For almost every male-to-female transgendered person, the beard is the real project area for electrolysis hair removal. Facial hair is among the more visible secondary sex characteristics, and getting rid often is a nightmare for trans women. It hurts, it’s expensive, it’s embarrassing, and it seemingly takes forever.
At 2pass Clinic we developed an intensive program that clears your complete facial hair during a marathon session.
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Advantages of intensive electrolysis clearing sessions
- Less time needed from start to finish. It will considerably speed up the process. There is no faster way on the planet yet.
- Another advantage of the intensive program is that you have to let your facial hair grow only once per clearing session instead of once every week for a normal 1-2 hour session.
- Pain pump makes the treatment tolerable. If it still hurts to much for you we can inject local anesthesia which will make it pain free.
- Electrologist trained and experienced in killing beard hairs of trans women. At 2pass Clinic we are obsessed by 2 things: no scarring and high killing rate.
Caution
- When beginning your transition the most important thing to remember is that “nothing happens overnight”. The permanent removal of facial hair is a time-consuming, but wonderfully worthwhile process, and you will need patience and commitment to achieve your desired results.
- You also need to remember that electrolysis requires a considerable financial investment. Make sure that you can afford to see the process through and not be disappointed.
- A marathon session is not a walk in the park. It is physically and emotionally a hell of a ride.
When to start facial electrolysis?
Anyone who is planning to go full time and is even remotely considering the option of stealth is strongly advised to seek permanent facial hair removal as soon as possible in transition. For some transsexual women, it is the most time-consuming and expensive part of the entire process. More information on when to start your electrolysis.
Should I be on hormones to start electrolysis?
No. Beard growth is driven by a genetic response of the hair follicles to the hormone called ‘androgen’. This response of the hair follicles is genetic, and sadly we cannot yet change the genetics of your hair. From our experience, unless the masculinization process is put to a halt early in puberty, or the individual naturally has sparse beard growth, extensive facial electrolysis is usually necessary for trans women.
How long will it take to clear my facial hair? How many clearing sessions will I need?
- This is probably the most frequently asked question, and one we can unfortunately not answer with certainty. There are many factors influencing the amount of sessions needed to clear an area, some of which are still unknown to us.
- To fully clear your facial hair permanently it can take anything from 8 months up to 2 years in some cases. The number of sessions needed varies from 8 to 15 sessions. The number of hours needed varies from 90 to 300 hours.
- But can you give me an estimate based on the average person? On average, if we do a complete clearing of the face every session, about 8 to 10 sessions will be needed to fully clear the face in 100-150 hours. If they adhere to a 6 weeks interval the average person will have her face cleared in about one year.
- But mind you:
- Those are averages, we cannot guarantee this will be your time frame.
- This average is based on the average density of beard and lip and the average response rate to the treatment.
- We have experienced that there are patients where the treatment is less effective, with more regrowth of stubborn hairs. It really varies greatly from person to person.
- For the moment we can unfortunately not give any guarantee except the following: in the end we always win. We are working hard to analyze our results and investigate what causes the difference in effectiveness and what can be done about it.
- If we notice after the first session we don’t have the desired killing result we will try different programs on different areas of the face. Some of these programs, like the blend programs, take at least 6 times more time. You have the risk during this second session that clearing cannot be completely finished, which is very distressing as you want to get rid of your facial hair as fast as possible. We fully realize this but still need to insist: in the end, once we found the correct program we will get you to the finish earlier.
Video about advantages of the intensive program over the classical program
Mind you: the 6 months time frame is for the average beard SHADOW. Total treatment time is longer.
Intensive Electrolysis hair removal Infographic.
Principle
We do a complete (partly non-permanent) clearing of the average beard and lip every 6-8 weeks (ideal to catch as much hairs in the growing phase as possible).
