I am only 18 years old and I dont plan on having electrolysis or laser until after college, but I was wondering which works better?
laser is good for larger areas and works best on light skin and dark hair combination. elecrolysis takes a long time, so small areas are better and it can be done on any skin/hair type.
It’s not that electrolysis takes a long time, its that it must cover three phases of hair growth. There are some disputes on exactly how long the three phases are but it is estimated to be at anywhere between 6-12 months, with most agreeing on 9 months. Laser therefore would take the same amount of time because it must cover all three growth phases to make sure each hair that exists in and on your body in the desired area has had the chance to be treated.
Laser may not guarantee each follicle to be destroyed within that time frame and for electrolysis this will require repeated visits within that time frame. Laser will require less sessions within the time frame but even the “practitioner” or physician cannot guarantee that the follicle will be destroyed. Electrolysis when done by a competent electrologist, on the other hand, despite the frequent visits, will guarantee that each follicle that was treated will never be able to grow another hair again for as long as you both shall live.
The price of the two almost equals out the same since electrolysis charges by hour, and laser charges hundreds per area.
Some have found a combination of both to be effective, some have found laser alone to be enough, and for 130 years people have found electrolysis to be effective.
If you are treating a large area a combination might be desireable. Hopefully this helps you to make the right decision for you.
If you have dark hair and want hair removed from a large area, I say start with laser and finish with electrolysis. Get all the hair you can with laser and finish the remaining hairs with electrolysis.
And don’t wait too long to get laser treatments. Once a hair turns white or grey, it cannot be treated effectively with a laser. If you do it right after college you will probably be OK. But if you get premature greying, you will not be able to treat those hairs with laser.
RJC2001
I do not go on the forum often because it seems we have to repeat and repeat good advice. Laser is not permanent hair removal in fact in our office we are seeing over and over again young and old patients that have had extensive laser treatment and are worse now than when they started.
In fact some of these patents have given their experiecnces on this forum. New patients should read HairTell advice befor treatment and click to ElectrolysisInformation.com before treatment.
All this information will help you find a competent electrologist near you. If you have further questions just Email me direct: Finogior@aol.com Good Luck, FG
This website is run by electrologists. It is not really a good idea to take what a competitor is saying as a fact. Doing research means examining unbiased studies and websites.
In addition, there are dozens of laser devices on the market and even if a person uses the best one for his skin and hair type, results vary from person to person. I don’t think you’re judging fairly by lumping all your supposed clients who had ineffective laser treatments in one bunch. You would have to look into their skin and hair type, if the correct laser was used, if that laser is even effective compared to others (based on others’ results who actually report good results), whether they had it done by some tech with high school education or a doctor, etc. You seem to have the point of view of an electrologist, which you are, so of course it won’t be smart for you to praise lasers. It could put you out of work.
Everyone who’s looking at these forums for information — please consider WHO the advice is coming from before you make your conclusions and weigh out the information.
I feel like I’m living in that Bill Murray movie,“Ground Hog Day”. I have read 4 or five posts here where you follow Fino around, lagirl, repeating the same first sentence over and over.
Hey now, Fino does know what he’s talking about and we are all delighted when he pops in on hairtell every couple months. He’s very,very good at what he does, kind of like the grandfather of all electrologists and quite the author,too. Those of us that have been hanging out on hairtell for a couple years understand what’s going on here. Consumers already know how to read about their available options and then decide what they will do, so no need to be a broken record. 'kay?
Thank you for the patronizing authoritative evaluation of my grandfatherhood. Where were you when I was in Federal Court fighting against the Electronic Tweezer, in the Public Interest, at my expense?
We all have one goal: Making sure the public does not get ripped off. I come on every so often at the request of the hundres of emails I get from around the world. The general public only wants help not our sarcastic evaluations of each other on a public forum, tasteless and unprofessional.
In the past if someone makes what I call an error in electrology technique I send them a private email. That is ethics and the webmaster can attest to that, Andrea.
I wish you well, sincerely - Fino
check out the chain on this forum called “Advertising on the Forum?”. It seems that I’m not the first one to have concerns about Fino’s postings and directing consumers to his commercial website for “unbiased” info. And, I do think electrolysis is great, but telling someone to just go with that option and advertising their website with partial info is a bit biased.
Hey Mr. Gior,
My answer was in response to lagirl and I was C-O-M-P-L-I-M-E-N-T-I-N-G Y-O-U, sir. Your outburst was not necessary.
