the alcohol would serve as a natural testosterone reducer for a double d whammy.

Can confirm, I’ve extracted estrogen from my own urine.

How did you detect/measure the estrogen after the extraction process?

Re: I built my own hair electrolysis machine

#57

I have soooo many questions. Approximate hardware cost? Pain of needle? Pain of zap? How does the sensation of your machine compare to commerical applications? How long has it been since the first tests? Results from those tests? Is there some sensation that indicates having inserted to the proper depth? Is it an increase in resistance or an increase in pain? Have you used it anyhwere but the hand? Does the pain scal…

I get electrolysis (from a professional, not DIY, lol) and it does hurt a fair bit, but it's not intolerable for me. It's roughly the pain of tweezing a hair, only repeated a couple hundred times per session. I put on a podcast and just kind of get through it.

If this has been done appropriately and safely, it should be similar.

One thing I will mention, having watched the video, is that I think this goes about the same speed as what the pros do? It takes around 20 seconds for removal of the whole hair (about 10 seconds of current plus 10 seconds tweezing, inserting needle, etc.) in the video. My tech can usually remove around 200 hairs in an hour, which comes out to about the same (200 / 60 = 3.33 hairs per minute = around 18 seconds a hair).

Re: I built my own hair electrolysis machine

#58

I have soooo many questions. Approximate hardware cost? Pain of needle? Pain of zap? How does the sensation of your machine compare to commerical applications? How long has it been since the first tests? Results from those tests? Is there some sensation that indicates having inserted to the proper depth? Is it an increase in resistance or an increase in pain? Have you used it anyhwere but the hand? Does the pain scal…

I get electrolysis (from a professional, not DIY, lol) and it does hurt a fair bit, but it's not intolerable for me. It's roughly the pain of tweezing a hair, only repeated a couple hundred times per session. I put on a podcast and just kind of get through it. If this has been done appropriately and safely, it should be similar. One thing I will mention, having watched the video, is that I think this goes about the s…

oh wow, your tech must be real slow. Mine will do a hair every 5 seconds. But she’s been doing it for 20 years.

I find this invasion of hacker news by trans women talking about hair removal delightful and hilarious. (Of course, we were all here all along.)

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