- Approximately 60% of your hair follicles are active during the first clearing. Although all hairs will be cleared during the session, about 25-50% of the treated hairs will grow back, together with the 40% inactive hairs, you will have the impression between 75% and 90% grows back after the first session . More information on regrowth after electrolysis and a whiteboard movie explaining the basic concepts.
- Your first sessions will account for the longest of all the clearings. Each follow up clearing will involve less time as there are progressively fewer hairs to be treated.
- We use a painpump which makes the session less painful. Local anaesthesia can be added if needed which makes the treatment painless.
- It is important to stick to the 6-8 weeks interval to have as many hairs in the visible stage as possible.
- MOST (but not all) patients will lose their shadows permanently after the 4th clearing, as long as they adhere to the 6-8 week clearing interval.
Video of Jessica having her first electrolysis session
Price
Check out prices here.
How many days of intensive electrolysis do I need to book?
If you don’t have a full beard anymore because of laser, electrolysis sessions or hormonal effects, booking 4 days as your 1st session is not necessary.
The pictures below give you an indication of how many days you need according to the density of your facial hair.
Book conservatively because you pay for the time you book.
Book your intensive electrolysis session
Program of an intensive day
- 8h30-9h00: preparation pain pump
- 9h-9h30: First day of session only: treatment plan discussion or discussion of previous treatment with comparison of before and after pictures (rest of the days the treatment starts at 9)
- 9h30-13h: treatment time
- 13h-13h30: lunch: we provide soup and bread for lunch in the guesthouse (free of charge)
- 13h30-16h45: treatment time
- 16h45-17h: last day of session only: removal of the pain pump and booking of a new appointment if necessary (deposit can be paid in the clinic)
- BREAKS—Every treatment hour a five minute break is foreseen for you and the electrologist to stretch the legs and go to the restroom, have a drink etc. Well timed breaks are needed for your electrologist to keep performing efficient insertions. If it is an intensive genital hair treatment longer breaks of 10 minutes are needed because your electrologist is seated in a physically demanding position.
- Important to read for genital zone! The electrologist will change after 4 hours if it is a full day intensive treatment of the genital zone. This because this zone is very demanding for the electrologist. Also, longer breaks of 10 minutes are needed regularly to keep the focus.
How do I prepare for my electrolysis clearing session?
The most important preparation is to stop shaving 3 days prior to treatment. The length of the hair should be at least 1 mm to be able to grab the hair with tweezers. More information on preparing for your session.
What skin reaction to expect after my electrolysis clearing session? Any aftercare needed?
Redness and swelling are to expected and are normal reactions of the healing skin. For more information on what to expect after electrolysis and aftercare.
Book your intensive electrolysis session
FAQ
Yes we do, we strongly advise electrolysis before the operation because laser is not always permanent and after the operation you won’t get a second change to remove the hair.
The short answer almost no electrologist dears to give you to give you is: yes it is. Some people can bear it, other’s barely.
The longer version: Everyone has their own tolerance to pain. Descriptions of the discomfort vary from “no worse than a mosquito bite,” to “like having a rubber band snapped against my bare skin hard.” Electrolysis can give a stinging and pricking sensation, and each hair has to go through it. The degree of also relative to the area of treatment. Certain spots, such as the upper lip, are known to be more sensitive than spots like the brows.
More information about pain during electrolysis hair removal
Yes, one of the common misconceptions about electrolysis is that you have to let the hair grow in-between sessions. In actual fact, you can treat the hair as you would do usually, even shaving if on the legs or face. The hair doesn’t have to be any longer than 1-2 mm for electrolysis to be effective. It is even contra-productive because it makes insertions more difficult. It is important you stop shaving 3 days prior to your electrolysis session.
We should emphasize that in contrast to popular believe shaving of the hair will not thicken it, coarsen it or make it grow more rapidly.
This is probably the most frequently asked question, and one we can unfortunately not answer with certainty. There are
many factors influencing the amount of sessions needed to clear an area, some of which are still unknown to us. To fully clear your facial hair permanently it can take anything from 8 months up to 2 years in some cases. The number of sessions needed varies from 8 to 15 sessions. The number of hours needed varies from 90 to 300 hours.
