Hello Everyone!
I’m new to the forum and had previously posted some questions in an old thread. I basically drifted off topic, and was advised to start a new post. Please be a litle patient with me while I’m learning forum etiquette.
The extremeley knowledgeable and very kind James, Dfahey, VickieCNY, Rhodesengr, and I were discussing electrolysis machines, schooling, certifications and licensing. If possible I’d like to continue with this new thread.
Please see the link below. Thanks
Thanks VickieCNY! This is great information.
Can someone tell me about the CPE exam? Am I understanding correctly that the exam will be held in Nashville? What if the student lives in another state? Would you have to get on a plane to take the exam?
I do understand that you don’t need licensing in NY, but that’s not an option for me. I think professionalism, and great customer service is what grows any business.
Can someone give a a quick rundown on licensing and certification for New Yorkers? Is the exam held in New York at any time?
Any electrologists from New York, please share your thoughts on exams, certification, schooling, etc…
Thank you
New York State is schizophrenic. On the one hand, it says that electrolysis is not regulated, but on the other hand, it recognizes any aesthetitian or beautician as an electrolysis practitioner, even though they have only one to two pages of information about the service in their text books.
Only work at a school, and/or an apprenticeship will actually teach you how to do the work that is involved in being a successful hair removal practitioner.
If you live in the state of New York, and you want to put a pretty piece of paper on your wall, you will have to travel to attend a school. After that, you will then have to travel to what ever city the AEA is having the convention in that year, and take the exam there. Oh, yeah, you also have to hope that the AEA will accept your training as valid to allow you to sit for the exam, as some people have had harder times just getting allowed to sit for the exam.
Strangely, in a world where the company that administers the test owns a company that has testing stations in every major city across the country and in Canada, the AEA does not make it possible for everyone to arrange to take the test on one date, in any of the cities where this company has offices. No, you have to go to the convention, or forget about it.
Another option for that pretty piece of paper is to take the CCE exam offered by the Society of Clinical and Medical Hair Removal Specialists. That test is available to be taken in any city, as long as a suitable proctor can be located to administer the test.
Just keep in mind, that in the end, what you will be judged on is the results of your treatments. Is the hair gone, and what does the skin look like when you are done.
Thanks James!
That “pretty piece of paper” is important to me, so I guess I may have to book a flight if need be. Or if possible, try the other option.
As far as testing with the Society of Clinical and Medical Hair Removal Specialists; would the test material be the same as the AEA?
Does it really matter which organization you test with?
I will say it this way; If you can pass the CCE, you can pass the CPE, as the information is the same. However, since the CCE is mailed out and proctored by various parties not vetted by the organization, while the CPE is run by the same people who do the SAT testing, the CPE is considered a more secure test. The knock on the CCE is, “How do we know that you did not have your Aunt Clara set herself up as the proctor, and allow you to take the test open book?”
In the end, it is of little consequence, because there is no written test that can judge your ability to actually perform good hair removal, as that is really about touch, and synergy with your equipment.
Of course, taking and passing a test and obtaining one of the many pretty pieces of paper will go a long way to tell your clients that you have boldly gone and submitted your accumulated knowledge to an independent test, and had been found competent.
In a place that is unregulated, it is appreciated that you bothered to spend the extra money and resources to make that happen. Obtaining a CPE will cost you a minimum of $5,000 coming out of NY, and may actually cost you more than that these days. Getting a CCE will cost you around $500.
James thank you so much for all your feedback. I’d just like to ask why is there such a difference in cost as far as the CPE and CCE?
Actually could you tell me if any one of these titles or certifications are better than the other? Or maybe one is of a higher rank than the other? Should one obtain all these titles or certifications? Or just obtain one, and perform excellent electrolysis?
Could you be so kind to break it down for me?
LE ? CCE ? CPE ?
The CPE exam will be held in Nashville this October. If you don’t like to fly, is driving an option?
I have taken both exams, and have maintained the CEUs for the CPE certification. I can tell you that the CPE exam was written and has been reviewed and revised under very strict circumstances. The AEA has invested in this exam for the practitioners, and budgeted hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain the certification program. I can tell you that these tests are not the same. How far ranging the difference might be - I have no idea, since it was in the 1980’s when I did the CCE certification.
