Lucky on the first try??!! (And possible log...)

[nahgem]

Horaay, I received treatment from James for my upper lip and he actually showed me how big my bulbs were. I knew it wasn’t plucking what I felt when he took the hairs out because my previous electrologist used to end up plucking a lot of my hair and the sensation was wildly different.

[hooray]

Thank you for the responses James and nahgem. That is reassuring! James, I have heard you say many times there is a difference between a pop and pluck, but I was afraid I wasn’t able to tell the difference, as I have been plucking for so long a pluck doesn’t hurt at all anymore – I’m really desensitized to it! I am however, now confident in my electrologists’ abilities, so thank you very much!

I returned to new electrologist yesterday and achieved complete clearance of all areas. This is the first time I’ve had my whole face clear at the same time, and it feels pretty good! I still have a few bumps from the treatment but I don’t think they’re too noticeable.

My next appointment will be with my old electrologist, as I now know she’s doing a good job, and she’s so much closer to me than the other, even though she’s slightly more expensive per unit of time (they both seem to work at about the same pace though).

I hope you guys don’t mind me keeping my log here…I just know that when I was researching electrolysis, the logs were what helped and interested me the most. Hopefully I can return the favour to others!

[James_W_Walker_VII]

We want you to keep up the updates.

Too many people start here when they have a problem, and fall blissfully silent when they have found their solution. They forget that it is at that time that they must pay it forward.

[mam91]

So James,i have a question for you.The electrologist i met uses apilus platinum machine and she uses picoflash modality.She said about 90 of my hair are J shaped.Also she treats other black people.Please with this modality,how long do you think,it would take for me to be done with hair removal.I havent waxed the areas i have treated just a few shaving and laser which has lightened the hair.I have left my hair( both induced and treated)grow back for 3months.

[ayshachaudhary]

I have to disagree with some of the opinions given here. I’m not trying to cause a controversy, my intention is to help people get the best treatment they can.

I will reiterate what I said before. In my 13 hours with Josefa and my sister’s 20 hours, neither of us felt anything like a ‘pop’ or even the slightest resistance (one can see her videos where hairs are slid out using the fingers to see how easily they are removed). Every hair extraction, no matter the type or location slipped out. We both had electrolysis before - myself with a number of practitioners - and this ‘pop’ feeling was common. It’s only when you have a ‘perfect’ treatment that you can recognise the previous shortfalls.

Now, we have plenty of evidence of Josefa’s effectiveness (as representative of every other electrologist who treats to kill every follicle). Every hair treated is killed. Proving all hair is present, 90% or more of the total hair is removed in 2 clearances.

I’m not sure if this level is possible to achieve by every electrologist (I’m sure there is a large component of innate skill) but the point is that we should strive to give the client the best treatment possible in regards to permanently killing hairs. They will be done in a shorter total treatment time (thanks to Mr. Bono for highlighting TTT) and there will be fewer follicles which need re-treating - again, something which should be better for the skin of the client providing the electrologist is not overtreating in the first place.

All the fancy equipment is useless if the goal of permanent hair removal is not achieved more readily than without it. Machines like the Apilus Platinum and usage of probes like the IBP allow for the realisation of highly effective work with minimal skin damage. Let’s keep learning until we get there.

For the clients, if the best you can find is an electrologist where you feel the occasional ‘pop’ don’t worry, you can still complete your work. But if you can keep searching, it will be worth your time and money in the long term to find the most effective electrologist you can.

[Bono]

Ditto … I do NOT “get” the pop vs. (I forgot the term). I’ve never seen a bulb so big that it “struggled” to get out of the follicle. Okay, maybe in my next 36 years of doing this?

[ayshachaudhary]

Phew… thanks Michael.

I tentatively made the above post as I don’t want to spread incorrect information. It is just based on my experience with electrolysis.

[smurf]

Once or twice, I’ve heard something liquid-y ‘popping’ during/straight after the follicle was treated, but I’ve never associated that word with the extraction of hair itself. I don’t know how to describe it (the image that comes to mind is of chemical reactions in chemistry labs and a bubbly of hot liquid popping’), but I, of course, don’t think that’s reflective of bad treatment!

James - I’m somewhat guilty of that. Equally, I find it frustrating that certain topics are kept hush-hush around here. Makes it difficult to give an honest appraisal of one’s own experience and to assist others in order for them to have realistic expectations.

[Caith721]

I would not call them ‘pops’ but I could definitely feel a bit of resistance when many of my deepest whiskers were first being removed. It was not plucking because there was no pain and the resistance was very shallow. The size of the bulbs was significantly larger than the hairs themselves, which was really surprising to me at the time.

[ayshachaudhary]

I think I’m going to keep saying it… resistance = incomplete treatment. The follicle will produce a hair again.

I’ve never felt an actual pluck either from my first electrologist. But evidently, there were lots of follicles not being fully treated - otherwise my upper lip would not have taken 18 months to complete.

[smurf]

^What she said. I always thought people were talking about the lye, if it was that which popped in my 2 instances. I think a FAQ is due.

[Deedra]

Pop verses pluck has been explained many, many times here on HairTell (ad nauseum, if you will). Some get it and some don’t. I will testify, with my hand over my heart, that I have experienced this and it is so cool. It’s kind of like those that say they have never been able to feel the bottom of the follicle, while some say they can feel the bottom of the follicle. Pop, pluck, slide, I like sliding hairs best, but sometimes you get some well-treated poppers and hopefully, never any pluckers.

[ayshachaudhary]

I would not call them ‘pops’ but I could definitely feel a bit of resistance when many of my deepest whiskers were first being removed. It was not plucking because there was no pain and the resistance was very shallow. The size of the bulbs was significantly larger than the hairs themselves, which was really surprising to me at the time.

