I’ve just called and made an appointment (my first) with a professional electrologist to have my beard ( I’m mtf tg)removed. I’ve been working on it myself at home for the past few months using a blend machine with positive but slow results. I’ve not been in for the initial consultation yet, but in our phone conversation she mentioned that she could do multi needle (12?) probe galvanic. Has anyone had experience with this?? I know that you couldn’t actually be hitting a folicle when using something like this. also, doesn’t $75 an hour not sound like an awfully high rate? I do intend to shop that around as I don’t really know anything about this electrologist except they were the most conveniently located to my house listed in the phone book. Kay
For a M2F Transition, multiple probe/needle galvanic would not be the way to go for beard removal, especially at $75 per hour (not that the rate is bad, but galvanic is so slow) You want either a thermolysis operator or blend operator so you can get a noticeable amount of hair removed for an amount of money you can put together in a month or two.
That may be why people fly in to see me and fly home. When they go home they are bare faced (if they can give me enough time to do that before they fly back)
Please put your location in your profile so people can help you find someone in your area.
Sorry James, I live in Nashville, Tn.
When I first started looking into getting rid of the beard I found this website, and from the information that I gleaned from here decided that blend method was what I needed to be seeking. Then I picked up a pretty good deal on a practically new blend machine and got to work. Now that I’m ready to look for a pro I guess I’ll need to bone up on the earlier research. The electrologist I talked to first mentioned thermolysis, saying that was the fastest. Would blend not have a better kill rate though, balancing out the cost in the end? is one easier to endure for multiple hour sessions?
I know you couldn’t give a real estimate without personally seeing me, but what would a ballpark figure be for 1 full clearance in time and money. My beard isn’t very course or full. I can and have worn a beard, but it takes a few weeks to get anywhere near full coverage. Also(guesstimate again) how many full clearances to get to where its just minimal maintenance. Thanks for your help, Kay
I wish I could answer all your questions as asked, but I can not. I don’t know who will be doing your work, and what their capable of doing on you, with the equipment they have at their disposal.
In thermolysis, I have been able to clear full strength razor busting male beards in 20 to 35 hours to first clearance, which can all be done in the same week if the client is available for such treatment. More normal and light beards can be cleared in as little as 5 hours, up to 15 hours.
Once you get first clearance, you may go right into easy maintenance starting with weekly full clearances lasting about 3 hours long, and then falling to 90 minutes, and then moving to every 2 weeks, and then every 3 weeks, and then once a month, and then once in 45 days, and so on.
Now go to blend, and you change from a treatment time per hair of less than one second of probe treatment energy to 7 seconds or more of probe treatment energy. Take that to multi-probe/needle galvanic and probe treatment energy time is 30 to 60 seconds at a minimum.
I have not had treatment with these ladies, but I would start my search with:
Jennifer J. Lytle, CPE 615-366-0070
and
Stephanie McKenzie, CPE 615-366-0070
and get as many sample treatments and consultations as I could, and report back here on my experiences so those who come later can learn from my experience.
[More normal and light beards can be cleared in as little as 5 hours, up to 15 hours.
Once you get first clearance, you may go right into easy maintenance starting with weekly full clearances lasting about 3 hours long, and then falling to 90 minutes, and then moving to every 2 weeks, and then every 3 weeks, and then once a month, and then once in 45 days, and so on.]
I believe I would fall into the normal to light range. It’s all of that follow up work that I’m wondering about. I can understand getting progressively shorter times, but is there ever an end to it?? From the parts I’ve cleared myself, it’s nearly all come back in, but Im sure it’s just hairs from a different growth cycle and not the same ones I’d cleared. Kay
James, a bit more advice if you would…I’ve now been to the initial consultation and one hour session. I won’t name names here, but where I went turned out to be a recently closed electrology school. I was worked on by a very nice girl who told me she had been doing electrology for a couple of years. She first said she would try thermolysis and then switch to multi probe(it turned out to be 20 seperate probes). Anytime I mentioned blend, she quickly shot it down and tried to steer me away from it. She also thought she could give me full clearance in about four hours. After doing thermolysis for a little while she said that was what we should stick with, as my hairs were very straight and were pulling out easily. After an hour she had cleared about 2-3sq.inches on each jaw and decided it would take her more like 8 hours for full clearance. By now, I’m starting to expect a lack of experience. By the time i got home, the areas that she had worked on were very red and puffy. I had to work the next day and shaved so the bared spots wouldn’t show, but I looked like a chipmonk! It took until the next day for the swelling to go down and now at day four I’ve still got some very noticable red spots(by spots, I mean the entire area that was cleared) and the hair in the cleared areas has grown in right along with the rest of my face. I believe what was going on was my white hairs have a thick shaft the entire length below the skin, unlike the black ones that just have a bulb on the end, and she was hitting the flash at least twice on these to fully insert the probe. I know this because I have to hit the pedal on my blend machine to get full insertion a lot of the time, but after the initial flash, the galvanic finishes the job and I don’t get any redness or swelling, granted, I’m not working one area but moving around. I keep the settings pretty high and usually set the time at 6 seconds. Bottom line is I’m further convinced that blend treatments is what I need to be seeking. Any recommendations? Thanks, Kay
I can’t understand someone saying you should do thermolysis, or galvanic, but not blend. Most people who believe in galvanic would tend to be kind to blend, while shooting down thermolysis.