It’s not commercial! We refer patients to colleagues all over the world. If you read the whole thing carefully it will help inquiring patients find a good practitioner. In fact I am presently retired due to a heart attack. So I receive absolutely no financial rewards. Commercial??
If we cannot locate a practitioner we refer them to Patsy Kirby from AEA. Our only reward is reading posts and emails of thank you.
Thank you and I stand corrected !
Accepted.
Regards,
Dee
lagirl, this site is not run by electrologists. It’s run by me, and I am not a practitioner of hair removal. I am a consumer activist and writer. We have several practitioners who post on the forum, both electrologists and laser operators, and consumers who have had treatment with pretty much every kind of hair removal device sold.
Of our nearly 8,000 members, I have only had to ban three people who were spamming the board for the own services or devices. While some practitioners have very strong opinions about various methods, I want them to feel free to post whatever opinions they have, so that consumers can weigh the pros and cons of each method and make a more informed decision.
There are some people on the forum who have views I do not share, but it doesn’t do much good to dismiss them out of hand or censor their thoughts. On something this complex, there are bound to be differences of opinion. There are also bound to be moments of disagreement. I ask that everyone here remain respectful when disagreeing with someone else. That’s why this forum is the most popular place to discuss hair removal on the internet.
I ask everyone to avoid posting while angry. If someone says something that upsets you or differs from your experiences or opinions, please answer respectfully. That’s where most boards go of the rails. I do very little moderation, but if things start to get ugly or personal, I will remove offending posts and ban users who can’t keep their cool, even when provoked.
Why? Because this is run by me and me only, and I do this as a service to help others who have hair removal issues like I did. When I got on the internet 10 years ago last month, there was no reliable information on hair removal, so I took it on myself to start sharing my consumer experiences. That evolved into this site. Over time, I have had the honor of corresponding with most of the big names in the field, and I have learned more than I ever possibly imagined there was to know about hair removal.
The reason this board is different is that I ask people to post first-hand experience and published clinical data. This keeps the quality and reliability of information higher. I also request that everyone be respectful, so let’s get this thread and others with squabbling back under control.
So, everyone play nice! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
Your work is greatly appreciated Andrea. I myself learned a lot from this and other boards like yours. And yes, I understand that it is completely up to you whether you want to censor any opinions or advertisements. Sorry if this caused some sort of trouble, it wasn’t meant to be that way. I guess it just offends me a bit when very strong negative opinions are posted like this since I remember a time when I didn’t know much about lasers and would read these posts to find out information. Just afraid that some consumers looking for the right hair removal product will take these as facts.
Thanks.
One of the reasons I separate hairfacts and hairtell is because of the reson you cite: strong opinions and first-hand experiences are no substitute for scientific data. Unfortunately, there’s not nearly enough of that out there, so sharing opinions are the next best thing. Most consumers know that a practitioner of one method is probably going to talk up their method and talk down others, but I find that if we have people from all side of an issue sharing their opinions, we start to see patterns that can help all of us decide what is the best route in our unique case.
Hi:
I had laser done on my face. I have dark hair and lights skin, but also some white hairs.
The laser did not completely eliminate the dark hairs. It did help reduce the number however.
I am now finishing with electrolysis. I still had a lot to be done. I do think the laser saved me some hours of electrolysis in the long run. The actual number of hours it has saved me, I can only guess at. But, I was not at all happy with the results on laser alone.
Alicia
At the risk of repeating myself, Aliciadarling’s experience is typical of what I see in my practice. People go to LASER thinking that it is their hair removal answer, and it doesn’t deliver what they thought they were buying. If a person knows what it is that it can deliver, and they choose that as an informed consumer, more power to them. Many people like myself believe that the unpredictability of the results and the cost of treatment, and possibility of negative results (necessitating more expensive repair treatments) make it an unacceptable risk. After all, if you have self esteem issues from simple excess hair, what would your self esteem be with pigmentation, scars, or blotches?
Pigmentation, scars, and blotches are only caused by inexperienced technicians who either set the power too high, perform it on skin tones that shouldn’t be subjected to laser, etc. If done right, the worst thing that can happen is that your hair doesn’t fall out or grows back. There are electrolysis technicians out there that can also cause scars due to inexperience. Main point: whichever you decide on, make sure the tech knows what they’re doing.
We agree on the overwhelming majority of things here, including what you said about electrolysis.
Thanks for contributing.