Hey everyone,
I know lots of this is posted and discussed on here but I wanted to just get some feedback. I’ve done lots of laser before so now I’m finishing up my chest/stomach with electrolysis (I’m 30/m). I’ve done a few sessions in the past with various places, but I’ve always done a full clearance, and then usually not gone back for like 6+ months then done another full clearance etc which I think is bad. In total I’ve done that maybe 3 times so haven’t seen huge results as I know I need to do it ongoing.
The last place I would go to was fast, I think she used an Apilus or whatever the popular one is that people mention often. She was really quick, usually in 30 minutes would clear my stomach, and then in another 30 minutes one half of my chest and then the other in another 30 minutes and I’d have no hair. The only thing that concerned me with her was for one, it was very painful, not unbearable but in some areas you wanted to jolt up like on the side of my stomach. Usually I’d get little red scabs almost where each hair was for a couple days after, and on my last treatment near my collar bone I got a large bruise there which she said happens sometimes. The other thing is I felt like a lot of hairs were plucked. It never felt the way it would if you just took tweezers and plucked it directly, but there was definitely resistance on most hairs. Sometimes she’d re-insert and hit it again but then it seemed to show the same resistance.
I tried a new place yesterday and she had a different machine. She removed a couple of hairs and asked if I felt any plucking (the other girl never asked) and I was surprised because I felt nothing. As she continued I then did feel some plucking on most hairs but not like with the last place. The last place sometimes it almost felt like the hair was breaking or something. I was surprised as well as it really wasn’t painful where as at my last place that 30 minutes seemed to go on for an hour. I told the new place this and she said she can turn up the settings higher if I think I can handle it, which she did. It then felt more like the last place but still not as painful I don’t think. The 30 minutes seemed to fly by (maybe it’s because there’s a clock at the new place so I can see where the last place I had no idea).
Anyway the new place commented that probably 90-95% of the hairs she was removing are dead with no root and not in active growth. The last place I went did say that I do have to go often as otherwise going once every several months is ineffective. The new place said to shave the area then when it’s 1/4" to come back to do the rest as that will shed out the longer dead hairs. I asked if it helped to instead wax the whole area first and then start treatment in a month or two but she said no that waxing slows the growth and it’s better to shave it to shed the dead hairs so that she’s treating active alive ones.
The last place never seemed to talk like that, only saying I need to keep at it. The new place said probably to come every 2 weeks for a few months then it would be lesser and lesser.
So wanted to see what people thought of those comments. Also my last place seemed to be a bit faster removing a lot more hairs, as we did my stomach yesterday but it didn’t seem to clear as many hairs as the other place. However this was the first time and she’d pause to talk a bit here and there about the treatment. After maybe 25 minutes she said she had removed about 200 hairs according to the machine (I had commented about one place I went to that used the really slow method where they removed like 1 hair a minute, so that’s why she told me 200). When it was done in 30 minutes, I checked the screen of her machine and it just said ABDOMEN, COARSE and then something like IU=260 so I’m assuming that meant 260 hairs. She said it counts one every time she fires it. She said next time she can do more as she knows what my hair is like etc. So also wanted to check if that sounds like a lot of hairs to have removed in 30 minutes or not.
Last thing I wanted to add was after the treatment she put Polysporin on the area, and it was a bit red like it normally is. However that was at 1pm yesterday and it’s now 8am the next day and the entire area looks completely normal, no redness no nothing, looks like I just shaved the area where as the last place would be more scabbed etc. So not sure which seems better. I know more pain more gain is usually how it goes but just trying to figure out if I should stay at my old place or go to the new one!
Edit: Just wanted to add one quick thing as this was the only thing that actually threw me off that I just remembered. She said that 90-95% of the hairs she was removing were dead and not in active growth, so to shave etc for next time. However at my previous electrolysis clinic, I did a full clearance 1.5 hours on my stomach/chest exactly 7 weeks ago. So is that normal that I’d do a full clearance and then 7 weeks later 95% of the hair is in the dead stage? I guess I was thinking it was less than 7 weeks ago so was surprised when she said it was all dead.