Thanks Barbara. I would most likely have to catch a flight to take the exam. I’m not too sure about driving from New York. What about LE? Licensed Electrologist. How does one obtain those credentials? Or is it a matter of the CPE and CCE combined?
I’m just trying to to figure out which testing gives you which title or certification. It’s a little confusing, but I guess It will become much clearer once I start my training, which by the way I have not finalized the institution I’ll be attending.
Please put your energy into LEARNING THE CRAFT, not collecting stars for your belly and initials after your name. Many people who have credentials and look good on paper are still trying to figure out the real world applications in doing the work. The reason we tell people to try out everyone in their area they can is because there is no way to know who is good other than actually sampling their work. If there was a Star, Symbol, or alphabet soup that could designate someone as the top of the game and you need look no further, our jobs would be much easier here.
You can only become an LE by going to a state that has a license, and jumping through their hoops there. Of course, if you do this, and return home to New York to practice, you are only doing it for the marketing value, as you will join the many practitioners (and humanoids – hairtell in joke, you will get the reference some day) who get a license just to say that they are licensed, while all their actual practice is performed outside the scope of the jurisdiction of the license that they hold.
If, say, you are a Massachusetts license holder, practicing in, oh, I don’t know, let’s just pick a state out of the air — Arizona, then your license is nothing but a marketing gimmick that allows you to mislead people by saying things like, “I am the only licensed Electrolysis practitioner in the state.” The body granting that license is doing nothing but collecting fees from you, and has no power to monitor your actual practice. That organization won’t even take any complaints against you, as the actions the complaints pertain to occurred outside of their jurisdiction. One would also have to deal with compliance issues that come up when trying to maintain a credential with a state far from your actual home. So at that point, you might choose to move your marketing credential to a state closer to home, like, say, I don’t know — UTAH, so that you can have a closer drive when you have to personally be in the state your credential hails from.
You are in luck, however, as should you choose to do this excellent piece of marketing ploy, you can shop for the state program that is most to your liking, and finances. Compare the programs in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Hampshire, then pick which one you want to obtain.
Just remember, that when you call yourself a Licensed Electrolysis Professional, you will have to avoid making statements that amount to implying that you are a NEW YORK STATE Licensed practitioner, as New York has no such thing.
Understand that I have nothing against anyone’s exam. One must agree, however, that if the exam is about Electrolysis information, the essentials of the test must, by definition be the same. Any diversions, would have to be on subjects that are tertiary, or of local creation, like the states that have laws about the use of alcohol, or mandates that you take massage course work as a part of your ELECTROLYSIS License Requirement.
Oh James…you are slightly wicked!!!
Raspysunny, I understand your question better now. NY is not licensed, so James did give all the low-down on the facts about pieces of paper.
What school are you going to attend? How many hours? Did you know that there is a scholarship out there for full tuition? Plus some states associations are starting to offer scholarships to help pay for schools. Here are two that are available right now: http://electrology.com/electrologist/scholarships.html
Why Barbara Darling, just call me Elphaba. 
I know the humanoid can’t resist spending another day writing thousands of words about my words. At least the humanoid can not be slandering others, if I am enchanting all the vitriolic attention. 
This seems like a good place to insert one of the versions of the article I wrote for the California association’s newsletter. This is not the final version that was printed, (can’t find that now) but it is true to the spirit of the article, as it is one of the next to last revisions.
Do We Really Need A License?
The future of the Electrolysis Industry is at a fork in the road. On one path, we have the further professionalization of the field, and on the other we have a turn back to the learn & earn model.
When I was entering this industry, all the talk was about how the various associations were consolidating, and the expectation was that the profession would soon have a powerful tool for the betterment of the industry, and the sharing of advertising costs, and maybe a collective referral service with 24 hour hotlines was on the horizon. Time has shown that to be a promise in the same category as those flying cars that ran on solar power and drops of water we all were supposed to be driving in the year 2000.
The problem the industry has always had is that we have never reached the point where everyone who is currently seeing a practitioner could book an appointment for the same month, without us all running out of available treatment time, and we sure won’t reach the point where every new prospective client can book an appointment in the same week while we keep our appointments with our current clients if we continue to reduce access to treatment via licensing schemes, and contrived extortion of practitioners via licensing board inspections with punitive actions stemming from petty peccadilloes like unlocked cleaning chemical storage cabinets.
