ingrown hairs/electrolysis

I went for electrolysis about 8 years ago and then quit after two years and not getting much results. So for the last 8 years I have been tweezing, and I hate it, it leaves red bumps and lots of ingrown hairs. I am thinking of going back to electrolysis, can they work on the areas where there are ingrown hairs also? I started shaving instead but it leaves red bumps and it grows back by the end of the day.

If you go to a electrologist shaving would probably be a better idea because they like to treat the hairs that are in the growing stage. By shaving you assuring they are in that stage. Tweezing will probably distort the follicle and make it more difficult to treat but Andrea could correct me if I’m wrong since I am not an expert. I had hairs treated from my chin although I had never removed them before. It took several times before I have the hair permanently destroyed and after I moved on to my second electro. I believe this was because they were not in the growing stage so shaving would probably be more effective. You may also try to treat a small section at a time. For instance the day of treatment leave a section unshaved so that the electrologist will be able to remove those hairs. When they do not return move on to others. It is very important to shop for an electrologist who has experience and is willing to answer questions. I’m on my third one now and the first one just plucked and didn’t have a clue, the machine was from the dark ages and she didn’t use disposable probes and used a kitchen timer she would forget to turn on and cut my time from 15 mins to 10 mins. When I asked why she didn’t work longer she said she didn’t see any hair and I did. Who knew!, The seond one worked on me an hour at a time, what happened the hairs justed appeared! I’m still learning. Electro 2 and 3 I using at the same time to determine who to go with.

Hi Shel–

Sorry to hear about your problems. Unfortunately, as skopie points out in that excellent response, there are a lot of unqualified electrologsist out there, so it’s really important to choose carefully. A good electrologist has been trained on how to coax out ingrowns and treat them.

I don’t know if you have tried Tend Skin, but many people with ingrowns find this is very useful.

[ November 27, 2002, 05:58 PM: Message edited by: Andrea ]

If you use Tend Skin, it would be most helpful if you apply the product with a Cotton Swab like Q-Tips. One simply wets the tip with the product, and you apply the product to the skin above the ingrown hair as if you were coloring in the skin with a marker. Don’t apply Tend Skin with a cotton ball. For one thing, if you handle a cotton ball with this product your skin will peel because of the acid content in this product. Also, if hairs that are not ingrown are exposed to this product, they become brittle, and tend to splinter, and break when your electrologist attempts to remove them.

I have to clear up a possible missunderstanding. In the last post I said using a cotton ball would make your skin peal. Of course, this is the point of Tend Skin. What I needed to say is that the skin on your fingers will peel if you handle cotton balls with this product. If you insist on using cotton balls with this product, please make sure that you wear rubber gloves, or finger cots.
You will also waste less product. On the Q-Tip, most of the product on the tip ends up applied to the skin, on the cotton ball, there is a certain amount of liquid that must soak into the cotton ball before any is available to wick off onto the skin.

Yes, Q-Tips are great for precision application like individual ingrown hairs, but it’s probably impractical for a larger area.