General Questions About the Process

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#1

Hello all,

I recently had my first electrolysis session and I just have a few questions about the process and your opinions on how the electrologist is performing.

I have several course dark hairs that recently appeared on my chin in the matter of a few months. I did not have this severe of a problem several months ago, it suddenly seemed to occur at once. I have not been taking any medications to induce this. I am a female in my late 20s.

  1. I had about maybe 15 visible but short coarse hairs, yet the electrologist has given me 5xs as many pricks than the hairs I believed I had – what does this mean?

  2. She said I might need 6 months to complete everything…again, the increased amount of coarse hairs that appeared on my chin have only recently began to multiply in the past few months. I never had the problem as bad as it is now. How can she be certain I need such a length of time, especially when I only presented with a few coarse ones? (I do have some finer dark ones as well).

  3. If the hair is just growing in when I go to a visit, and she zaps the hair, shouldn’t that hair be gone permanently? For instance, if I only had 3 coarse hairs and she zapped them all in one session as they were first growing in, wouldn’t the treatment the be complete?

I hope my questions make sense. I look forward to a reply.

Thank you.

-Anxiousbee

#2

I will get back to you when I can to answer your questions.

#3

Thank you very much dhafey.

I also have multiple scabs after my first treatment. I actually made a post about this as well here: http://hairtell.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/122822/Leery_Over_Electrolysis.html#Post122822

I look forward to hearing from you and anyone else who may have some input and/or advice!

#4

It’s possible your electrologist saw more hairs than you did, or perhaps felt that the hairs needed more than one insertion to remove them properly.

Very frequently, I’ll see more hairs than my clients ever thought they had. I find that when people can see the hair, they dramatically underestimate how many there are and, in areas where they can’t see the hair (say, back of the thighs), they drastically overestimate how much hair is there.

  1. She said I might need 6 months to complete everything…again, the increased amount of coarse hairs that appeared on my chin have only recently began to multiply in the past few months. I never had the problem as bad as it is now. How can she be certain I need such a length of time, especially when I only presented with a few coarse ones? (I do have some finer dark ones as well).

It typically takes 6-8 months for all of your hairs in an area to end their dormancy and start growing again. The hair you have at any given time is virtually never all the hair you have in an area.

It’s also possible those finer ones will turn coarse over time, probably due to hormonal exposure. You don’t have to be taking medication for your testosterone to increase.

  1. If the hair is just growing in when I go to a visit, and she zaps the hair, shouldn’t that hair be gone permanently? For instance, if I only had 3 coarse hairs and she zapped them all in one session as they were first growing in, wouldn’t the treatment the be complete?

If she is thoroughly treating them, the ones you have in that visit should die in that visit. Nobody is ever 100% perfect 100% of the time, especially when treating a significant amount of hair, but if it’s truly 3 or 15, they should be pretty certain they are destroyed. However, again, you never have just those 3 or 15 or whatever unless you’re nearing the end of this process…

and, again, something is causing your hair to become coarse, so you have the potential for thousands of new hairs to become terminal depending on what is causing the issue (and there are a lot of things that can induce the growth - medicines, certain supplements, behaviors, pregnancy, stress, genetics, medical conditions, etc).

#5

Thank you for answering my questions.

I suppose then I should also remove the fine ones to prevent them from possibly becoming coarse in the future? I wish I knew what was wrong with me and why this was happening. I hope starting electrolysis now, (an hopefully without long term negative effects), can help me battle this problem before it has the potential yo get out of control.

#6

Typically, what I tell people, particularly women with facial hair, is to remove the coarse stuff first… if the remaining hair bothers you, worry about it afterward.

There’s no point in removing hair that doesn’t bother you, since there’s no guarantee that it will bother you. So, why waste the time and money?

I have a female client in her 70s that has had a full beard her entire life and had been shaving twice or more per day to hide it. In the beginning, I told her to worry about removing the coarse hair since that was what was bothering her, and then, if the fuzz bothered her, we can always do that later. Well, roughly a year in, we were at the point where we were spending 20 minutes every other week on the coarse hair and she had long-stopped shaving, but she never realized how much fuzz she had because she was always shaving it off. So, we now spend a few minutes on the coarse hair and the rest of our time on the fuzz. She’s at the point where she no longer worries about shaving, she just wants to feel a little more cleaned up. At some point, probably well before all the fuzz is gone, she’s going to realize she’s perfectly happy with where she’s at and that’s where we will stop.

I have dozens of other clients that, once I got the coarse hair out of the way, they were satisfied with their appearance. A handful might pop in once every year or so to get a few new strays taken care of. I could spent hundreds of hours clearing up their fuzz too, but why waste their money if it’s not worth it to them?

Then I have a few perfectionists that see the vellus hair - we’re not even talking dark colored hair, and are bothered by it and want it gone. This is hair that absolutely nobody would ever notice, but they’ve convinced themselves it’s a huge problem. I try to talk them out of it, but if they insist, it is their hair and I’ll take care of it.

Ultimately, there’s no right answer that we can hand you in the beginning… just let things play out and see what happens. Find your happiness and try not to let your anxiety get the best of you. Find a good electrologist (and try out other people until you find one you really like), then put your trust in her to do a good job.

#7

If I decide to continue with this process, I think I will do similar. I’m just a little concerned about the healing process. Thanks EmancipatedElect!