EDUCATIONAL FILE
by Loretta Maxwell
IF YOU HAVE ALWAYS used the same hand for your needle and your tweezers, it might be difficult, in the beginning, to use both hands at the same time. We all want to learn new things to improve ourselves as electrologists and if you start using this two-handed method with clients who have moist skin and deep coarse hair, after awhile you'll find it works so well that you will never put the tweezers in the same hand as your needle again.
When I was an electrology student, my teacher told the class that she wanted everyone to use their non-dominant hand to remove the hair. All the students looked at each other with surprise. After all, we couldn't write legibly or throw a ball with our "weak" hand. How did she possibly expect us to insert a needle with any competence. She insisted we keep trying, however, and after awhile we became proficient enough to work on each other with the non-dominant hand. Later, we found that using the tweezers in this manner was easy.
My concern here is not about being ambidextrous (that subject was covered in this column by Anne White, some years ago}, but how to use both hands - each holding a different tool. It's not really a difficult thing to learn, but old habits are hard to break and some people might find that using the tweezers in the other hand will slow them down at first. But with perseverance and usage it will become the faster method, and produce better results.
It is difficult to talk about the two-handed method without getting into the technical application of progressive epilation, which is a mechanism Arthur Hinkel created to better utilize the blend method of electrolysis that he co-invented with Henri St. Pierre in 1938 and patented ten years later. The advantage of this two-handed method is that it allows the operator to take the hair out when it's "done" - before the current reaches the surface of the skin and before the needle is removed from the follicle - which is the basic principle of progressive epilation using the blend method.
When using the two-handed method properly, the high frequency current on the blend should be adjusted to operate at a low intensity for three to twenty seconds. The longer timing allows the practitioner using the two-handed method, to lift the hair bulb out by degrees.
After deciding on the type of hair involved, the needle size to be used, depth of follicle, the moisture gradient, timing, etc., the skin is stretched and the needle inserted to full follicle depth. When the current has been on for approximately one half the time necessary to remove the hair, the hair is grasped with the tweezers, gently lifted, and then released. The number of ³lifts² required to release the hair depends on how many seconds it takes to destroy the lower portion of the follicle. For example: treatment on a five-second hair will need no more than two lifts. A 20-second hair, on the other hand, might take three or four lifts before the hair actually releases.
The hair must be lifted gently ‹ in the same direction as the hair growth. If the hair is not ready for release it will be uncomfortable for the client when the hair is pulled. When the hair follicle is fully destroyed, an anagen hair will lift out of the follicle without resistance; a telogen hair might have slight resistance.
The needle is left in the follicle about one to three seconds after the hair is out, in order to put extra lye in the follicle. This after-count and filling of the empty follicle is further assurance for the practitioner that another hair will not grow in the same follicle.
I have been asked how I can possibly stretch the skin and make an insertion, while holding a needle in one hand and the tweezers in the other. My answer is; very easily. I find it as easy to operate with the tweezers in the other hand as without. Some or all of the fingers of both hands are free to stretch the skin at the same time. The electrologist can even put the bottom edge of the palms to use, if necessary. Precisely which fingers are used depends, of course, on the electrologistıs personal technique and the area of the clientıs body that is being worked on. Only slight pressure is put on the clientıs skin while it is being pulled out and away from the hair with both hands.
The tools in each hand should be held firmly but lightly throughout the treatment periods. If they are clenched too tightly the fingers and hands will be very tired at the end of the day. To maintain my hand strength for prolonged periods I have developed the habit of not squeezing on the tweezers until Iım perfectly ready to test and remove the hair.
If a client shaves one or two days before her appointment, it is more difficult to catch the hair with the tweezers while the needle is still in the follicle. With the hair being so short, one has to take special care that the tweezers do not touch the needle. If this happens it short-circuits the high frequency current and interferes with its flow through the needle, thereby preventing the development of a good, pear-shaped heating pattern within the follicle. If my client canıt possibly give me another day of growth before coming in for an appointment, I have to take the needle out of the follicle before I use the tweezers.
I hope that some readers who now use only the so-called one-handed technique will be persuaded to try the two-handed procedure, along with progressive epilation. Given a little patience in the beginning, I am certain that the new user will soon experience the same great results that long-time advocates of the two-handed method enjoy.
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