Review (5/5): money-saving, time-consuming results. also loud buzz
Contents:
1. Review
2. Mechanism
3. Tips
1. Review
I want to provide enough information to anyone who's on the fence due to mixed reviews. I bought this because appointments to electrolysis clinics were back up for months or even years in my area, and were looking to be costly too.
Having used this machine for about 4 months, I can say that the results are real and permanent, though very time-consuming. It can be a little uncomfortable depending on your sensitivity and the area you're working on. I've been regularly using it about every week, taking a few hours (4-6?) each session, mainly focusing on my upper lip and chin area. These areas have not been too difficult for me to deal pain-wise with at 6-7 (5 right under the nose) around my lips and full 10 around my chin. For the reference of time taken/amount of hair, I have sparse male facial hair that grows in waves. The last time I used it I was able to count how many visible hairs I wanted to remove, which was about 13. That was not long, but I still spent a couple hours removing some less visible hairs and vellus.
The probe is not difficult to insert into my hair follicles, even the thinner vellus hairs, and it is not difficult to re-straighten the probe if you accidentally bend it. However, when straightening with tweezers be careful not to pull out the probe, like I had done. The probe without electricity is not uncomfortable when inside the hair follicle in my opinion, but once electricity flows it can be, especially closer to the nose. One thing to note which might not be apparent is that your skin must be hydrated for the electrolysis to work properly.
To let you know when the electricity is flowing, the machine lets off a very loud and annoying beep that lasts for about eight seconds. This is really my only real gripe with the machine. Besides that, each hair will take 2-3 of these cycles before you can remove the hair, hopefully with the sheath, otherwise it is still damaged (which is wanted) and will take less effort with the next treatment once the hair regrows. You could try for more cycles per treatment but you risk further damage to your skin. I have seen damage to my own skin (blood serum leakage and hyperpigmentation) just from regular use but it has healed quite nicely with time.
The included tweezers are normally very difficult to use, but for the purpose of removing hairs loosened by the electrolysis process, they do the bare minimum. Nevertheless, I do not recomment using them.
As for battery life, I cannot really comment since I have been using rechargeable 9-volt batteries and charging between treatments.
2. Mechanism
The machine operates using galvanic electrolysis. The way galvanic electrolysis hair removal works is it uses saltwater and the moisture in your skin (which is kind of like saline in some ways) as an electrolyte in which electricity will flow.
Usually, electrolysis is known to be done with two probes suspended in a container of a continuous liquid electrolyte. In this scenario, the probes are separated and the electrolyte is discontinuous. Instead, you have saltwater on your finger surrounding the sleeve as one probe, and the needle-like electrode as the other probe which is suspended in the moisture in your skin surrounding your hair follicle.
The electrolysis reaction produces very small amounts of chlorine and hydrogen gas (not enough to cause harm), and lye, which is the base that ultimately kills the follicle. This takes a few seconds, and is why this hair removal method is so time-consuming, and requires adequately-hydrated skin.
3. Tips
Use rechargeable 9-volt batteries if you anticipate months of treatment. Also, use numbing cream on sensitive areas like directly under your nose.
You can feel the electricity flowing if you have any cuts on your fingers, so be careful. Also, prolonged usage may discolor your fingertips from the metal sleeve.
I recommend using a different pair of tweezers that you like to use to remove the treated hairs.
I found that air conditioning dehydrated my skin and makes treatment almost impossible. On the other hand, I also found that sweating makes treatment much easier, so I tend to drink hot drinks before and as I treat the hairs. In worst-case scenarios I place a small dab of saltwater on the area of skin around the hair, which usually only works one beep cycle before I need to dab again.
I also found that sometimes the metal sleeve is not seated well after I put it back on from cleaning, so I reorient it and test (on my skin) until it works well.
I found the comfort testing on a patch of hair before actual treatment to be not very helpful. In my case, I tried the hairs on my fingers which were wildly more sensitive at 5-6 than actually treating my chin, which could handle 10 without much discomfort. YMMV