We have discussed this issue often here. Some practitioners tell clients that it takes a gazillion treatments to kill one hair, and, or that the treatments make the hairs progressively thinner, and thinner either because they don’t know any better, (that was what they were taught) or because they don’t want to confuse you with the truth (clients have a habit of forgetting, or not believing the truth).
When it comes to electrolysis, one treatment, one time kills a single hair the first time, if it is done correctly. It is possible to kill a hair at any growth phase, but since the technique to make that happen is unnecessarily painful, it is not practiced by the average practitioner. The techniques used by most will kill hairs that are in the anagen growth stage, while having less sure results on the other phases.
The next thing you should understand is that there are growth phases, and they are staggered so that you actually appear to have the same amount of hair all the time, even though your body is shedding hairs every day. It would be unusual if you did NOT see what looks like a rebounding effect in hair growth while doing permanent hair removal. Please check out the growth thread and ask any questions you have after you are done reading this:
As we tell clients here all the time, if you wanted to “try electrolysis” to be sure about how effective it was, you would have to take a before picture, get your treatment, take another picture, THEN WAIT A YEAR, and take an after picture the same day, one year later. This is when the same hair follicles would be in the same phase of growth and thus one would see the effectiveness of the treatment done last year.
What people get confused about, and thus leads to the “thinner and thinner” and the “multiple treatments per hair” stories, is that for what ever reason, people are more likely to believe that, than the simple truth that you either have to do regular electrolysis treatments for 9 to 18 months without gaps, or you will only see reduction that is equal to the amount and timing of your treatments. This is why getting full clearances is so important, as without them, one will spend a lifetime reducing the number of hairs in an area that could have been fully cleared in a shorter space of time.
Well performed thermolysis is no more, nor any less effective than well performed blend, or galvanic. On the other hand, just because someone can do galvanic or blend, doesn’t mean that that person can do good thermolysis. It is sort of like a person who knows how to drive an automatic transmission car, “trying out” a manual transmission (stick shift) car, and reporting that they don’t drive as well, or don’t work, when the truth is that they just don’t know how to work them well, and more practice and education could make them able to drive like Dale Earnhardt. For a look at what thermolysis can do, check out this thread. There are 3 pages worth of conversation and pictures in this LONG thread, but the last page may be enough for you to debunk the “thermolysis is less effective myth.” http://www.hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/66432/html#Post66432
As for the patchy left over hairs, in grid pattern from L.A.S.E.R. treatments, That is a fact of life. One doesn’t want to overlap the treatment area too much, as this could lead to overtreatment and risk burning and scarring. Retreating the area with a grid that offsets the previously used pattern is the only option.
