Hello!! I’ve been lurking for quite a while and trying to read as much as I can about electrolysis. I’ve been having electrolysis sessions since March of this year and have been consistently going. I have thus far spent over 7 hours and almost $600. I’ve been on this website as well as other websites referred to by users here, but I’m still rather confused about many things and I’m hoping to get some answers by pros and those who know the hard, cold facts.
I’ve read that it is possible to treat a single hair once and completely and permanently destroy it, however my electrologist informed me that the hairs get weaker over time…Is it possible to only treat a hair once and permanently destroy it, and if so, what’s the chance in finding an electrologist that can do this? From what I understand the electrologist’s skill is the most important variable. I was keeping tabs on some hairs that I noted kept popping up every 2 weeks during the first few treatments, and then these hairs that I thought were forever gone after months of being “missing” are suddenly reappearing.
What should I feel when the treated hair is removed? Typically when she inserts the probe, I feel the zaps, usually I can hear sizzling and I can feel a pop or two. I’ve read that this is disadvantageous and counterproductive. She is using blend and an insulated probe as I am Middle-Eastern. When she removes the hair, I can usually feel some resistance, sometimes it feels like it’s being plucked, however I have lots of little hairs around and think she might accidentally grab other hairs, but I’m not sure.
I’m being very patient and understand that this is a process but I need to understand what’s going on to justify this process. I am, like others here, a victim of laser “hair removal.” Many thanks in advance for your time and attention!
Yes, it is common place and highly possible to treat a hair structure once and permanently disable the follicle. It is all about perfect insertions, with the probe hitting the proper parts of the follicle, with the correct intensity, for the right amount of time. This does take great technical skill and many electrologists are highly skilled, but some may not be as skilled as others, unfortunately.
Hair grows in cycles. Not all the hair you really have is present at the same time, so what you think you see as the same hair popping through in two weeks or two months is not the same hair that was removed two weeks ago or two months ago. Some electrologists choose not to explain the complexity of hair growth cycles. it is much easier to say that hairs have to be treated several times before it is destroyed. Clients understand that better and you do less talking.
If you were a hardcore tweezer right before you started electrolysis, this can add a hurdle. No tweezing after you start electrolysis, okay? If you tweeze, you will be playing a different game of whack-a-mole FOREVER with hair.
SIZZLING means the energy level is too high. You shouldn’t feel tugging. Blend is a great modality. I typically don’t use insulated probes with Blend. I use gold, but she may have a different strategy that works fine for her.
I just started working on another middle eastern client who is also a victim of laser hair stimulation. You are not alone. Not pretty, but fixable.
Yes, you need to be patient. Below are the pre-electrolysis pictures, after laser reduction was done on this young woman. She had about 14 laser treatments on her face and neck.
I feel Dee covered most things fairly well, but I just wanted to add to a few things and address some things I didnt see addressed.
First, as to hairs getting weaker over time, I feel this is a poor strategy, most especially with blend. While it is true that if hair is removed with electrolysis and not fully destroyed it will grow back thinner, it is indicative of a poor kill rate if this happening consistently. That said what you are seeing may not be anything to do with the electrologists kill rate or even something that is under their control.It is more likely that you are seeing regrowth from the previously performed laser.
As Dee indicates in her response, if you are seeing the “same hairs” growing in 2 weeks later, these either are not the same hairs ( it’s nearly impossible to keep track of hairs , when every square inch of skin has several thoousand follicles microns apart) Or they are hairs that were broken inside the follicle, and have simply grown out again. It takes 6-8 weeks for a hair to regenerate, and by then you have long forgotten it’s location.
The biggest unknown in your getting electrolysis is what the laser did to the area beforehand.I cant believe how often I end up explaining this, I’m going to make a FAQ on this topic.Since we know you had laser beforehand but not how long ago or how many sessions, we can only guess at this. When a hair sheds from laser, sometimes it is killed. Whether it’s dead or not it will shed in most cases. That does not mean the follicle is dead it just means it has shed the hair. In some cases, the germination cells at the bottom of the follicle are destroyed and another hair will not grow. Sometimes however they are only partially damaged or left more or less intact. If they are fully intact follicles they will grow another hair in 2-3 months. If they are partially damaged the hair follicle may enter a semi-stagnant state while it regenerates the ability to grow a hair. This can be weeks, months , or years down the line , but eventually that hair grows back. Finally, in some cases laser can actually stimulate prevviously non-hair bearing follicles into now growing a hair, this is called Laser Hair Stimulation and there are articles on it in the laser section as sticky’s that are well worth a read.
In hearing your account, I believe what you are seeing is not the same hairs, but other either delayed hairs or newly generated hairs from your laser treatment. If this is the case, there is absolutely NOTHING your electrologist can do except treat the hairs as they appear. 7 hours of electrolysis treatment, may well not be even close to what is required to address the issue. You will sometimes see some of the professionals here say that “no one should have to do more than 100 hours on the face” but you will see these same electrologists say that they cannot guarantee this, or guarantee their results or time frame, if laser has been done first. This is why. Typically what I see , and is true in my own case, I have seen follicles regrow even 3 years later from a face that have been clear for up to a year.
When considering what you should or shouldnt be feeling or hearing during treatment I take a somewhat different approach as to “hearing” sizzling than others here.If a room is VERY quiet and blend is being performed especially near the ear, it is possible to hear a very quiet “sizzling” sound. It literally , is the sound of bubbles breaking, that is gas pockets in the lye that gathers at the base of where the hair enters the skin. It has to be very silent to hear this, no music or background noise, and it does get easier to hear.The other alternative is something called “thermal blowback” where vaporized water exits the follicle. This is much “noisier” and is usually in conjunction with the pulse of thermolysis . It indicates that the insertion is too shallow or the energy level too high as Dee has mentioned. If you are hearing this somewhat noisier “hiss” with any regularity during treatment it is a bad sign and should not be allowed to continue. I will say that I almost NEVER see this kind of thermal blowback occur when using blend, it is more common to be occurring with thermolysis where the follicle is being heated to a higher temperature.
