I Built My Own Hair Electrolysis Machine

我自制了一台毛发电解脱毛机

Axiom: body hair is cringe. That’s how I feel, at least. I decided to build a machine that lets me permanently remove it using electricity. 公理：体毛令人尴尬。至少我是这么觉得的。于是我决定制造一台机器，利用电流来永久去除体毛。

There are lots of ways to get rid of body hair temporarily. Shaving is probably the most common. There are other methods that last a little longer, like epilation or waxing. These remove the entire hair, which takes more time to grow back than just cutting it at the surface. 去除体毛的方法有很多，但大多是暂时的。剃毛可能是最常见的一种。还有一些效果更持久的方法，比如拔毛或蜜蜡脱毛。这些方法能将整根毛发拔除，因此比单纯剪掉表面毛发需要更长的再生时间。

If you’re looking for something more permanent, laser hair removal is an option. This is when laser light is used to heat the follicles and kill them. Most people regard this as permanent, but it’s really more of a permanent hair reduction, not overall removal. 如果你追求更永久的效果，激光脱毛是一个选择。它是利用激光加热毛囊并将其破坏。大多数人认为这是永久性的，但实际上它更倾向于“永久性毛发减少”，而非彻底清除。

There’s actually only one type of hair removal that the FDA considers permanent, and that’s hair electrolysis. 事实上，美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）唯一认可的永久性脱毛方式只有一种，那就是电解脱毛。

A brief primer on hair electrolysis

电解脱毛简述

Now’s as good a time as any to give you a little disclaimer. I am not a doctor. I have no qualifications on anything even remotely related to this project. I am just some cat on the internet who happens to own a soldering iron. Take everything I say with a huge grain of salt. 现在是时候做一个免责声明了。我不是医生，在与本项目相关的任何领域都没有任何资质。我只是互联网上一个恰好有电烙铁的普通人。请对我所说的一切保持高度怀疑。

With that out of the way, let’s talk about hair electrolysis. There are 3 main types: 言归正传，让我们来谈谈电解脱毛。它主要分为三种类型：

Galvanic hair electrolysis is the simplest type. A needle is inserted into the follicle and a small current is applied for a few seconds. This causes lye (sodium hydroxide) to be generated through the chemical process of electrolysis. This lye permanently kills the follicle. **直流电解脱毛（Galvanic）**是最简单的一种。将针插入毛囊并通入微小电流几秒钟。通过电解的化学过程产生碱液（氢氧化钠），这种碱液能永久性地杀死毛囊。

Thermolysis is technically not really electrolysis, but they get lumped together. A needle is still inserted, but this time, an RF current is applied. This causes very localized heating which kills the follicle. This process is much quicker - supposedly just a fraction of a second per follicle. **热解脱毛（Thermolysis）**从技术上讲并不属于电解，但通常被归为一类。同样需要插入针头，但这次使用的是射频（RF）电流。这会产生高度局部的热量来杀死毛囊。这个过程快得多——据说每个毛囊只需不到一秒。

Blend electrolysis is where you use a combination of the two methods. A single needle is used, which applies both a DC current and RF current. This provides many of the advantages of both methods. My understanding is that this is the most common method in professional settings. **混合电解脱毛（Blend）**是结合了上述两种方法。使用单根针头同时施加直流电和射频电流。这结合了两种方法的许多优点。据我了解，这是专业机构中最常用的方法。

I chose to focus my efforts on building a galvanic machine. It’s easier than RF magic, and I could generally find more information about the specifics. Even in textbooks, the specifications of the RF were hard to find. RF is generally a lot easier to mess up as well, which can cause burns or even scarring. Galvanic seems a little more idiot-proof. Of course, it’s still possible to do some damage if you really try. 我决定专注于制造一台直流电解机。它比射频技术更容易实现，而且我能找到更多关于其细节的信息。即使在教科书中，射频的具体参数也很难找到。射频也更容易出错，可能导致灼伤甚至留疤。直流电解看起来更“傻瓜式”一些。当然，如果你非要乱来，还是有可能造成伤害的。

Some more depth on galvanic electrolysis

关于直流电解的深入探讨

Since I’m going with galvanic electrolysis, I want to provide a little more information on it. Like I said before, we want to generate lye in the follicle. We do this by passing an electric current between two electrodes. One electrode is the needle which is inserted into the follicle. The other electrode goes on the outside of the body. Its location is not critical. 既然我选择了直流电解，我想提供更多相关信息。正如我之前所说，我们需要在毛囊中产生碱液。我们通过在两个电极之间通电来实现这一点。一个电极是插入毛囊的针，另一个电极放置在体外，位置并不关键。