Hi Caith,

I may be mistaken but I believe Michael has previously highlighted the fact that hairs are also anchored near the surface.

If so, maybe this was the cause of the shallow resistance?

From an older thread:

The electrologist needs to ensure that the area capable of regenerating hair has been properly treated, this area coincides with the anchorage of the hair follicle walls. For this reason, the hair should slide out without resistance.

[Deedra]

Some past explanations on “popping sensation” from master electrologist, James Walker, and a consumer that may be helpful to our students following HairTell:

Your practitioner is obviously using the best protocol to give you elimination of the hairs, without surface damage, so much so, that the successfully treated hairs are popping out without making a full path through the smaller shaft.

Having bulbs that are fatter than the shaft is common in the Bikini area, especially if one has waxed, tweezed, or used a product like Nair in the past. These hairs are also frequently distorted, and shaped like bananas, causing one to need to pull them through a curve to release them. All this contributes to this popping sensation.

This is a hard question because especially at the beginning of electrolysis, some hairs have a healthy, thick root bulb that is thicker than the pore. If the hair was properly treated, it is technically “sliding” out, but you do feel a popping sensation as that thick root pops out through the narrow pore. It feels similar to tweezing but there is a very subtle difference. With a hair that is tweezed, there is a lot more pulling on it, it gives greater resistance. I also think it hurts more. With the popping sensation, there isn’t as much resistance, and you don’t feel your whole skin being pulled up along with the hair.

I’m not sure if this helps!
Susie

…I imagine you can feel the difference between a pop and a pluck/tweeze with no treatment energy. What is your practitioner doing? If it is a tweeze, then perhaps that person subscribes to the notion that it is better to get those when they are growing. If, on the other hand, the more likely situation is that you are feeling just a popping sensation, then the area below the anchor is being treated without going above the anchor, and that is just fine.

Of course, one could increase the treatment energy, or go to double pulses and you can have a higher treatment sensation during all the work, just so those few hairs fall out without a pop.

This is why we say here that there is a difference between a pluck and a pop. You know what it feels like when you pluck a hair out from the root. A popping sensation is when a bulb, or root sheath is larger than the shaft of skin above it, and the electrolysis provider has not set the treatment settings high enough to blast a path for that larger system to fall out of. In this situation, one might feel a popping sensation not unlike a pimple pushing through a large core of splooge through a small opening, and the skin snaps back into place.

If that is what you felt, you are ok, but if you felt what you feel when you pluck out untreated hairs in that area, then the follicle was most likely under treated.

Yes, it’s like a popping sensation. The hair is no longer attached to the follicle under the skin, so you just feel the hair alone being pulled up, it gives a little resistance, then >pop!<.

When a hair is being tweezed, the root is still attached to the follicle and you can feel all the skin being pulled up with the hair. The resistance is greater…

Unless you felt the same sensation as when you pluck an untreated hair, on your own, this was most likely what we call “the popping sensation”. In short, the blend and thermolysis solidify the sheath system, and this gives you a solid mass to pull up and through the smaller hair shaft, above the anchor system. If all that is happening is the solid mass popping through the anchor point, and through the smaller shaft, then you are just fine. There is no need to widen the shaft just so the hair falls out, leaving you with more skin to heal.

Considering what you have said, there is no reason to apologize. I can only say that there is a difference between a pluck and a pop, but if you say that you feel plucking, as if the hairs are totally untreated, then I will believe you. If you were feeling the hairs popping out of the follicle the same way you feel a pimple eject a hard core from the skin when it is squeezed, that would just be a popping of the root sheath from a follicle that has left the upper portions of the skin undamaged by the treatment energy, so that you can have less healing time, and a better post treatment appearance.

I would hope that what you are experiencing is popping, and not full on plucking.

[Electrowoman]

potatos, carrots, and bananas, oh my!

[James_W_Walker_VII]

So James,i have a question for you.The electrologist i met uses apilus platinum machine and she uses picoflash modality.She said about 90 of my hair are J shaped.Also she treats other black people.Please with this modality,how long do you think,it would take for me to be done with hair removal.I havent waxed the areas i have treated just a few shaving and laser which has lightened the hair.I have left my hair( both induced and treated)grow back for 3months.

Even with J shaped hairs, banana shaped hairs and so on, you should still be able to get finished (with diminishing amounts of treatment sessions) in 18 months, or less, as long as you get to first clearance, and then go on to clear the area out each and every time after you get to first clearance. If you can’t clear it all out in one session, during any treatment window, know that as long as you get a full clearance every 6 weeks, you should be fine, even if it takes many appointments to cover the area during that treatment window of time.

[hooray]

Thanks to all for the advice, information, and suggestions!

Well, another week, another treatment.

I was back to my regular/local electrologist today, and I think she’s starting to hit her stride! Took about 20 minutes to clear, and I only felt resistance on 3 of the hairs this time – the rest slid out with no sensation whatsoever. So that gives me some confidence that things are going well. Plus, my skin handled it beautifully – 3 hours after treatment and it looked like nothing had been done.

I’m back again to see her in 2 weeks this time (she only works one day a week, and we weren’t able to mesh our schedules for next week). So I’d imagine I’ll have lots of work for her to do by then.

[ekade]

she only works one day a week

Just curios, what she is doing all week working only one day a week?

[hooray]

ekade, she actually works 1.5 days a week (not that it really makes much difference!) because she is semi-retired. She spends the rest of her week gardening and doing Tai Chi

[ekade]

Oh, I see.