The tipping point has been reached; We are losing manufacturers, and suppliers, due to the steady decline in active practitioners. As the demand for the products of our profession is waning due to the reduction in the number of people participating in the profession, and that is reducing as each new state licensing program takes effect, our visibility in the crowd of hair removal options decreases as well. If we can’t get access to electrolysis education, and we can’t get supplies, we are out of business, unless we can learn how to make our own tools. (Hmmm, I wonder what the inspection program will be like when we all have to make our own disposable probes and forceps and convert CB radios into electrolysis machines)
On the other hand, if there really be a brotherhood of man, and even a sisterhood of electrolysis practitioners, we could turn back the reduction of our industry by collectively working for the greater good. If we worked together to make associations that provided useful services, at reasonable prices, we could benefit from the spreading of duplicate costs over the industry as a whole, while pooling the collective wisdom of both the learned masters of the craft, and the new ideas of the flaming youth. We really should have already had some cute chick joining the talking heads on the morning shows, and making the rounds of the talk shows as well.
With the sunsetting of the current licensing programs, and the abandonment of the current drives for new licensing programs, we could save our industry from ceding the business to the Doctors and the LASER techs. (You want to see how licensing changed the medical profession, read Murder By Injection by Eustace Mullins) What we want is lots of people having enough access to good work, that everyone knows someone who has an electrolysis success story, instead of everyone knowing someone who had a so-so LASER experience, and believing that electrolysis can’t possibly do better than the so called latest cutting edge technology.
If you find my stance on licensing to be off key, consider your driver’s license. Is it a safety thing, or just a tool for extortion? Sure, it makes sense to expect people to master a certain skill level before they share the roads with the rest of mankind, but do you ever learn anything new about driving after that? So what do the yearly fees, inspections, and renewals tend to do other than drain your finances and give mechanics an opportunity to put the squeeze on you for repair work you may want to put off?
In closing, the best thing for the industry in my opinion is less formal regulation, more easily accessible education, concentrated co-operation and showing the public that we are, have been, and remain the Gold Standard of hair removal, and through the century, electrolysis is the undisputed, undefeated, world champion! All the lotions, creams, pills, X-ray Hair Removal, and yes, even the latest pretender to the throne, LASER, can’t put us on the canvas.
Wow James! What a lot to take in. This is about as in depth as it gets. Thank you so much for your insight on this profession.
To be honest, the whole certification thing has gotten me a little frustrated due to limited schools, and the inability to test locally. I live in Westchester, and I’m undecided on whether to take classes here in New York, or travel to New Jersey.
I look at Electrolysis as art, and I’m so excited about it that I’ve already purchased my first machine. The more that I think about it. There is no piece of paper that can define me. I am a Jewelry Artist and my diploma from GIA has not made me the artist that I am today. Especially because I went in a totally different direction from what I was taught.
What I learned from school is not what I practice now. I’ve developed my own techniques, and methods that have nothing to do with what I learned. But my diploma is pretty.
(Smoke and visuals of candles while Oriental music plays) You are that much closer to taking the pebble from my hand Grasshopper. (dream sequence ends with gong sound)
You now grasp what I have been trying to put forth. I have personally learned from several different practitioners who all have very diverse ways of doing things, and my work doesn’t resemble ANY of their work.
This is why I say, you must work hard to learn, but the lovely paper in the glass frame is more a bit of marketing for those who don’t research enough to know that paper on wall does not expert make.
If I only had a million dollars for every time I have been misdiagnosed by a guy with multiple expensive papers in glass on his walls. Well, I would have an electrolysis school in every state of the union, (Even North Carolina and Ohio!) and an outreach program in many countries in the world who have no schools at all.
The good news, is that the active school in New York State is near you, and if you choose to go to New Jersey for school, you may give that a try, but I hear that getting a New Jersey License (the only good reason to go there) is all but unobtainable these days. You might want to do a program in California, and there you can get a license for California AND Hawaii. In that case, you can have working vacations in paradise. Hey, if you are going to get a license, may as well get one that will work for you.
Yes James, you are magnificently diabolical. But, I digress. I live in a “licensed State” and pay my fees every year. James and I may disagree on a few tiny issues, but he’s dead-on about licensing and “the alphabet soup.” To me there are only two designations, after a person’s name, that means anything at all: M.D. and Ph.D. Everything else is twaddle.
