40 year old male, I have “the sweater”, dark thick hair on full body, Is Electrolysis going to do anything to this in under 5 years? I mainly want to be back/shoulders hair free. I’ve heard women talking about years to treat lips/face, how long will an entire back of thick thick hair take?
When I shave it off with clippers I can fill a small bag (quart size) with what comes off.
Am I just destined for a life of hairiness?
Thanks
Tom
Electrolysis can help for sure. How long it takes depends on how many hours per week you can go. If you get a full clearance asap and you keep treating new hairs every week then you should theoretically be done in a year like with any other area (provided your body does not grow new hair, but even if it does it will not be nearly as bad as what you started with).
If your hair is coarse and dense, you may benefit from a few laser sessions first. Laser does a great job of killing coarse hairs but is not appropriate for thin hairs (especially on the back and shoulders). It will probably make things cheaper for you and will give you your “first clearance” faster which is the biggest hurdle with electrolysis. After that, it’s really easy to maintain.
Best thing to do in this place is let us know what area you’re in/where you’re prepared to go to get treatment, because there are some fantastic electrologists out there who can help your dreams become reality 
- and then there are some who aren’t so fantastic 
Hi Tom.
As you describe your hair situation, I would say that it is really important to FOCUS on one area first. Since laser hair reduction (LHR)can possibly worsen a problem on a man’s hairy back, shoulders and upper arms, I would consider electrolysis if you are not a gambling man.
In order to get the hair off asap, you need two things:
A speedy electrologist who uses modes called PicoFlash thermolysis of MicroFlash thermolysis AND she or he must be aggressive and focused with their strategy and YOU must be aggressive and focused with your time on the table.
This will not turn around easily as first. For a man I did in the past who sounds close to what you are describing, it took SEVEN MONTHS just to get a full clearance for his whole back, shoulders and upper arms, with him putting 2-4 hours at a time on the table per week. He was basically finished in 15 months and would see me a couple times after that for hairs that were spread out over the whole area. Strategy was to clear an area and keep it maintained and then move forward to clear another area and keep two areas maintained and so on and so forth. Another client needed more time because he had more hair than the one I just described. So, the density of hair adds time to the plan.
Women that say it took them 3-5 years to do a small area, are either not on a good schedule because of their choosing or because the electrologist has not educated them properly OR because the electrologist is not doing something right on her or his part (skill, equipment, timing of appointments).
I do wish there was something else that was safe, permanent, private and not too costly for someone like you, Tom. This all seems so ancient, but it does work very well if certain behaviors on your part and your electrologists part are in top order.
The other way to go is to come to peace with what your body looks like and go forward with life.
I wish you luck.
Dee
Tom,
You have to keep this in mind that a women can not bear even a single light hair on her upperlips. They have to go even though a couple of light hair are remaining here and there. For instance I have a bad hair on neck, 2/3 light hair on the corner of my lips, one dark hair on my chin and I still go because I want them ALL off. I believe its ok to have some hair on men’ shoulder and back etc. So, you may finish earlier than a women who is getting her face done.
Dee,
I don’t think anyone can completely get rid of ALL the hair in 1 year. You can have it under control and may be happy with the reduction but for elimination you have to go whenever you see a hair even after 2 years. I don’t think its about the speed of electrologist. An electrologist can only take off the hair which are on your face that day. A hair which is going to appear after 2 months can’t be killed no matter how fast you work. I don’t think that it’s electrologist’s fault that with continuous treatment regrowth becomes slow and you may see a hair only once in 3 or 6 months. I find it unfair to blame electrologist for that.
If you are talking as an electrologist about a hairy back, then I can sum it up in one word…“duh!”. If I didn’t make it clear enough on the above post, well perhaps that is because I have repeated myself hundreds of times here about how we, as electrologists, can only treat the hairs we can see. That is why we, as electrologists, make a big deal about getting to first, full clearance and then keeping the area clear for any area we treat. It stands to reason that backs are harder to get a first full clearance on than chins.
Speed, modality used and proper settings with a proper probe size are very important to get people finished asap, which is defined by the amount of hair present and the willingness of the client to show up as advised. People want the hair off fast and it is possible to do this with the hair that you can see. The client bears responsibility to come lay on the table for longer appointments at shorter intervals in the beginning so the electrologist can achieve these goals. I am not talking about 15 minute or even 60 minute appointments to achieve this for a man’s back. I’m hearing frequently that most electrologists are not willing to work longer than one hour at a time, so, I guess this wouldn’t work for completing a man’s back asap. It is possible to get a man’s back completed in 18 months. The goal is to get the dark (or not so dark), long, coarse hairs and leave the blonde, fine hairs alone.
