Having hardly any skin reaction is NOT something to look for in an electrologist. It can mean that they’re wasting your time and money with treatments using such low energy that the hairs aren’t affected, which ufortunately I wasted a LOT of money to find out. Good treatments can leave your skin looking gross for a week or so, but they’re more likely to kill coarse hairs. And with the non-effective treatments I’ve had, I didn’t often feel hairs being plucked. So I’m looking for signs of good treatment that are more foolproof, and I’m especially interested in hearing about Bec’s electrologist who can clear a whole face of 1 month’s growth in 10 minutes.
candela -
if the treatments are “such low energy that the hairs aren’t affected” the hair won’t slide out without any resistance.
good treatments should NOT leave your skin looking gross and i don’t think it’s right that you are making that sound ‘okay’.
I am in agreement with stoppit&tidyup:
At the moment I am seeing two electrologists (they know this). The first one leaves my face swollen and hyperpigmented, treatments are painful, hairs do not slide out easily and are usually back by the next week (she says these are new hairs). The second one is quick, leaves me with minimal signs of treatment (~very little swelling), hairs slide out with ease and the area stays clear for awhile.
From this I’ve learned that electrolysis does not have to leave you sore and looking beaten up to be effective.
There are many electrologists who tell you BS like, “We don’t kill the hairs, we make them finer gradually over time.” With an electrologist who used high enough settings to affect the hairs, I saw a steady decrease in the amount of coarse hairs I got per week. After switching to the other type of electrologist, I experienced a huge increase of coarse hairs, and as a result up to about the 10th month of treatment I still had so many coarse hairs that I was embarrassed to go out on the days of my treatments and had no noticeable progress. With the two bad electrologists I felt hardly any plucking, and had so little skin reaction that you could barely tell anything was done when I left the appointment. With the one who knew what she was doing, I had lots of bumps and redness.
I don’t think you have experienced what I’m talking about stoppit, and that’s lucky for you, as you would have wasted lots of money for nothing as I did. But other readers of this forum should be advised that not feeling plucking does not mean that the electrologist is effectively treating the hairs. You need to look at whether you’re getting steadily reduced regrowth. Many electrologists draw it out needlessly to make more money for themselves.
And you can do this without the kind of reaction that will leave your skin “looking gross for a week”.
I’ve made this point many times but the best thing to do when trialling an electrologist is to first pick a small area which can be easily monitored and just have that treated - small appointments every week or so. This will allow one to see that the reaction is low and consistent and over the weeks, the hair should start reducing and coming through much more slowly.
It’s true, I didn’t experience what you are talking about because I started on a small area, with just 15mins appointments for quite some time until I was confident in the work my electrologist was performing.
Candela, it’s really hard for you to judge your experience with both electrologists in the way you’re outlining. You may have seen coarse hair with the second electrologist because you switched when the new phase of growth was coming in. Since hair grows in phases, these things need to be considered.
Generally, very coarse hair may need to be zapped 2-3 times and won’t be killed on the first try. It just depends.
Maybe you were lucky enough to do this, but not everyone has so little noticeable hair that they can do 15 minute appointments for quite some time. I agree that a 15 minute appointment is a good idea for a first trial treatment. I also did weekly one hour appointments after being advised by an electrologist here that that was the only way to get the results I wanted. Both the 1st and 3rd electrologists I went to are recommended by the electrologists on this board, by the way.
If the amount of hair you start out with doesn’t bother you much, doing 15 minute treatments until you’re sure the electrologist does good work is a good idea, but unfortunately not every woman is going to be willing to shave their face for an extra 2-3 months. For my very first appointment, I had only scheduled a free test patch, but the electrologist took one look at the horrible growth and did a 45 minute full clearance of the coarse hairs without even asking. I was not at all upset with her, of course.
LAgirl: With the first electrologist, I had low weekly regrowth even though for the first two months I only went in every 3 weeks. Sometimes I would get a coarse hair grow back but it would be white.
With the second, I kept getting more and more regrowth even though I always went in every week, and she even told me that they were hairs she had treated before when I asked her if she was sure it wasn’t new growth. I stayed with her 2 months. With the last electrologist, another client posted on Yelp that she had gone to her for 9 months without results, then switched electrologists and was seeing results in a matter of months. 7-8 months into it with her I still had a higher amount of coarse hairs every week than with my first electrologist. Both of these bad electrologists finally started increasing the energy on their own so that I left with redness and bumpy skin that lasted for days.
People here say that with a good electrologist you should see results in 2-3 months. Now you are saying that I saw a horrible increase in coarse hairs because it was a new growth phase (which the electrologist herself denied). Which is it? You can’t have it both ways.
With the first electrologist, I saw less growth over time because she really killed the hairs by using high treatment energy for a long time on each coarse hair. You should see diminishing hair over time because the hairs that are killed don’t come back. If you see increased hair over time, that is because the electrologist is doing a bad job and the old hairs are coming back with the new growth.
I would like to say, just for the record, that not feeling a plucking sensation can’t ALWAYS guarantee a proper treatment for everyone, and here’s why:
After epilating some areas for so long, I literally can’t feel plucking in those areas anymore. If I took tweezers to my arm, I would never feel a thing. The hairs “slide right out”. So I have to visually WATCH for resistance because I can’t feel it either way.
Also, on areas that are sensitive to electrolysis, the area goes sort of numb after a while so I can’t feel plucking during long sessions in those areas either.