I could opine forever about how State boards are out of touch with the profession (they never actually know what we do, just for starters), but let me simply support James. The big surprise for me was the Dutch system. Since they are a socialist country, one would assume that the government controls the beauty industry — it does not!
The Dutch system is the model we should follow and, if you like, I can detail it in a later post. Right now I’m going to take a break, I hit my finger with a hammer (I’m building a trellis) so it’s “ice time.” (Aren’t you all lucky?)
The latest news in California is that they want us to have “continuing education” to maintain our license. So, it’s off to hear a chiropractor tell us how to position ourselves — or, maybe another lecture on sterilization? Just what we need in this economy: travel expenses, expensive hotels, pay to hear some silliness and keep records of our “required learning.” And that is what licensing gives you — a big headache.
To me there are only two designations, after a person’s name, that means anything at all: C.E & I.E (competent electrologist and incompetent electrologist). Everything else is twaddle.
The only soup of letters that I like really is the one that is cooked to slow fire, i.e, the name of the initials of a satisfied client, followed by many more satisfied client. These are the initials that I want to have after my name. And these are the medals that must shine in the chest of all the electrologists of the world.
I agree with you and with James (But naturally, this is not a novelty).
In 1996, I paid 700 Euros to be able to do an examination in Seville (Spain)(an equivalent to the American CPE). It is hung adorning my wall, but it does not mean anything. That examination was not containing practical test. An examination of electrology without needles or machine?. Madonna mía! (Excuse that I use your exclamation, Michael)
Josefa(no C.P.E) maybe someday?. Hopefully!
I will say, however, that the CPE exam is the “real deal.” The AEA has done a terrific job making this exam THE ONLY real and genuine certification test — probably in the world! Everything was done correctly and the test, actually, is something to be very proud of. (There are, indeed, other certification tests; but not like this one!) The CPE does mean something — it does not, of course, guarantee that you are a great operator. It does show, however, a certain desire to achieve the designation and it is an achievement. The CPE should be respected — and I do respect it. (Somebody from AEA should explain all that went into this landmark exam and post it here in Hairtell.)
I like that idea!
At the same time, we can not let people get the idea that the CPE (or any other designation) means that someone is automatically better than someone else. Even our informal Electrolysis SuperFriends here on HairTell, only states that someone here has good feedback from someone known to the trusted persons on this web board, and the results of their work is known to that person to be good, in the experience of that person alone. Other people’s results in other treatment circumstances may vary.
Sometimes on HairTell, we have had people try to knock some practitioners, because they either did not have a current CPE, or because that person never had a CPE. In the former case, it is one where we have to ask, “Do you think the person’s brain seeped out their ears just because the CPE was not renewed?” and in the latter case, we even had to tell one critic, “Most people are not in the habit of taking tests that they helped design, and even if they did, it would not say much for the test that the person who helped write it was able to pass it.”
In the end, the results of the client’s skin is the only thing that can judge one’s capabilities. All else, is simply a starting point.
The majority of the country does not test practical skill in electrolysis before credentialling or licensing.
As long as there is no practical exam, the letters following a name, are not such a big deal, especially since most of the continuing education is not even directly related to improving or developing hair removal technique or skill.
You just might be horrified to find out how dumb and poorly skilled you can be and still be able to graduate from an electrology program.
The plus side of having the letters after your name is that these credentials will provide you with more opportunities and for this reason, I encourage people to join the organizations and take their tests and participate in continuing education. Because I know I need continuing education, as does everyone who wants to maintain their CPE credential, I read books and take classes that I might not have taken if it weren’t for the continuing education requirements. Fortunately, with AEA approval, you can take classes that are outside of the lectures provided by the AEA.
Or how you can steadfastly AVOID learning anything new that might actually make your actual hair removal treatments better, and yet still keep such a credential. All the while racking up Continuing Education Units (or is that Certified Educational Upgrades?) for sitting in a room while knitting as someone talks about insurance policies, infection control standards, or techniques for self massage. (you may laugh, but I have been forced pay to sit through all of the above CEU classes, just to keep my credential “current”. Did those classes help me deliver better treatment to my clients? In my opinion, no, they did not. In fact, my clients were upset because I was out of town for a week while they got no treatments at all.)