I don’t think we are on the same page with your “ALL hairs in year” statement if you are referring to a man’s back. For the back, I’m responding specifically to getting a first clearance on a particular client of mine, who had a very hairy back, in seven months of weekly appointments that were between 2-4 hours long. In addition, I respectfully disagree that it may take 3-5 years to finish a woman’s upper lip. Most of my cases are done in 9-18 months, with the severe tweezing cases taking the full course to 18 months. This all depends on the structure and amount of hair and if the client allows me to work on the middle upper lip for more than five minutes. Appointments are very short and spaced out much longer at this point and then, sadly, I have lost a new best friend. Anything that happens later on is new growth caused by hormonal environment? stress? medications? If you are responding as an electrologist, then may I ask what you may be doing and do your clients take more than 9-18 months to resolve their upper lip problem?
I am not electrologist. One amazing person is doing electrolysis on my face+neck since Oct 2008. My “amazing” electrologist has worked for more than hour on lip including under the nose part many times. Now its down to 10 minutes as I don’t have much hair there. I want to point out that she even takes the peach fuzz off. She works like a breeze and does not hurt. I know electrologist of her kind are rare.
Anyway, I didn’t say it takes 3-5 years. I just said that I want to go to my appointment even I don’t have any visible hair because I don’t want even the light almost invisible hair on my upperlips. When I tell my girlfriends that I am going for my appointment, they look at me and ask me why I am going as there are no hair on my face. Yesterday when I told my roommate that I am going for electrolysis she said, “O so you have to treat hair before they come?”. After my appointment my upper lip looks like freshly waxed and there is not even a shadow.
My point is that maybe other parts of body specially for males don’t require that much clearance. Having a peach fuzz may be fine for them and they can stop electrolysis before a woman would like to stop her face treatment.
Oh they definitely can! All of my men were easier to do than my peach fuzz women because the men were happy with the noticeable hairs gone, leaving behind the less noticeable, while my peach fuzz women freaked out about hair I could not see without the aid of my magnification loupes. I feel like a counselor of sorts when I see that a client is “finished”, but they keep wanting to come back for more and more. A woman’s peach fuzzy face should come under control by degree, but I doubt that any client with who has the idea that they want every hair gone will ever realize their goals and the electrologist should tell them so.
Give your electrologist a big hug . She deserves a lot of praise because this is difficult work - microsurgery if you will on thousands of hair follicles. She has educated you well about hair growth cycles I can tell. She is a credit to the profession! Sigh!
Dee
Thanks Dee. She does not even remember for how long she is doing it. She tells me that she put her head down and kept taking hair off while world kept changing around her. She complains how she has tried to train people and got disappointed because people don’t take it as seriously as they should. She has very strong opinion about people who do it part time. She says a decade of full time work will get you “started”. I feel bad for her because she still works on 13/14 people back to back in one day and have occupational arthritis because of working long hours for years. None of her customers wants to work with someone else. I am very sad that I am leaving Chicago for bay area. She says anyone can handle big juicy hair but real work is these light hair like I have now. I am mentally prepared to fly back for handling my peach fuzz. Lets see
You will have to be very committed, have the $$ and a highly skilled and fast electologist for you to finish treatment in 18 months. If one of those elements is missing, your goal will be off set by years. Realistically though, electrolysis on full back and shoulders will take you at least several years and you’d have to get a mortgage or something to pay for it. 
Post your photos of back area you want treated. Go make multiple appointments to laser clinics and see what they tell you. Don’t be discouraged right away to research the laser option because you might read here that laser induces back hair on men. I’m sure there are thousands of men that have treated back hair with laser and had successful reductions. Then you can finish it up with electrolysis.
I guess if you know you’re going to be there for long hours, and you have done at least 5 hours of work with your electrologist and know how good he/she is, you can ask about prepaying for sessions and if you can get a discount.
If I were to guesstimate hours needed to do a man’s back without the particulars of what the hair density is, I would say 80 to 150 hours would be needed spread out over 15 months to 24 months. That’s a wide window I know, but no two men are the same. Cost per hour depends on the electrologists overhead and skill. The newer forms of thermolysis are the best, in my opinion. Slower methods of electrolysis work, but so does well-performed PicoFlash or MicroFlash thermolysis without the use of a footswitch.
Read poster “bryce” diary here on hairtell before you decide on anything. I would love it if my clients could do laser reduction first and then come to me for electrolysis to finish the work. As I said, if you are a gambling man, then try laser reduction first and see how far it takes you. You may be very satisfied. Having seen some the root structures and how deep they can be or how colorless they can be sometimes, I understand why LHR can’t complete the mission.