As it turns out, the amount of lye generated can be found by computing the integral of current over time. In the context of hair electrolysis, the amount of lye is specified in units of lye (LU), where 1 mA for 1 s produces 10 LU. Maximum current is generally limited by the user’s pain tolerance, but lower current can be compensated for by running the machine for longer. It’s actually pretty simple! 事实证明，产生的碱液量可以通过电流对时间的积分来计算。在电解脱毛中，碱液量以碱液单位（LU）表示，1毫安电流持续1秒产生10 LU。最大电流通常受限于使用者的疼痛耐受度，但较低的电流可以通过延长机器运行时间来补偿。其实很简单！

Here’s a table of lye values, taken from a medical textbook titled “The Principles and Practice of Electrical Epilation” (3rd edition, 2001). 以下是摘自医学教科书《电脱毛的原理与实践》（第三版，2001年）的碱液数值表：

Hair type (毛发类型)	Amount of lye (LU) (碱液量)
Fine, unpigmented vellus hair (细小、无色素毳毛)	10 - 15
Fine, pigmented, soft hair (细小、有色素软毛)	10 - 20
Medium/shallow terminal hair (中等/浅层终毛)	15 - 30
Deep terminal hair (深层终毛)	30 - 45
Very deep terminal hair (极深层终毛)	45 - 60

With all of this in mind, I was ready to build my first prototype. 考虑到这一切，我准备好制造我的第一个原型机了。

The prototype

原型机

I had most of what I needed lying around my apartment. One thing I didn’t have was a needle for actually inserting into the follicle. Luckily my friend Olivia came in clutch; when I visited her in Portland she gave me 20 spare needles she had from her own hair electrolysis project. 我公寓里几乎有我需要的所有东西。唯一缺少的是插入毛囊的针。幸运的是，我的朋友奥利维亚（Olivia）帮了大忙；当我拜访她在波特兰的家时，她给了我20根她自己做电解脱毛项目剩下的备用针。

What I built for a first attempt was extremely crude. I connected the needle to a potentiometer, which was used for approximate current limiting, and then to a car battery. I also inserted a current meter into the circuit so I could monitor things. For the other electrode I used a pop can. Grabbing the can would complete the circuit and start the flow of electricity. One side effect of this is that I could loosely tune the current by how hard I squeezed the can. Squeezing harder would lower the resistance slightly and allow more current to flow. 我第一次尝试制造的装置极其简陋。我将针连接到一个电位器上（用于粗略限制电流），然后连接到汽车电池上。我还接入了一个电流表以便监控。另一个电极我用了一个汽水罐。握住罐子就能闭合电路并开始通电。这种方法的一个副作用是，我可以通过握罐子的力度来粗略调节电流。握得越紧，电阻略微降低，电流就会增大。

This is what the result of my efforts looked like: 这就是我努力的成果：

I’ll admit that it doesn’t look like the safest contraption in the world. I would watch the current meter and time it by counting seconds to work out roughly the amount of lye generated. Once I got to the target, I’d let go of the can. As janky as this was, I was able to successfully use it to remove some hair from my arm! This was a euphoric moment where I realized this project was going to work. The follicle that came out was enormous - it reminded me of epilation, except it came out with absolutely no resistance. 我承认这看起来不是世界上最安全的装置。我会盯着电流表，通过数秒来大致计算产生的碱液量。一旦达到目标，我就松开罐子。虽然这很简陋，但我成功地用它去除了手臂上的一些毛发！那一刻我感到无比兴奋，意识到这个项目真的可行。拔出来的毛囊非常大——让我想起了拔毛，但它出来时完全没有阻力。

I’m pretty needle-phobic, but I really didn’t mind inserting the needle. It’s going into an existing hole, and it’s so small that even when I miss the follicle it’s still totally painless. In fact, many electrogists prefer calling it a probe rather than a needle, because it doesn’t actually pierce anything. What made me squirm a bit was bottoming out the needle in the follicle - it’s an uncomfortable sensation, but still not painful. The actual electricity did hurt a bit, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected from what others told me. I’d subjectively say it’s slightly more painful than laser hair removal. 我有点怕针，但我并不介意插入针头。它是进入现有的毛孔，而且针非常细，即使没对准毛囊也完全不痛。事实上，许多电解脱毛师更喜欢称之为“探针”而不是“针”，因为它实际上并没有刺穿任何东西。让我有点不适的是针头触底的感觉——那是一种不舒服的感觉，但并不痛。电流确实有点疼，但没有别人告诉我的那么糟糕。主观上讲，我觉得它比激光脱毛稍微疼一点。

After my experimenting, I sent the above picture to a few friends with an explanation: 实验结束后，我把上面的照片发给了一些朋友并做了说明：

And got back a wide range of feedback: 结果收到了各种各样的反馈：

Now that I had proven the proof of concept, it was time to turn this into something that was actually usable. 既然我已经验证了概念，现在是时候把它变成一个真正可用的东西了。

Improving the needle

改进针头

One of the jankiest parts of the… 整个装置中最简陋的部分之一是……