Outside the Theatre Royal in 2010. I have to keep telling myself that I really am making progress. Lost a bit of weight since then, though.
I think I know how the pheasant feels. Now that my electrolysis sessions are weekly, I’m either recovering from one hair plucking session or bracing myself for the next one. The sensation of having facial hairs individually cooked and extracted is hardly pleasant, and not to be preferred to eating tapas or reading a Fay Weldon novel, but in the main isn’t too painful either. Well, it wasn’t until last Monday when the lovely Gaynor turned her attention to my jaw line. Ye ouch! Having teeth drilled is mild by comparison, I told myself, though as I haven’t had a filling for 7 years, my memory could be fading. What sensible person would put themselves through this if not driven by an irresistible need to be feminine?
One consequence of this intense treatment is that some part of my face has that ‘plucked pheasant’ look for most of the week, so it’s hard to look my best. And looking my best is very important indeed when ‘Angie’ goes out with her wife. To put it simply, the better I look, the more relaxed and confident she becomes. Consequently, even I had to admit that my appearance fell short of the mark as we prepared to travel up to the Theatre Royal in Plymouth yesterday to see J.B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls. So I went as ‘Mike.
The play was excellent (and so, incidentally, was the pre-theatre tapas) but sitting in the Theatre Royal for the first time as ‘Mike’ felt distinctly odd. With any luck it won’t happen again.
Sheer economics now compel me to limit my electrolysis sessions to one every ten days – three times a month at most then. That still means four and a half hours per month, but the gaps between sessions are long enough to allow plenty of recovery time – although recovery isn’t any kind of issue for me. I can wet-shave within ten minutes the electrolysis session ending, to ‘get smooth’ for a visit to a supermarket on the drive home, or for an evening out. There is no redness, and you’d be hard put to detect any swelling where the needle has done its work.
But not so for many, many other people. I must have very insensitive, unreactive skin! If you study shots of my face at high magnification, you can see that it’s actually like the rough surface of the moon, all large pores and pits. Not beautiful! Perhaps your face is basically a lot nicer, Angie.
Apparently people with big bulbous roots to their hairs will inevitably have more trouble. It’s just how you are.
Lucy
Lucy, you’re having more electrolysis than me; my four sessions only total a little over 2 hours per month.
O dear, I clearly have bulbous roots! A couple of days after treatment the skin is a mass of little red cuts. By day 3 they’re fading fast but I still have to be very careful shaving for the remainder of the week and resort to using a Braun electric shaver so as not to make the cuts worse.
A big problem is that, perhaps inevitably, and despite bathing the treated skin with disinfectant twice a day, one or two pores get infected. Thankfully, it all seems to settle down within the week.
I take it your skin is becoming rather red after a session on electrolysis then Angela? Have you tried applying a cold compress immediately afterward? Treat it as you would treat a nasty bang. The other day I was reaching to take something off a high shelf when an object fell and hit me in the eye socket, Knowing that if I didn’t react quickly I would end up with a large bruise I repeatedly applied a cold compress and although I could still feel the pain no such swelling or bruise appeared. I have used the same principle for dealing with electrolysis and epilator ‘redness’ and it works for me. Maybe it would work for you too. Worth a try anyway. What a shame you had to let Mike out for the evening when it should have been your treat! There’s always next time though. I hope you were a pleasant pheasant plucker Angela. Try saying that when drunk!
Shirley Anne xxx
It’s not so much the redness, Shirley Anne, which could be hidden with make-up. Rather, it’s the little cuts left where each hair is extracted – see my answer to Lucy’s comment, above.
I’ll have one more treatment before Christmas, then let things settle down until the middle of January. I’m planning a few ‘Angie’ visits early in January and an evening out in Truro, and want to look my best.
xx