first treatment today and need advice

So, I went for a 15 minute session today on the sides of my chin, which is the start of my problem area. I want to go horizontally down my face and up my cheeks. I have alot of facial hair.

I thought my electrolysist removed alot of hair in 15 minutes and can see the spots that are mostly cleared. There are still some stubble hairs though.

It hurt more than at my consultation. It felt like a sharp heat sensation. It felt like she had to tug on hairs to get them out, is that okay?
She used a machine where you have to step on something to get the current. I don’t know if she changed probes in between me and my sister’s treatments.
My sister used ice first and said that really helped ease pain, so I will definitely use it next time. I am only doing 15 minutes right now, so the ice shouldn’t wear off too fast. I also drank alot of water before I went.

After I was done she put aloe Vera on with cotton balls and left it there for 15 minutes while my sister had her session. That felt good and cold, then she put caladryl on and told me I could use that as needed.
She said witch hazel dries the skin.
On the way home the area I had done felt stingy, puffy and sore. I didn’t have any redness though.

She does use a magnifying glass mirror with a light. She doesn’t wear a mask, but this glass mirror is between us.

She doesn’t wear gloves, she likes to touch the area and feel the hair while she is doing it. She answered her cell phone for a personal call and talked on it while she was working on me. She only talked for a couple minutes and it didn’t seem to slow her down though, she told them she was working and had to go.

I am very upset about the gloves and her touching her cell while continuing to work on me.

She charges $24 for 15 minutes, is that the going rate?

I do like her and just hope it works!

She said I will see re growth, the hair may be a little finer, but since I have a worser case it will take awhile.

What should I be looking for to make sure it’s working? I don’t want to go for a year and find out it didn’t work.

If I didn’t get red, can I still soon and can I still be in the future?
My face now still feels a little sore with some cotton on it.
Thanks so much for the help!

tugging is not what you want to be feeling. At all.The hairs should slide out like they are lubricated and feel zero resistance.

Seana

It was hard to tell, I felt a sharp pinch, then heat, then sometimes a tug.

(I’m a customer, too, not an expert, FWIW.)

Honestly, it’s hard to tell without having seen/felt the treatment, but it sounds like there are a bunch of warning signs here. As Seana said, you should NOT be feeling tugging. Maybe the tiniest tug every once in awhile could be permitted, but certainly not on every hair and it shouldn’t feel like she’s plucking the hairs.

Also, I would not allow someone to work on me if they weren’t using gloves, particularly if they were touching objects like cell phones (which have loads of germs on them) during the session.

Honestly, I’d look for another electrolysis. At least get a consultation from someone else.

Well, there wasn’t tugging with every hair, just some tougher ones.

Yea, I just didn’t know what to do, it’s hard to say why don’t you wear gloves. I mean she’s the only electrlogist that is in my area, right price, hours and she cleared a decent amount of hair in 15 minutes. So far I have zero redness. I guess I could still get red or is it if you haven’t gotten red yet you won’t?

The only issue is the gloves. Even if she wore gloves she would answer the phone.
I don’t know what to do, I would like to go back.

I mean honestly, it’s your call. I’m just giving my opinion. I wouldn’t do it (or I would ask her to wear gloves and to change them after using the phone), but it’s possible it’ll be fine for you, and maybe that’s a risk you’re willing to take.

Well, what risk is there exactly?

Boooom!

My brain just exploded … he he he

A couple of things:

No tugging of hair BUT realistically, some hairs are bee-oches to release when you first start a case.

The first four to six months are the hardest for clients, but keep at it.

Your skin reaction doesn’t cause my bunny ears to go up. No problem there.

I personally frown on no gloves and touching the cell phone while working on a client. Gross. Tell her about your concerns and see if she would be willing to leave the phone alone and wash her hands well before touching you if she insists that she cant wear gloves. She can try finger cots on strategic fingers if she doesn’t like gloves.

$24 for 15 minutes is reasonable. I charge more than that!

If I did correctly understand, you said it is normal to feel some traction during the first sessions of the treatment ?
Could you clarify your concept ? because it could get confusions to the clients.

Moreover Josefa, who is teaching me electrolysis, said me that the client shouldn’t never ever feel any traction, no matter what. if the client feel some traction, it is the sign of undertreatment and thus, you could observe more regrowth that it should be.

I said realistically, it is harder for the that first go around, since the hair growth cycles are not synchronized, along with some other hurdles.

