Hello all. I just joined this site after researching for hours what I should have researched last year. I hope somebody here can give me their input regarding my electrolysis experience.
Last year I went to a esthetician for tattoo eye brow ing. It didn’t last long and I had decided to grow mine out again, and the esthetician, a older lady with decades of experience suggested I try electrolysis. So last year, around this time I began going once a week for this treatment. She would do my eyebrows. Upper lip. Chin and NeCK.
Well. A little while later I had started developing need dots that sort of resembled acne on my neck. It was a slow progression at first and about 6 months ago I had brought it up to her, asking her if the eruption on my neck had to do with the electrolysis neck treatment I suddenly started getting. She told me no way, it was not possible and the spots are hormonal acne. Ok… but I never had issues on my neck and acne like this.
Flash forward to a year and I decided to do a chemical peel in hopes of removing this “hormonal acne”, and boy when that was finished, I saw the true scope of what had happened to my neck. Red, unsightly spots all over. Horrified. I went to see the doctor today and I have folliculitis. When the hair hole got damaged, it became prone to bacteria and other things.
Well, It finally just hit me, this lady esthetician has NEVER used gloves ever, she would NEVER wash her hands before touching my face (after seeing a client and then bringing me into the room next), and she never washed her hands after. She also clearly never changed the needle and would use it from one client to another without sterilizing it , and the bed she would have us lay on had a towel she would use for the entire day, and never change between clients, and I often felt gross laying on it after seeing the previous clients little black hairs on it.
I have spent the last few hours reading the CDC guidelines and everything that has to do with hygiene and I am not exaggerating when I tell you the paragraph above. Often, she would also touch her phone and then my face, her hands would sometimes smell bad or like food, and I would often be at the mercy of her bare fingernails poking my eye.
I wanted to ask anybody here, is this ladies practices any bit normal? Have you heard of esthetician’s/Electrologists acting this way? Do you think my folliculitis (which I have been prescribed antibiotics for) are a result of her lack of hygienic practices, or maybe my neck is too sensitive to receive these treatments?
It saddens me because I spent the last year building a friendship with this lady despite my uncomfortableness regarding her hygiene. I have been grossed out multiple times by what I stated above but formed a friendship with her and never mentioned my concerns, as she would be somewhat passive aggressive, “oh no that is hormonal acne” and I couldn’t tell her a thing otherwise because ‘She Knows Best’
Well now my neck has a big folliculitis infection with red spots that have been around for months, possibly scarring? 