Regarding feeling the hair being removed and or plucking. In general the best measure that we have that a hair has been treated with enough energy is a smooth extraction. If we dont get a smooth extraction, we cant guarantee anything. Yes, it’s possible that you can feel a pluck and the hair is still killed, but it’s also possible, ( and likely) that it will grow another hair. I think alot of electrologists who are using blend get impatient at how much time it takes for the smooth release to occur. Therefore not quite enough energy is delivered, and that smooth extraction doesnt happen. When I am working on transgender clients I tend to deal with thicker than normal hair, and often find that 1 1/2 to 2 times the treatment cycle is often needed to get such a release on these hairs. One strategy that seems to work without increasing the energy required to obtain a smooth extraction is something called a “treat and wait” strategy.
The treat and wait strategy works something like this:
The electrologist will treat a small grouping of perhaps 5 hairs but not remove them. She then goes on to treat two more such groupings before she removes the first group with tweezers. She then alternates between removing the oldest treated 5 hairs and treating 5 new hairs. The idea is to give the lye more time in the follicle to work, and thereby get a more thorough reaction and get a smoother release.The alternative, is to keep applying treatment energy to the follicle until enough has occurred to get that smooth release of the hair has occurred. By continuously testing the hair gently ( not tugging) the hair releases and the treatment is done. You might sometimes see this described as “progressive epilation” .
Regardless, you should not be hearing any hissing sound . You shouldn’t feel appreciable tugging. The hair removal, ideally should not cause any sensation, regardless of whether a treat and wait or progressive epilation strategy is employed.If the sound you are hearing is this, it indicated insertions that are too shallow or the energy level too high.
Most electrologists I know, tend to feel that resistance should not occur when a hair is removed. The only discomfort that should be felt is when the treatment energy is delivered, you should not be feeling the hair being plucked.
Regardless, I dont think that 7 hours of treatment is even the tip of the iceberg. It will take many more hours to be able to determine how effective or ineffective your electrologists treatment is. Even then, you cannot track hairs, it’s an impossible task. You have no idea and cant possibly if a hair you see is a new one, one regenerated after laser, or the result of regrowth of insufficiently treated hair. My best advise is to have faith in your electrologist but watch for signs such as excessive resistance, or that sizzling bacon sound.
First I’d like to thank you both so much for the very detailed information–I very much appreciate the time you’ve taken to give advice and expertise! I’ll give more info to paint a more full picture: I had laser treatment (7 treatments every month) about 4 years ago, and have never plucked, waxed, or tweezed the facial hairs. Prior to starting laser, I had sideburns with thin, soft, moderately dark hairs but only two hairs on my face that were thick, course and black. I didn’t notice results so I stopped treatments. Then I went to shaving. After a couple years of this I started getting many thick, course, black hairs, especially along my neck, which up until this point was not a particular area of concern for myself. I started electrolysis in March with an older woman who had what appeared to be a very old machine. It was very painful and she was a bit slow. I couldn’t see any results at all, so I ended up finding another elctrologist who uses an Apilus and does about 250 hairs per 30 minutes (I count them–not sure if this is average or not). I know it sounds a bit ridiculous to count hairs, and I absolutely understand what you’re saying about the growth cycles and mixing up the hairs, however, I noted 7 very course, thick, black hairs on my chin (amongst other hairs of less thickness) and (dare I say!) one on my ear (eek!!). After the first several rounds of electrolysis treatment, these 7 course hairs would pop back up every 2 weeks (I was at this time going every 2 weeks). After a few sessions, they magically disappeared and I have yet to see them again until now. At least until now I was truly believing these seven hairs to be the same guys as I can’t imagine such thick, nasty hairs being dormant and then suddenly rearing their ugly heads, but suffice it to say I yet again, after a couple months of having no thick chin hairs, now have 3. As for that single bugger on my ear, the first time she zapped it, it was gone until now (I’m guessing gone for about 2 months). Of course optimistically I thought those ugly things were gone for good so it’s so upsetting to see them back.
As for the noises, the sessions are done in a room and the area is very quiet, however she does play the radio at a quiet-moderate noise level. I believe that with the thicker hairs (she starts with the darkest hairs first), she uses a higher energy level as the sessions are more painful and I get more post-op redness/irritation. There was one session she did where I ended up with some craters of missing skin around the follicle and it felt like when she was taking the probe out the surface skin around the follicle was stuck on the probe and pulled off too! Luckily this was only one time. When I went a few days ago, the treatment was relatively comfortable as far as the zapping goes, however it hurt when she was removing the hair and i feel that maybe the energy was too low? The machine beeps as it zaps, so typically I hear/feel 2-3 beeps/zaps.
Is there any way to look at a hair after it’s been treated and know if it’s been treated properly? Sometimes when I get back from treatment, I’ll find little hairs stuck on my face that were treated, and I’ll examine them. Sometimes I see that clearish little piece of tissue at the follicle side (like when you pluck your eyebrows–not sure what you call this?) and sometimes I just see the hair without that little thing on it.
Can you also explain what exactly a ‘clearance’ is? It sounds like when the electrologist gets all the hairs in one visit, like a massive wipeout session. How many electrologists do this and is it effective? Are less treatments needed?
THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL YOUR HELP!!
