Hello, I am brand new to this forum. I’m a woman in my 40’s. I started electrolysis in my 20’s for an occasional coarse hair on my chin or neck. In my mid-20’s I had electrolysis done to shape my eyebrows. For the eyebrows I had electrolysis about every 3 weeks for a period of about 18 months. The eyebrows look great and have never required additional treatment.
Since then I moved and have gone to a different electrolygist again for the occasional coarse hair on my chin or neck. A year ago I decided to begin electrolysis for my underarms. For reference, the electrolygist told me that I have more underarm hair than normal. She told me that most people require about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes a week for 6 to 9 months to permanently clear the underarms.
Over a 9 month period, I had 30 electrolysis treatments (an hour to an hour-and-a-half each) - using the blend method - on the underarm area. So figure maybe 40 hours total. I stopped treatments a couple months ago because it was getting so expensive and the hair kept growing back. It doesn’t look like any hairs are permanently gone. I still need to shave every day. The electrolygist’s response is that I have more hair than average and, while she originally said it should take 6-9 months to clear, by the end of our treatments she said it would be more like 1 1/2 years total with the treatments changing from weekly to twice a month toward the end of treatment.
I would just like some feedback on what you might think. Do my results seem normal??? I had had such great results with my eyebrows and, while of course I realize the underarm is larger, it doesn’t seem like there was much improvement (if any) even after 30 treatments. Thanks!
Hmm… Out of curiosity, is your underarm hair coarse and dark at this point? Did you ever consider LASER treatment prior to electrolysis. That does seem like a lot of time and effort to feel that there is no improvement. Blend is an excellent modality. Were you getting cleared each time? Did you feel like the hair was being tweezed at all?
As Dee asked, is your underarm hair dark and coarse? If so, laser would be a beneficial route to go. I had a couple of rounds of laser there and it helped the situation quite a bit. There is still hair there and I still have to shave, but I can go a couple of days without it looking like a monster emerging from the forest. If you want to be completely hair free in this area, you would have to continue with electrolysis.
Thanks for the replies. As for the question of whether I considered Laster before doing electrolyis, I guess that’s irrelevant at this point. And, yes, I did certainly feel each hair being extracted with the electrolyis.
As for doing Laser in the future, that of course is a possibility. I shave every day now so I don’t know how coarse the hair is. I’ll let it grow in a month or two when the weather cools down and I’m no longer wearing sleeveless shirts. I do really wonder, though, WHY I didn’t see results with electrolysis. Like, how many treatments are usually needed? Thanks!
It is hard to say how many treatments, or how much time would be needed, as each person’s situation and each practitioner’s abilities are different, but if one is getting full clearances each and every time, it would be normal for one of my clients to be done in 13 or fewer clearances spread out over 18 months. I can not say how much time would have been invested, but I would not need to see you more than once every 6 weeks unless you wanted to look hair free the entire time, in which case, a full clearance once every 3 to 4 weeks would be good enough.
It seems that you felt tweezing when the hairs were removed. This should not happen. Properly treated hairs are lifted out without any resistence at all. Have you only ever had treatment from one practitioner?
Underarms are one of the areas where the Electrolysis is more profitable economically than other permanent removal systems. 3 clearances and voila, you have to use a good magnifying glass to see the 3 or 4 hairs that have later.
I do not know what your electrologist is doing, but one thing is sure, that is not ELECTROLYSIS. Perhaps this is?
Sorry folks, I’m tired of having to justify what I do for 30 years because there are people who call Electrolysis, a simple tweezing.
Before
Results of the first clearance:
Results of the second clearance
I am with Jossy here, I have never had much trouble dispatching underarm hairs. I think my wife has 3 hairs left on each side because we never feel like doing them when we both have the time to finish them off.
There is no other area so predictable as the underarms. My results mirror Jossie’s: three clearings (four if the person recently shaved before the first treatment). TTT (total treatment time) is always less than 6 hours. I guarantee not more than 8 hours, or the subsequent treatments are free. I have done hundreds of these cases and, frankly, we beat laser. Less than $400 and fully guaranteed permanent. Can you beat that? Electrolysis, you gotta love it.
One of the reasons why so many practitioners don’t deliver a 3 times and out result is because they never provide full clearances. They are still just thinning out the number of hairs each time.
Most of my clients don’t go for clearance on the axilla. I know it takes me more than 3 clearances to complete this area, so I won’t be making the same promise as Michael. I can tell them that consistent treatments can get them done in about 18 months.
Regarding this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnbRnL1PGc8&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL It’s too bad someone can’t consult with them on their poor techniques. Indention upon insertion and tenting with the extraction should be noted (and all things causing it changed) during the training period.
