23-01-2024, 08:42 PM
It's been about 2.5 years since I cut my hair and I'm starting to get happy with its length. I love that it's the level of my scapulas. I can't wait until it gets about 4-6 inches longer, though. One thing that I'm really excited about is repeated uses of my IPL on my face is starting to show positive results.
It's often said that IPL doesn't have an effect on male beard growth, due to the thickness of the facial hair & the overall weakness of the IPL unit. It is however so-called approved for female facial use. I'm can't help but wonder if the addition of a strong anti-androgen weakens the male beard. I do think it has an effect. Also I am unsure of how years of phyto/estrogens use affects male facial hair.
It is said, I think, that NBE/HRT will thicken head hair but it can also have the opposite effect on body hair. I've always had thick head hair, but when I started HRT, my leg hair practically disappeared and my chest, underarm & forearm hair completely disappeared. I've shaved my legs for twenty plus years and even on PM for 4.5 years, I had to shave my legs every other day. With HRT, I might have to shave them once a month.
About 1.5 years ago, we were out at a local bar to see a favorite band and later in the night a friend took a photo of me with their camera phone. I was shocked at the result. HRT is known to thin the skin and I am no exception. My facial skin looked incredibly translucent and almost gray in the camera phone photo result due to the flash. This was the only time I've ever seen such a photo result, and I've had my photo taken many times ever since but the overall effect that I noticed beside the aforementioned, was how my beard looked like it was glowing through my translucent skin. Obviously the camera quality was lacking. It's odd how iPhones can take jaw dropping photos at times, but in certain lighting conditions they suck.
Anyway, I don't really have the thousands of dollars laser takes to clear my facial hair, and as I'm approaching 62 y/o, I do have a lot of gray hair in my beard. What I knew from that photo is I wanted the dark hairs gone. Since I have an IPL, I decided to start using it more often on my face.
Years ago on NBE I tried the IPL on my face and even on power level number two it felt like I was being struck by lightning. I couldn't handle the pain. As time went on when I started HRT, I noticed that I could handle the pain and the increased power level, but the results were disappointing. It's kind of weird actually, a day after IPL on my face, my skin would be super smooth. The next day or two there'd be little regrowth. By day 3 & 4, it felt like the regrowing hair were made of jagged barbed razor wire. I absolutely hated this effect because it hurts like hell.
The natural growth cycle of hair is kind of odd and weird to explain, but I think with IPL & Laser it's recommended to wait 3-4 weeks between sessions to make sure you're targeting the specific growth cycle of the affected hairs. I'm sure this is pretty well understood & documented with others who have used facial laser. This is just my rambling experience with it.
Anyway, I did read on a subreddit about a IPL/TRIA user that said she got good results using their device weekly because of repeated targeting & weakening of the affected hairs instead of waiting three weeks in between sessions, and that's what I started doing a couple of months ago. Because I hate my mustache most of all, I started only focused on repeated weekly passes on the mustache and I've started to notice a few things.
One is the hair regrowth on my mustache vs the rest of my face is dramatically different. Three days between shavings I can definitely tell that my face needs to be shaved, but on my mustache the stubble is barely noticeable. Honestly after about 30 zaps on power level five and I'm getting tired of absorbing electricity, so I'll do one quick pass over my face and just have to quit. I do plan to start doing more passes on my face, soon.
But also one positive thing to notice is the lack of pain means it's having an effect I can still definitely feel the zap along my jawline, but I don't even flinch anymore on my mustache. One surprising and positive thing I've noticed is I do believe that it's also slowly working on my gray hairs, too. I seriously can only barely feel any mustache stubble anymore.
We'll see how this all turns out. I'd rather have gray stubble than black, especially with translucent skin. One cool thing about this is the skin texture of my upper lip has changed in the absence of thick hair roots filling the pores of my skin. It's a really cool transformation to observe.
It's often said that IPL doesn't have an effect on male beard growth, due to the thickness of the facial hair & the overall weakness of the IPL unit. It is however so-called approved for female facial use. I'm can't help but wonder if the addition of a strong anti-androgen weakens the male beard. I do think it has an effect. Also I am unsure of how years of phyto/estrogens use affects male facial hair.
It is said, I think, that NBE/HRT will thicken head hair but it can also have the opposite effect on body hair. I've always had thick head hair, but when I started HRT, my leg hair practically disappeared and my chest, underarm & forearm hair completely disappeared. I've shaved my legs for twenty plus years and even on PM for 4.5 years, I had to shave my legs every other day. With HRT, I might have to shave them once a month.
About 1.5 years ago, we were out at a local bar to see a favorite band and later in the night a friend took a photo of me with their camera phone. I was shocked at the result. HRT is known to thin the skin and I am no exception. My facial skin looked incredibly translucent and almost gray in the camera phone photo result due to the flash. This was the only time I've ever seen such a photo result, and I've had my photo taken many times ever since but the overall effect that I noticed beside the aforementioned, was how my beard looked like it was glowing through my translucent skin. Obviously the camera quality was lacking. It's odd how iPhones can take jaw dropping photos at times, but in certain lighting conditions they suck.
Anyway, I don't really have the thousands of dollars laser takes to clear my facial hair, and as I'm approaching 62 y/o, I do have a lot of gray hair in my beard. What I knew from that photo is I wanted the dark hairs gone. Since I have an IPL, I decided to start using it more often on my face.
Years ago on NBE I tried the IPL on my face and even on power level number two it felt like I was being struck by lightning. I couldn't handle the pain. As time went on when I started HRT, I noticed that I could handle the pain and the increased power level, but the results were disappointing. It's kind of weird actually, a day after IPL on my face, my skin would be super smooth. The next day or two there'd be little regrowth. By day 3 & 4, it felt like the regrowing hair were made of jagged barbed razor wire. I absolutely hated this effect because it hurts like hell.
The natural growth cycle of hair is kind of odd and weird to explain, but I think with IPL & Laser it's recommended to wait 3-4 weeks between sessions to make sure you're targeting the specific growth cycle of the affected hairs. I'm sure this is pretty well understood & documented with others who have used facial laser. This is just my rambling experience with it.
Anyway, I did read on a subreddit about a IPL/TRIA user that said she got good results using their device weekly because of repeated targeting & weakening of the affected hairs instead of waiting three weeks in between sessions, and that's what I started doing a couple of months ago. Because I hate my mustache most of all, I started only focused on repeated weekly passes on the mustache and I've started to notice a few things.
One is the hair regrowth on my mustache vs the rest of my face is dramatically different. Three days between shavings I can definitely tell that my face needs to be shaved, but on my mustache the stubble is barely noticeable. Honestly after about 30 zaps on power level five and I'm getting tired of absorbing electricity, so I'll do one quick pass over my face and just have to quit. I do plan to start doing more passes on my face, soon.
But also one positive thing to notice is the lack of pain means it's having an effect I can still definitely feel the zap along my jawline, but I don't even flinch anymore on my mustache. One surprising and positive thing I've noticed is I do believe that it's also slowly working on my gray hairs, too. I seriously can only barely feel any mustache stubble anymore.
We'll see how this all turns out. I'd rather have gray stubble than black, especially with translucent skin. One cool thing about this is the skin texture of my upper lip has changed in the absence of thick hair roots filling the pores of my skin. It's a really cool transformation to observe.