You either require a different probe size, coupled with a different treatment technique, or have your work done in blend or galvanic. Of course, blend is faster than galvanic.
I wish I could help you find a good practitioner in your area, but the only names I even know in your area are Jennifer Lytle, and Stephanie McKenzie, and although they are both CPE’s, I have not had any work done by them, nor seen their results, so I can’t vouch for their treatment on a personal level.
You should also understand that until first clearance turns to maintenance, you can see hair in the treated area a day or two later, as that would be hair that was below the skin’s surface and became visible after treatment was completed. Having swelling and redness for one to five days is not unusual. You may even have more swelling with Blend and Galvanic than with thermolysis.
Try out as many people in your area and let us know about the good ones you find.
Thanks James. I’ve got another appointment with the same clinic for next week. I’ll give them another shot, as they are willing to work evenings and Saturdays. I was also told that they often work “tag team” on the long sessions. If I stay there it’s going to have to be with blend though. I’ll try and call the two ladies you suggested today and see what their hours and rates are. I’d say odds are pretty high that they got their schooling from the place I’m going to. I’ll let you know how it goes, Kay
James, turns out the names you suggested happen to be the place I’m going to. Jennifer runs it. I haven’t met Stephanie. The girl working on me is named Angela. After my second session, I feel a lot more comfortable with her. Between sessions, I decided to try out totally clearing a spot with blend at home. I’d always before moved around getting random hair so as not to do too much damage. It took me about 1 1/2 hour to clear a spot about silver dollar sized. I knew I was overworking it. I had oil literally boiling out of my skin, but I wanted to know if I would get the same reaction as I did from the thermolysis. I didn’t get the swelling, but did get a lot of scabing. The spots she had done with thermolysis had grown right back in, but the area I cleared with blend is still clear after 1 week. We talked about that at the next session and decided to go with blend and to keep it spread out over larger areas. She did this for about 1 1/2 hours until I got too dry. Except for some burning for several hours after the treatment and some scabing, I had no bad reaction. Kay
James, just wanted to give you a progress update. Hope you enjoyed your vacation. My electrologist should be able to go to Hawaii too by the time I’m through with treatments. I’ve had six sessions now averaging about 1hr.15min.each. One of the treatments was with Jennifer and the rest with Angela. I could tell Jennifer had a lot more experience, but wouldn’t hesitate to recommend either one of these ladies or their clinic, The Electrolysis Center, in Nashville, Tn.
To date, we’ve been working from the back of the jaw line forward. It’s funny that this thread was started with my inquery about multi probe galvanic, because we haven’t used that any. All work since the first session was done with blend except the last session the blend work was followed by a full face alexandrite laser treatment. They had purposefully been leaving what black hairs I have for this. I was told that one laser session should be sufficient enough that she could now keep up with the black hairs as they come back in. I’m starting to see some noticable thinning already and hope to get out of this at somewhere under a gazillion dollars.
The one thing that they’ve said they won’t do is try to get initial full clearance on a beard because it would be too hard on the skin. What technique do you use to achieve this? I’m sure you would use thermolysis, but do you do like 2-3 hours at a time over how ever many days it takes? Do you work the whole face or single spots at each session? I would love to have this done. I feel it would move my end goal of total clearance schedule ahead considerably. Thanks, Kay
You are correct. Full facial clearances that I do are usually done in MicroFlash Thermolysis. Depending on the client’s needs and desires, we either do the work 3 hours at a time, or straight through. I have had male clients do 10 hours of work in one day. Women never need that much time unless they are doing a full body type thing, or have black vellus hairs on light colored skin.
Obviously, out of towners just rip through it and get as many hours as they have time or need for.