And if someone uses numbing cream, then they can’t feel plucking there either.
It’s not like this for all or even most people, but there ARE feasible reasons why someone who feels no plucking might still have had a bad treatment. I just thought it was possibly common enough to be worth mentioning.
EDIT: Bono’s book also mentions that insertions which are too shallow can cause easy releases (since hairs are anchored in the middle of their shaft, not the base, oddly), but the energy can miss the bottom of the hair (papilla) entirely with this error. He mentions it often happens to new electrologists who just go for the “easy release” instead of inserting deeper to the blood supply. They have a higher regrowth rate.
Candela - I’m not lucky, I have a hair all over my face and neck and still am far from hair free. I just chose to start with my sideburns only so I could make sure I was getting good treatment. I did this area (and the coarse chin hairs) only from April - December the first year. Only when I came back from holiday and about 8 weeks with no electrolysis, did I start to add areas because during that time I saw that what was gone mostly stayed away.
I’m pretty offended that you call me lucky that because I chose to be cautious my problem can’t be that bad or a good electrologist just fell in to my lap.
MPK - That’s fair enough but would you then say that having a strong skin reaction that leaves marks etc for some period of time is the only way to tell if it’s working then?
No, I would not say that.
But I would say that depends on the skin though. If you have skin that heals poorly in general (like me), then even the most delicate procedure from well-known professionals/instructors will leave marks for at least a few weeks. I get a bruise if someone taps me too hard, and if I scratch an itch it will leave nail marks for days sometimes, so I have very reactive skin. So for people like that, I would say it is reasonable to expect more of a reaction than normal people would get.
So I conclude it depends on the skin and area treated and it is not generalizable to an entire demographic of clients either way.
Hiya, again sorry for the late reply. Well for me I went through a few different electrolysists before settling on the one I have now. Some made my skin come out in lumps and bumps and I had red marks for weeks afterwards. I decided that if I was going to get electrolysis every 2 weeks for a year or more then I would look a right mess with a big red swollen chin and my neck looked like I had a horrible rash, so I decided to move on from that one. Im glad I did as I was travelling to nottingham for treatments which is hours away from me.
My second electrolysist did not wear gloves which was very worrying and she once said to me " you can cover up scars and marks with make up but you cant cover up the hair"… so i left her!
My 3rd electro was alright but I didnt really think she was doing anything as I didnt notice a difference in the regrowth when I switched to her and also she had a really old machine.
My 4th electro which I am extremelly happy with has made a huge difference, and yes she can clear a months worth of hair in 10 minutes but thats only because I have so little growing back through now. I know its hard and you seem to be struggling abit with this but it will get better in the end, just persevere. There was a time when all I did was cry about this, stoppit and pokka Im sure will remember the desperation at trying to locate a good electrolysist in England, I often wrote on here and they always responded with advice.
I realised my current electro was good due to a number of reasons. Firstly I can feel the zap, just a slight pain which I think is a good sign, secondly I dont feel the hair being plucked at all, it slides out.
Thirdly my skin goes really red initially (which to me indicates enough has been done to kill the hair) which is fine as I have very sensitive, reactive skin. However by the time I drive home (30 minutes) the redness has calmed down, by about an hour to an hour and a half I look completely normal again, this I take as a good sign.
The final reason I think she is good is that the hair is getting better and better.
You will be in this position soon, just keep going and listen to the good advice of those on this forum.
I wish you all the best, I know what a horrible hard ride this is.
Bec xx
Thanks for answering my questions Bec. Unfortunately everywhere I go I find electrologists who try to lie to you to make more money (hello! people get educated on this forum and see your behavior for what it is) and they all leave noticeable hairs on my face so that I have to keep coming back frequently. Does your electrologist leave any noticeable hairs that bother you after a treatment? And stopping treatments before the hour’s up, and taking phone calls during treatments, and on and on. I just hate electrologists for their bullshit and hate myself for having this problem that forces me to be dependent on them.
Not all electrologists behave this way and I sympathize deeply with you on issues of missing hairs, taking phone calls and not giving you 60 minutes if that is what you are paying for.
I am always grateful to consumers that report such things. There are electrologists that read hairtell and if they care about what clients want, then hopefully your post will enlighten them to do better.
Yes, Candela, Dee is right. All electrologist’s not like you describe. Many of them are put in the client’s skin and follow this philosophy: Do unto others what you not want to do to you.
Many times I had the impression of not doing enough during the session. So I try to compensate the customer, giving over a few minutes. You’d be amazed to know that are my clients who remind me that the time is over and that is the turn of the next person. This is why I always go behind the scheduled time. I’ll never get work with a British punctuality. What can we do! 
I think it’s pretty safe to say that the electrologists here are NOT the ones that fall into the category of neglectful, rude, disrespectful, or otherwise generally bad electrologists. Just the fact that they spend their spare time on an educational hair-removal forum proves that they are able to empathize with the hairy folks and have a sincere interest in helping the community.
Thank you for my share, MagicalPrincess. 
Yes, this forum helps us learn how electrologists should be. But even as educated consumers, in some areas you can’t find electrologists who work with a high level of professionalism.
It’s hard for me to understand the games. If you give your clients the best treatments it will only help your business. Doing otherwise just ruins your reputation, and though people may have no choice but to keep going to you, they’re not going to give you referrals in the future. Of course, there’s an endless supply of desperate people needing to remove socially unacceptable hair.