I agree with Josefa - no traction. You have to work a little harder to get a release on SOME hairs, but…

It is the call of the electrologist as to whether shooting a hair 17 times is too much for the skin.

Electrologists have different paths to get to victory and different thought processes.

I felt some tugging, it’s hard to tell. I feel pinches, sharpness sometimes and heat.

I would love if she just wore gloves or at least showed me she washed her hands. I just don’t know how to bring it up without sounding like a pest. She is really into feeling the hair.

So the worst that would happen is I would get some acne or redness? She holds my face taunt sometimes so her hand is like directly on my face/nose.

I just am upset because this is the only real issue right now.
Her prices, hours, location are great. She seems nice and informative. Office seems clean, applies aloe and caladryl right after treatment.

The pain was tolerable, but I will be using ice from now on though.

I didn’t have any redness, I just hope it works!

What should I be looking for exactly to make sure it’s working. I don’t want to go for a year and see its not working. How many treatments should a see certain spot take to see results? How fast should regrowth happen? It would be great to not see regrowth for a couple weeks, so I get a reprieve from dealing with some areas.

@DeeFahey : You are right. There are different ways of how to do it, differents way of thinking the treatment and… different kill rate%.

If an electrologist is shooting 17 times a hair, it is probably because :

  1. the insertion is totally wrong
  2. the current intensity is too weak (undertreatment)
  3. the time to treat the hair is insufficient

For the best case, the “treated” follicule will be irritated and the skin surrounded will suffer from irreversible damage. This only shows the practitionner have no idea of what he/she is doing, o (s)he needs to improve his/her technique.

Go back to the discussed thread : if a hair need a partial or total traction to get out of the follicule, it means we are not reaching to the objective and the hair will grow back again.

The result is contradictory. On the one hand you say your practicionner has removed a lot of hair (and the most thick), and on the other hand you have no skin reaction.

Moreover, for each hair you feel some traction, this hair will be grow again. Thus this is a lost of time and money

What do you mean if the skin isn’t red for a long period or have stabs then the treatment didn’t work?

Some of the hair was course to medium. Well, some of the hairs needed a tug to get out because it was my first treatment. They are stubborn.

Should this area be treated again this week or should I get a new area treated?

After removing course hair with electrolysis, it is normal to notice some redness, which will disappear few hours after the treatment. I just find curious your face stays without any skin reaction after your electrolysis session.

Well minimal redness. I do feel some tugging, I don’t know.

I will give it a few more treatments and see what happens, it’s been a week since and the hair hasn’t really grown back.

Today, I cleared an African American woman’s beard for the first time. Ninety-percent of her hairs were in the shape of 'C’s, 'S’s and 'U’s. The probe is straight. The hair structures are grossly contorted. What do you do? Do those hairs slide out with no traction. Mostly not.

How do you handle these hair structures? As I said before, the first clearances for these cases are very challenging. No textbook or school can prepare a student for following hard fast rules in the textbook. All those rules go out the window for some very challenging cases, so you have to do some special techniques if you use thermolysis.

Blend or galvanic would clearly be better for these structures, for the first clearance, but if you are an electrologist, who only uses thermolysis, you must live probe or angle the probe at almost 90 degree angles on the left side and the right side of the follicle. You can get the hair to slide, but not always. If it doesn’t slide after three shots, I take it. On the next go around, the hair will be straight in the follicle, if the client stays on a good schedule and comes in when the new hair is young and tender.

If we could see under the skin what these strange hair structures look like, we would have a great kill rate, but alas.

I don’t know what GH101’s hair structures look like. Are they straight hairs or alphabet hairs?

Yes, we like hairs to slide, but for my African American cases that come in, mangled up with bumps and hyperpigmentation, if they don’t want blend, then I have my strategy for using thermolysis down very well and they still get finished in 18 months or less.

The text books are not helpful for real world electrology for extremely challenging cases. You got to discover stuff on your own. I will find some pictures and post later.

1 Like

My hair is course to medium. It’s mostly stubble. She has been doing some brown tiny ones, I want her to work more on the courser ones, but she continues to just focus on these hairs that I don’t really care about. I will continue to discuss with her what I want cleared at my next appointment. Maybe she doesn’t want to use a high current until I am more used to it. She seems to want to go in sections before moving to other areas. I am also Caucasian, so my hair isn’t like an African American woman. How long did it take to clear her face?