No. Beard growth is driven by a genetic response of the hair follicles to the hormone called ‘androgen’. This response of the hair follicles is genetic, and sadly we cannot yet change the genetics of your hair. From our experience, unless the masculinization process is put to a halt early in puberty, or the individual naturally has sparse beard growth, extensive facial electrolysis is usually necessary for trans women.
Laser is less effective than electrolysis because it targets the pigment of the hair that is only found in the Bulb, not the Bulge where the growth cells are. The damage to the hair is considerable enough that it will slow the growth cycle for a couple of months before reappearing.The other advantage of electrolysis is that it is suitable for pretty much all skin tones and hair colours, unlike laser hair removal.
Laser first? The simple rule is: Do laser first if you have dark hair and light skin. If you have dark skin or light hair, skip laser and do electrolysis from the start.
More info on the differnce between laser and electrolysis hair removal.
Electrolysis is the only permanent hair removal method which is recognised and approved as such by the FDA (The US Food and Drug Administration). The FDA is an agency of the US government that regulates a broad range of consumer products, services and drugs in order to ensure not only the efficacy of the product, but also the safety of the consumer. The FDA is an agency of the US government that regulates a broad range of consumer products, services and drugs in order to ensure not only the efficacy of the product, but also the safety of the consumer.This means that the FDA have carefully examined the electrolysis technique and have expressed that it’s safe and that it permanently removes hair.
For administrative reasons we do not give each patient the same electrologist each visit, although we try to meet the patient’s preference. The rotating of electrologists discourages personal dependence and more easily facilitates the exchange of skills, which maintains high standards.
Hyperpigmentation is possible after electrolysis. The inflammation caused by the electrolysis destruction can sometimes stimulate melanocytes (pigment cells in the skin) to produce pigment.
This reaction is called post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. When this happens in electrology, tiny dark patches or dots appear 2 to 6 weeks after treatment where each hair was epilated. These marks may persist for 4 to 6 months, but disappear as the skin recuperates. This reaction can develop on any patient. However, this reaction is most common in darker-skinned patients. It rarely occurs in lighter-skinned patients. Sunlight seems to encourage this reaction. Therefore we advise our patients to protect against the sun for 2 to 3 weeks after treatment.
In very rare instances, inflammation from electrolysis arrests the pigment production of the pigment cells and causes white spots, or hypo-pigmentation. In all such cases the melanocytes recuperate and the skin fully returns to normal; usually within several months.
On the active psoriasis zone electrolysis is contra-indicated.
It is not a contra-indication, but in some people it doesn’t really help because too much new hair is recruited. In some individuals the problem is less pronounced than in others.
The average person has 1,000 follicles per square inch. However, that does not mean one grows 1,000 hairs. Where a man may have 100, to 500 visible hairs in a square inch, a woman may have 0 to 25. You must understand that hormonal problems (like PCOS) work in such a way that new follicles are recruited to start growing hair, where they never grew before. The severity of the problem defines how long it takes for new follicles to be recruited, and how many at a time are stimulated in that term. So, until one arrests the problem that is causing the new hair recruitment, one will continuously gain new hairs, and one may may have to come back forever.
We understand your concern. If you cancel 3 days of an intensive program less then two weeks before, we will not find another patient to replace you because people need to plan these type of things in advance (take time off from work etc.). So these 3 days we will have to pay our electrologist, but she will have no client to treat. It is simply a different cost and income model than in a hotel. A hotel needs approximately the same staff if there are a few people less or more. In contrast to hotels we don’t have 300 rooms and have some vacancies anyway most of the time. It is actually the same policy we use as with our operations (but there the cancel time is less than one month instead of two weeks). We hope you understand our policy.
You still have another question? Feel free to ask! We will answer your question and if generally applicable add it to the FAQ of this page.
